INTERNATIONAL ANARCHIST MOVEMENT:

ANTI-FASCIST INITIATIVE IN RUSSIA:

The heartland of the ex-Soviet Union is one of the countries of the world where classical fascism (as opposed to what the "left" usually labels as "fascism") is gaining ground. Given the social crisis of a defeated empire that still has delusions of glory this is not unexpected. At the same time opposition is rising against this fascist threat, and anarchists are at the forefront of this opposition. Here, from the A-Infos website is an appeal for solidarity with a Russian anti-fascist initiative that will happen soon in the New Year.

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Russia, Manifesto of the January 19 Committee, Moscow:

On January 19, 2010, a year to the day from the murders of Stanislav Markelov and Anastasia Baburova, we, the organizers of an antifascist march, call on you to join our campaign against neo-Nazi terrorism.

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The word fascism has been utterly devalued today. It is hard to find a political movement that avoids branding its opponents as “fascists.” But there are also meaningful interpretations of this term. Many of them have a direct bearing on what is taking place in contemporary Russia.

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For some people, fascism is the extreme intolerance intrinsic to authoritarian societies. For others, it is an ideology of exploitation and coercion. For still others, it means the use by the authorities of covert paramilitary units for the suppression of democratic movements.

Finally, for some, fascism is a force that murders good people, people like the lawyer Stanislav Markelov and the journalist Nastya Baburova,the young antifascists Fyodor Filatov and Ivan Khutorskoi, the ethnologist Nikolai Girenko, the chess player Sergei Nikolaev from Yakutia, the programmer Bair Sambuev from Buryatia, and hundreds of others. People who define fascism in this way do not divide their enemies into Russians and non-Russians, grown-ups and children, priests and punk rock fans, young activists and defenseless janitors from Central Asia.

It is not a matter of definitions, however. All the murderers come from one and the same environment.

They can be defeated only through a combined effort, only by overcoming the barriers that separate political activists from each other and from people who do not trust politicians and are not involved in the political process. For this purpose we are organizing an antifascist initiative that will unite people of various political persuasions with all those who consider themselves apolitical but who are convinced that the rise of fascism in Russia demands a clear response from society.

The neo-Nazis have changed. They now not only attack marketplaces, they also blow them up – along with railroad tracks, concert halls, churches, cafes, and the entryways of the buildings where their political opponents live. The fascists now not only beat up people on the streets, they also murder them. Neo-Nazi terrorism has become a reality.

If this goes on much longer, Russia will turn into a country wracked by ethnic cleansing and inter-ethnic war. We appeal to everyone who would rather not wait to see this happen. Act now: take a public stance using whatever means you have at your disposal.

We also call on well-known and respected people – scholars, artists, writers, and intellectuals – to support our cause with their good names. We believe that the struggle against the neo-Nazi scourge in Russia must be raised to a new level. It has to become a mass campaign of solidarity that reaches beyond youth subcultures and activist groups. The understandable aversion people feel to politics should not prevent them from recognizing the threat posed by neo-Nazism.

We believe that we have three main tasks today. First, we need to deprive neo-Nazis and racists of the explicit and implicit support they receive from bureaucrats and establishment politicians. Second, we have to drive members of ultra-rightist organizations out of mainstream politics. Third, we must put an end to the practice of using radical right-wing gangs to intimidate and murder social and political activists.

We call on people in various cities and countries to take to the streets on January 19, 2010, and show their solidarity with our cause

.http://jan-19.livejournal.com/884.html

German version: http://jan-19.livejournal.com/581.html

Russian version: http://jan-19.livejournal.com/301.html & http://ru.indymedia.org/newswire/display/23144/index.php

INTERNATIONAL ANARCHIST MOVEMENT-SWEDEN:

REMEMBER BJORN SODERBERG:

The following reminder of the death of a good comrade at the hands of the fascists just came into Molly's email today from the Swedish Anarkisterna website/group. Looking at the photo, and reading the article Molly is impressed with the tremendous waste of life of this young comrade. Here in Canada the general appearance of comrade Soderberg is such that, especially here in Winnipeg where we are mostly squat, dark and Slavic looking (except for Molly who is a dead ringer for an Iranian Ayatollah), the guy would have had to hold raffles for the girls to meet him. No doubt his personality was as winning as his looks. So sad, and the fascists who killed him are more to blame for it. In Sweden the pride of place of syndicalism is held by the SAC, and comrade Soderberg was an ethical young worker with an internationalist perspective. Here's to the memory of this young hero. Also remember what the essence of fascism is, however it may try to throw the cloak of 'moderation' over itself.

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Ten years later: Remember Björn Söderberg!:

Show moral courage

On the 12th October it has been ten years since the Syndicalist Björn Söderberg was attacked in his home and killed by Nazis in a suburb of Stockholm. We solemnize his memory with a dignified manifestation on Monday the 12th. For those of you who are in Stockholm that day, we gather on Medborgarplatsen at 6 pm and march to La Mano on Katarinavägen at 7 pm. There the manifestation will end at 8.30 pm.

The context in which the murder took place, was that Björn acted openly and consequently against racism and Nazism at his workplace. For a while after the murder, protests kept coming in to Stockholms LS, the Stockholm chapter of the Syndicalist union. Tens of thousands gathered all over the country to express their disgust with the deed. Representatives of all the parties in the parliament participated in the manifestation on Medborgarplatsen.

Almost 70% of the Swedish population wanted Nazi organisations to be prohibited after the murder. But today, in our increasingly harsher class society, we witness a slowly growing support for a sneaking racism. The divisiveness of the solidarity between workers takes on such expressions.

At the same time the daily struggle against racism continues at schools and workplaces all around the country, a struggle seldom or never noticed by the media. Many people show their moral courage every day in an open stand against racism and fascism.

We will never back down - No Pasaran!/Stockholms LS, the Stockholm chapter of the Syndicalist union SAC

Nazi activity then and now

The summer of 1999 saw Nazi violence culminating in Sweden — in May two police officers were executed when stopping a car after a bank robbery performed by Nazis, and in June a car bomb severely injured a journalist living under constant death threats for writing exposing articles on Nazi organisations. That summer Björn worked as a stockroom worker when he learned that Robert Vesterlund, a leading Nazi, had gained a commission of trust in the union Handels at his workplace. Björn was determined to act despite of his own worries of becoming a target. He approached the staff management, the union and the Syndicalist weekly Arbetaren. As a result, Handels relieved Robert Vesterlund of his commission of trust and, later on, the company fired him. A month later, two armed Nazis rang on his door bell and after a heated argument shot him dead.

One of the Nazis who participated in the killing of Björn Söderberg was Hampus Hellekant, notorious in surveying leftist activists, journalists and others that he perceived as his opponents. Since his release from prison he has changed his name and, according to himself also his politics. But, as the Research Group reveals in this weeks’ issue of Arbetaren, he has never stopped his activities, he has never stopped his monitoring.

The results of which, as we’ve seen, can be severe.

Last December a Syndicalist couple and their two year old daughter were the victims of a Nazi arson in a suburb of Stockholm. The family escaped the flames by climbing down the balcony to the floor underneath. Some months earlier Hampus Hellekant had published pictures and addresses of the couple on a Nazi web page, displaying them as antifascists.
The challenge we face

We are experiencing an increasing level of Nazi violence very similar to the situation of the nineties, we wrote in Refuse to let history repeat itself. The social setting of today, with a financial crisis, increased marginalization and bigger divides between classes and a growing sense of insecurity among people is also very similar to then. However, some things differ. Today the Nazi movement is stronger than it was in 1999. And the kind of united anti-racist response we saw after the murder of Björn Söderberg was lacking after the attempted murder last year.

The same-same-but-different-card is habitually played every time anti-racists protest against marching Nazis and should, once and for all, be unveiled as the false play it certainly is. If one claims that the twenty or so murders committed by Nazis since the 80’s in Sweden alone, as well as the severe hate crimes, arsons, bombings and assaults they have carried out, is equal to the rock-throwing and street fighting of anti-racists, one lacks a sense of proportions.

Looking back at the repressed anti-racist mobilization against the Nazi march in Salem, the establishment does lack a sense of proportions. The extra-parliamentary left stood alone and five hundred people were rounded up and taken into “preventive custody” as soon as they arrived at the train station. The rest of the demonstration were cattled ( I think this means "penned"-Molly ) and never allowed to leave the rallying point.

The challenge for antifascist activists, as stated in From Salem to Stolberg: Right-Wing Martyrs and Right-Wing Violence, lies in finding effective means of resistance. The Swedish example confirms the difficulty to establish the right balance between two necessities: broad public support against the activities of the extreme right on the one hand; and retaining a critical voice against structural discrimination and (party) political hypocrisy on the other.

One of the reasons why the Salem March can continue derives from an early split within its opponents. While mainstream leftists and liberals now hold an anti-racist rally in Stockholm, far from the actual march, militant antifascists attempt to confront the march directly. This renders the Stockholm rally merely symbolic, while politicians and police commanders can portray the confrontations in Salem as yet another case of “extremist clashes”.

So the challenge remains for each and everyone of us to unite and manifest:
- That we are always many more than the fascists are ever going to be!

- That we are stronger than they will ever be!

- That we will never forget Björn Söderberg!

MOLLYMEW POLLS:

WHAT IS THE BEST WAY TO DEAL WITH NEO-FASCISTS AND NEO-NAZIS ?

This is to draw attention to the latest item on our sister site Molly's Polls. I have to be honest, the question 'What is the Best Way to Deal With Neo-fascists and Neo-nazis ?' is not one that I have given a tremendous amount of thought to. It is one, however, that a large number of anarchists think about quite a bit. A little bit too much in my opinion. Perhaps they run in social circles where they are more likely to encounter such people. There is also the fact that the collections of pathetic people nostalgic for the days of jackboots are much more common in some areas of the world than where I live.

What do you think ? Go on over to Molly's Polls to express your opinion. I'll probably comment further over there. This subject has come up because it has been an item in two posts and their comments in the past few days. No doubt it will sink to the bottom of my mental sea once more. There are certainly more important things in the world.

BLOGGING:

ALMOST BOO-BOOED:

As regular readers of this blog know I am forever updating the Links section, both adding items and deleting dead links. A lot of this action is performed using scraps of paper on which I have written the items in question, and, as may be expected, the "to do" pile keeps getting shuffled like a pack of cards. Thus, earlier today, I accidentally added one item from the bizarre mutation known as "national anarchism". Like most such outré examples of ideological monsters this item came from the USA. There must be a lot of stray radiation in that part of the world. It is the throbbing heart of many sorts of "para-anarchisms", such as primitivism and post leftism, that hardly bear any family resemblance to anarchism elsewhere.

I guess that I should have checked before I listed, but, in the interests of efficiency I usually leave that sort of thing to the confirmation check after adding the link. I'm very glad I at least do this. The link to the great sewer minds has been duly removed. While being a pretty comprehensive listing of anarchists contacts of various sorts and persuasions this blog does have certain standards. What the so-called "national anarchists" have done is take justifiable doubt about such things as political correctness and identity politics (which can get pretty weird themselves) and attempt a strange marriage between two things that are obviously genetically incompatible, the mountain flower of anarchism and the dung beetle of fascism. Needless to say the children produced are quite monstrous.

No doubt this is an easy target. Sort of like something that a blind man could hit at midnight at the bottom of a coal mine. So far I can remember only one other item that I have removed from this list when I was advised of its real nature. If I recall correctly it was anti-Semitic. Some things, however, are much more subtle. Are there any of the links here that any readers find morally objectionable ? I say morally , not politically. No bitching about how some of the links here are religious please. Please advise me of such, and I'll look into it.

INTERNATIONAL LABOUR-IRAN:

ANTI-WORKER REPRESSION CONTINUES IN IRAN:
The Islamo-fascist regime continues its repression. What follows is a selection of recent articles, all taken from the website of the Iranian Workers' Solidarity Network, a site that Molly recommends highly, though it is certain that their politics and mine differ considerably. What they show is the breadth of the repression and the barbarism that it entails. Lest this be taken as an example of something far away, both in distance and culture, I remind the reader that despite the fact that the recent elections in the USA have put the development of an indigenous fascism in the most powerful country in the world off that such a thing is more than possible later. If the Obama Administration should fail in its project of halting American decline, something that is entirely possible, then all that stands between us and a victorious American fascism is the stupidity of American fascists. Make no mistake about it. Fascism will not come to America or any other country dressed in the robes of a nostalgic subculture hoping to recreate the Third Reich. Like most of classical fascism outside of Germany it will come dressed in anti-capitalist rhetoric (whatever the reality behind the words) and religiously blessed - just as it has been in Iran. We need to support the people of Iran who are struggling against their domestic version of fascism because such an ideology cannot be allowed to succeed anywhere, or it will threaten everywhere. All it takes is for the American fascists to extend their populism beyond their cultural obsessions and into economics.

Anyways, here's what is happening in Iran these days.

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IRAN: TWO FEMALE LABOUR ACTIVIST FLOGGED:

According to the Co-ordination Committee for the Creation of Labour Organisations on Wednesday 18 February 2009 Shiva Kheyrabadi and Susan Razani, two female labour activists, were flogged.(Their photos are above-Molly) The flogging sentences were passed against Ms Kheyrabadi, Ms Razani and two other labour activists in August 2008. Their crime was taking part in a May Day rally in Sanandaj (in Iranian Kurdistan).

On 5 August 2008 the 101st branch of the criminal court in Sanandaj sentenced the four to this brutal, barbaric and medieval form of punishment because they had taken part in the 2007 May Day celebrations in the city. The court sentenced Ms Susan Razani to receive 70 lashes and be jailed for nine months; Ms Shiva Kheyrabadi 15 lashes and four months; Abdollah Khani (Abeh Nejar) 40 lashes and 91 days; and Seyyed Ghaleb Hosseini 50 lashes and six months in prison. The defendants were given 20 days to lodge an appeal with the Kurdistan province court.

The Iranian regime is not carrying out this policy from a position of strength. The whipping of workers is a desperate attempt by the regime to dampen the combativity and high morale of the workers who, despite having no legal trade unions and suffering from the crippling economic situation, continue to fight for their rights.

Last year, weeks before May Day, the authorities began a campaign of intimidation and terror against the new labour movement so that 2008’s rallies and celebrations would not be as big and radical as those in 2007. In February 2008 three labour activists were flogged and a further eight were also sentenced to receive the lash.

The flogging of Ms Kheyrabadi and Ms Razani exposes the Iranian regime and shows the whole world its true colours. Despite the nuclear technology, the satellites and big rhetoric about scientific and medical advances, deep down this regime remains a medieval and reactionary beast with a cruel and dark heart. In flogging workers this regime is committing an act that has been banned in Britain since the reign of Queen Anne in early 18th century!

Please send a protest letter to put pressure on the Iranian regime to stop flogging labour activists and to release all class war prisoners immediately and unconditionally.
Iranian Workers’ Solidarity Network21 February 2009
http://www.iwsn.org/

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Here is a story about the other two labour activists mentioned above.

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Two more labour activists flogged!
On Saturday 21 February Abdollah Khani and Ghaleb Hosseini were summoned to the Prosecutor’s Office in Sanandaj (in Iranian Kurdistan). The two labour activists were then arrested so that their sentences could be carried out.

The two activists were arrested last year for taking part in the 2008 May Day rally in Sanandaj. They were sentenced as follows: Ghaleb Hosseini, six months in prison and to receive 50 lashes, and Abdollah Khani, 91 days in prison and 40 lashes.

At 11:00 a.m. they were flogged and at 1:30 p.m. the two activists were taken by the security force of the Prosecutor’s Office to serve their custodial sentences in Sanandaj’s central prison.

The flogging of Abdollah Khani and Ghaleb Hosseini follows that of two female labour activists, Ms Kheyrabadi and Ms Razani, on 18 February. Iranian Workers’ Solidarity Network utterly condemns this medieval and reactionary punishment that was carried out for the workers merely exercising what is their undeniable right. May Day is Labour Day for all workers across the world and they should all commemorate it without any harassment from the police and the courts.
Iranian Workers’ Solidarity Network

23 February 2009

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The repression isn't limited to workers but extends to any progressive forces in Iranian society-such as students. Here's another article about the aftermath of a recent student demonstration in Tehran.

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Over 70 students arrested after clashes at Amir Kabir University:
The Iranian regime's attempt to re-bury war dead from the Iran-Iraq War in the grounds of the university sparked protests from hundreds of students, clashes with the security forces and over 70 arrests.
Manoeuvres to prevent protest

The security forces, with the co-operation of officials from the Ministry of Science and Amir Kabir University (in Tehran), since last week had made arrangements so that the burial ceremony would go ahead without any protests. Mr Rahaii, the University’s Chancellor, had made a request to detain four students locked up at the University, to bar 12 students from entering the grounds of the University, and to contact the families of protesting students to put pressure on them. All these steps were taken to make sure that there were no protests.

During the past two days, after students objected to “burying the martyrs” (i.e., war dead) in the grounds of the University, the authorities changed the ceremony into a public one, so that they could easily bring in the Pasdaran and basiji forces into the campus. From Sunday (22 February) they even publicised this on billboards all over Tehran. On Sunday Ayatollah Khamenei published a statement welcoming the re-burial ceremony to stave off any protests (yet he did not send one for the re-burial at Kashan University on the same day).

In addition, Fars, ISNA and many other news agencies of the authoritarian faction, have published many reports about the advantages of re-burial at the University, trying to threaten the dissenting students. One of the latest cases was when a website published a report that basiji talebs (religious students) in Qom province had held a meeting to express their support for the re-burial.

The students’ protest

Despite all these pressures, the students of Amir Kabir wrecked this charade of re-burying the war dead. By chanting slogans like “Dictator of the day, the war dead have become your excuse”, “Down with the Taleban, both in Kabul and in Tehran”, “Basiji get lost”, “Guns, tanks, basijis are no use anymore”, “Down with the dictator”, “Useless basiji, you’ve made the Koran into a spear”, the students protested against the tense security situation at the University.
Click on the following:

Photo reports of the protest: 1 and 2.

Videos of the protest: 1 and 2.
Brutal attack on the students

The Pasdaran and the basiji forces, who, because of their presence, could not imagine that there would be any protests from the students inside the campus, reacted angrily and brutally by beating the students. The supposed agents of Islam, who were armed with knives, pepper spray and martial arts’ weapons, took out their frustration on the students.

Over 60 students were injured and around 20 were taken to various hospitals. Three of the injured are in a critical situation. Students have injuries consistent with the use of knives, knuckle dusters and fists on their bodies. As the students were taken to hospital, Intelligence Ministry agents were posted at the hospitals to prevent news of the injured students’ situation spreading.
Photos of a leading basiji attacking the students.

Video of Pasdaran and the basiji thugs attacking the students.
The students’ arrests

After burying the coffins and beating the students, the arrests started. Within a few minutes of the re-burial ceremony ending, all those arrested were taken away in red vans. At the time there was no information about where they were being taken.

Then Intelligence Ministry agents, helped by the University’s security personnel, were present at the gates to stop anyone leaving the University. Even though many students wanted to stay on campus for a few hours because of the unsafe situation, the Chancellor announced that no one could stay after 7:00 p.m. and asked security to clear the University of all students. At the same time Intelligence Ministry agents, helped by security, checked the IDs of students and arrested those who had been protesting.

According to the latest figures over 70 students were arrested, with most of them being taken to police station no. 107 on Palestine Square. But there is no information about where some of the other students are being held. The University’s security personnel are present at police station no. 107 helping to identify the arrested students. All these students have been photographed and their student cards have been confiscated. The police and security forces have been abusing and swearing at the students; they were particularly angry about the “Down with the dictator” slogan. By Tuesday (24 February) over 40 students were released, with nearly 30 still under arrest.

This statement is based on a report posted on the Amir Kabir University students’ website.
Iranian Workers' Solidarity Network24 February 2009

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Then, of course, there is the everyday ongoing repression against any workers who try to speak up for their rights. Here's the story of one such individual, Taba Azadi.

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Labour activist Taha Azadi tried for "acting against national security":
Taha Azadi, a member of the Steering Committee of the Free Trade Union of Iranian Workers was tried by the Revolutionary Court in Kangan on 15 February. The judge accused him of acting against national security and conducting propaganda against the Islamic system.

Taha Azadi was arrested on May Day 2008 because of commemorating Labour Day. He was imprisoned for 47 days, during which time he was subjected to physical and psychological abuse.

In addition to denying these charges, Taha Azadi said that commemorating Labour Day was his and every other worker’s right: “If you think that commemorating May Day, which is the undeniable right of workers, is an act against national security and propaganda against the Islamic system, then that’s your opinion.” In continuing his defence Taha Azadi, by pointing out the placards and banners that were photographed, said: “As you can see on these placards we want a better life and we workers see these demands as our right.”

At the end of this trial, which lasted 15 minutes, Taha Azadi was told that the court’s verdict will be sent to him. The Free Trade Union of Iranian Workers has condemned this trial.

Iranian Workers’ Solidarity Network strongly condemns the baseless accusations of the regime’s court and calls for all Taha Azadi’s charges to be dropped immediately and unconditionally.
Iranian Workers’ Solidarity Network

22 February 2009

INTERNATIONAL ANARCHIST MOVEMENT-SWEDEN:

HOLIDAY APPEAL FOR VICTIMS OF NEO-NAZI ARSONS:

Molly has mentioned at least one of the following incidents on this blog before. On December 1 a family of Swedish syndicalists, affiliated to the anarchosyndicalist SAC, were almost killed by an arson attempt on their apartment. Also, however, on the 29th of November, the Swedish autonomous cultural centre Cyklopen was also burnt down by fascist arsonists. Both the family and the Centre need your support, the family to rebuild their lives and the Centre to open once more. Here's the appeal from the Swedish website Anarkisterna.

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Support the victims of Neo-Nazi arsons:‏
Please help us spread this call for solidarity on lists, blogs and pages.Support is needed, both for the family that has lost almost all of their belongings in the attack on their apartment and for financing the rebuilding of the Cyclops.

Thanks /embryo collective

http://anarkisterna.com/blog/2008/12/20/support-the-victims-of-neo-nazi-arsons/

The “Salem March” is the biggest annual Neo-Nazi gathering in Scandinavia.It is an alleged “commemoration” event for a Swedish youth with contacts to the country’s extreme right who died during a late-evening confrontation with migrant youths in the year 2000 in Salem, a suburb of Stockholm. In the weeks leading up to this year’s march, neofascists engaged in a series of attacks against antifascist activists.

On the 29th of November, the autonomous cultural center Cyklopen was burned to the ground. The fire coincided with a planned meeting of the Network Against Racism that organizes protests against the Salem March every year. Luckily, the meeting did not take place that night, so no one got injured in the blaze. According to authorities, the fire was a certain case of arson and the perpetrators are suspected in the neofascist scene. Cyklopen had been threatened various times before. The neofascists know that autonomous left-wing spaces are a cornerstone of effective antifascist work.

On the 1st of December, there was an arson attack on the apartment of two members of Sweden’s anarchosyndicalist union SAC and their three-year old child. One of them explained: “I saw how someone poured some clear fluid into the hallway through the mail-slot. I could smell that it was gasoline. I screamed as loud as I could, ‘We have a child here!’ It is impossible that they did not hear me. Next thing I know, they set the gasoline on fire.” While the child was handed down from the apartment’s third-storey balcony to neighbors below, the two adults were able to climb to safety. The police treats the attack as politically motivated. They strongly suspect the perpetrators to be the same as in the Cyclopen attack. Half a year ago, the names and pictures of SAC members had been published on Info-14, an internet portal of the Swedish extreme right that is closely connected to the organizers of the Salem March.

There exist solidarity accounts for the victims of the attacks:

The “December Collection” (Decemberinsamlingen) serves as emergency help for the family that has lost almost all of their belongings in the attack on their apartment:

Re: Decemberinsamlingen

Addressee: SAC

IBAN: SE24 9500 0099 6034 0809 9236

BIC/Swift: NDEASESS

The Cyklopen activists are determined to rebuild their center – financial help can be sent here:

Re: Cyklopen

Addressee: Kulturkampanjen

IBAN: SE09 9500 0099 6034 1607 5525

BIC/Swift: NDEASESS

ITALY:

ITALY AND THE ROMA-ECHOES OF MUSSOLINI:

The following article from the British newspaper, The Independent, tells the story of the present "security emergency" that the Italian state has concocted, and how its persecution of the Roma (the "gypsies") echoes what was done under fascism.

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Plight of the Roma: echoes of Mussolini
The compulsory fingerprinting of Italy's Gypsy population is the latest example of the country's increasingly repressive attitude towards minorities – and an ominous reminder of the policies of the former Fascist dictator. Peter Popham reports

Fingerprint the lot of them: the idea had the satisfying smack of firm government. Now the Italian government was doing something tough; something long overdue.

The Interior Minister, Roberto Maroni, a leader of the rabble-rousing Northern League – close allies of Silvio Berlusconi on the government benches – has explained his next step in his assault on the "emergenza di sicurezza", the "security emergency": fingerprinting all Gypsies.

It was the only way, he told a parliamentary committee on Wednesday, for Italy to guarantee "to those who have the right to remain here, the possibility of living in decent conditions." For this purpose the Roma – those with Italian nationality and those without, EU citizens and those from outside the Community – will all have their fingerprints taken. And the rule will even apply to Gypsy children – for reasons that to many of Mr Maroni's supporters must have sounded obvious: "to avoid phenomena," as he put it, "such as begging". The new measures, he said, were indispensable "in order to expel those who do not have the right to stay in Italy".

For anybody not swept up in the wave of anti-Roma fury, the campaign has a strong whiff of Mussolini and Hitler about it.

The task of counting and identifying the residents of Italy, citizens or otherwise, who happen to belong the most despised minority in Europe is, in fact, already under way.

Giovanna Boursier, an Italian journalist, found one small camp where the count had already taken place on the furthest southern outskirts of Milan. "There is not even a bar where one could ask the way," she wrote in Il Manifesto, "but once you scramble up a hill you see the roofs of the huts. There are about 10 of them, along with the caravans, dotted around the outskirts, under flyovers and high-tension wires. Around 40 Roma lived here."

They told her that the police arrived at dawn, woke everybody up, surrounded the camp and flooded it with lights and then went from home to home, demanding identity documents and photographing them. All the residents were Italian citizens. It made no difference. "This wasn't a census," protested a Roma called Giorgio. "This was an ethnic register."

Fingerprinting was the detail they omitted – lacking, at that point, the power to do it. But Mr Maroni has now set about remedying that.

Italy's "security emergency" is a strange and distracting phenomenon which has been brewing up slowly for the past decade as economic growth slowed to a stop. It intensified dramatically with the admission of Romania and Bulgaria to the EU in January of last year, and now bulks so large that it was the biggest factor in Mr Berlusconi's election victory and continues to dominate the media. It led to the decision last week to allow police numbers in the big cities to be augmented by up to 3,000 troops.

The issue is strange and distracting because it does not seem to exist, either statistically or as a fact of personal experience. Crime is not a big deal in Italian cities. There is no epidemic of burglary, mugging, bag-snatching, rape. Italy remains a country where it is pretty safe to walk the streets. Yet the government is behaving as if this were Colombia. And Colombia with a very special difference: that the supposedly soaring rate of crime is the work of one particular ethnic group, known as "nomadi rom."

Gypsies or Roma are visible in Italian cities as in the rest of Europe, and their number has increased. In Rome your subway journey may be made slightly less enjoyable by their accordions and violins and the appeals of their begging. Your eyes may be offended by the sight of them fishing in the waste bins, or hauling stuff home for recycling. Rome is so badly policed that small, utterly miserable squatter camps have sprung up in many places. They are a disgrace – unhygienic, unaesthetic – and have no place in a civilised modern country. But as the source of a "security emergency"?

Giovanni Maria Bellu, a La Repubblica journalist and an expert on Italy's minorities, said the problem was one of misunderstanding. "Most Italians make no distinction between Italian Roma and those who arrived from Yugoslavia during that country's break-up," he said. "And many Italians think that 'Rom' is an abbreviation of 'Romanian' – and since the arrival of Romania in the EU there has been a large influx of Romanians. People conflate these separate things. There have been crimes committed by Romanians – and people confuse these with the Rom, and the Rom end up being blamed for everything.

"Security was the over-riding theme of the general election, which is why this conflated Roma-Romanian theme became so big, and a part of the left is very timid about confronting the problem. The security emergency itself is a myth: there has been no increase in the number of rapes, for example – in fact, the number has declined. But when a single case occurs it is splashed on the front page of certain papers for a double reason: it increases the climate of fear; and it damages the centre-left, which is perceived as being weak on security."

Italy's Roma paranoia spilled on to the world's front pages on 13 May, when a woman in a suburb of Naples called Ponticelli alleged that a Roma girl had tried to steal her baby. The community erupted in fury, and thugs belonging to the Camorra crime syndicates threw petrol bombs into the local gypsy squatter camp, driving out the inhabitants and burning the place to the ground. Suddenly there was no avoiding the fact: the Italian hatred for the Roma had taken a dramatic new turn.

But the origin was an ancient fear, rooted not in fact but legend. Mr Bellu said: "There is nothing in police records to support the idea that Roma have stolen babies. It's just a legend. But one that still has people in its grip."

Marco Nieli, the president of Opera Nomadi, the most important organisation representing Italy's Roma, said: "The first Roma arrived in Italy in 1400 and have been here ever since, and are Italians in every respect. The real problem is one of crass ignorance: if someone says that Roma steal babies, the political parties reflect and amplify this nonsense. This way all the problems are swept under the carpet."

Thomas Hammerberg, European commissioner for human rights, visited a big Roma camp in Rome earlier this month. "I visited Casalino 900 camp, where 650 or so Roma live," he said. "There was no electricity, no water. It was a very bad slum."

And the fear of the "ethnic register" was already rampant, he said, "due to what happened to them in the past in Germany and elsewhere. They also raised the question, why us? Why not others? Many of those in the camp I visited had been in Italy for 40 years; they came over from Yugoslavia, some of them still have problems with identity papers, squeezed between the old and the new country. If you've been in a country for 40 years, are you still a foreigner? This talk about fingerprints was another reminder that their status has never been settled.

"The basic problem of Roma is widespread in Europe: housing, health, education, employment, political representation... But for a long time in Italy the Roma have been a symbol of something that is unwanted.

"The Nazis and the Fascists used the same methods of singling them out in the 1930s. It's not surprising that they are frightened."
A pocket dictator and the Manifesto of Race
Racism is often seen as intrinsic to fascism, but the inventor of the ideology, Benito Mussolini, was brought around to the Hitler obsession with race late in his career and after a great deal of arm-twisting.

Jews had lived in Italy for centuries without persecution. The community in Rome, though confined to the historic ghetto area for many centuries, has the longest uninterrupted history of any Jewish community in the world. In Mussolini's Italy, upper middle- class Jews continued to live and prosper without persecution – until 1938.

In that year Mussolini introduced his Manifesto of Race, closely modelled on the Nazi Nuremberg laws, which stripped Jews of their Italian citizenship, the right of Jewish children to go to school and of adults to work in the government or the professions.

Traditional Italian tolerance and/or indifference towards Jews meant that many were sheltered during those years, but after the fall of Rome, when Mussolini moved to the town of Salo on Lake Garda and was set up by the Nazis as the pocket dictator of the Republic of Salo, deportations of Jews to the death camps began in earnest.

And what of Italy's Roma during the grim final years of Mussolini's rule? Some 1.6 million Roma died in Germany and elsewhere during the Holocaust, a proportionately greater genocide than that suffered by the Jews.

The history of their treatment under Mussolini is a subject that contemporary Italian historians have been loath to look into, according to Marco Nieli, president of the Italian Roma organisation Opera Nomadi.

"It's a fact that there were concentration camps for Roma in Italy during the Fascist period, and it's also a fact that thousands of Roma died in them of hunger, cold and over work," he claimed. "Studies are now under way to discover the extent of the suffering that took place."

RUSSIA: SUPPORT ANARCHIST ANTI-FASCIST ARRESTED IN KRASNODAR:

From the Autonomous Action of Krasnodar:

In may of 2004, Vahtang Devitlidze, anarchist and member of the Federation of Revolutionary Anarchists, was hanging out in the centre of Krasnodar with two friends. They ran into a group of local Nazis, and soon a fight broke out. There was no choice- in order to defend himself, Vahtang had to pull a knife. As a result he wounded one of the attackers in the leg, while he was also hospitalized with less serious wounds himself. When the fight was over the police showed up and arrested people. Eventually in court Vahtang was given a probational sentence of 2.5 years for "causing grievous bodily harm" (Section 2 of Statute 111 of the Russian criminal code). He didn't feel like submitting to the probation regime and escaped to Belarus. But when visiting his family in Krasnodar he was arrested and sent to a low-security prison for the remainder of his sentence. He escaped from prison, but was caught again and heavily beaten. In the summer of 2006 the court sent Vahtang to a regular prison for the remainder of his sentence.

Anarchists in Krasnodar are raising money to support Vahtang in prison, as in Russia prisoner relatives and friends of prisoners have to feed them. In his letters Vahtang is in good spirits and doing his sentence without problems.

You can write to Vahtang at the following address, but bear in mind that he speaks no language other than Russian- so if you don't speak Russian send stuff like photos and drawings instead.

Vahtang Devitlidze

ul Libbedova 42, UO 68/2

otryad 14, brigada 142

g. Hagyshensk, Krasnodarskiy Kray

352680 Russia

MOLLY NOTES:

There has been a serious resurgence of fascism in Russia in recent years, given that years of Communism succeeded in destroying far too much of the normal human relations that would stand as a barrier to such atavism. The "proletarian internationalism" that the Communist authorities adopted as as means of indoctrination failed to survive the end of the dictatorship. This much could be expected as it was connected to a system of total lies that most of the population recognized as such. Today this "internationalism", inculcated by propaganda can hardly serve to contain racist sentiments towards people who used to be part of the Soviet Union.

To follow the Russian anarchists in their fight against fascism look to the Avtonom site. For non-anarchist news about Russian developments, including the rise of fascism in that country look to the Centre for Interethnic Cooperation and the Russia Blog.

NEW ANARCHIST PAMPHLET:RESISTANCE TO NAZISM:
The Anarchist Federation (Britain) has published a new pamphlet, 'Anarchist Resistance to Nazism'. This is an exposition of the historical resistance to fascist tyranny in the 30s and 40s. It concentrates on the resistance to Nazism in Germany and France, telling the story of the 'Edelweiss Pirates' (Germany), the FAUD (Germany) and the Zazous (France) . It also, however, speaks of the British Jewish organization, the '43 Group' who resisted fascism in England and the 'Arditi del Popolo' in Italy. The Italian movement, being one of the largest outside of the Spanish speaking world, put up a particularly vigorous resistance to fascism, and an appendix details to anarchist underground press of the time, both inside and outside Italy.
The pamphlet can be ordered in a print version from the website of the AF. It is available in both html and pdf versions online at the following addresses:
http://flag.blackened.net/af/ace/anarchist_resistance_to_nazism.pdf
http://flag.blackened.net/af/ace/anarchist_resistance_to_nazism.html
http://afed.libcom.org.uk/ace/anarchist_resistance_to_nazism.pdf
http://afed.libcom.org.uk/ace/anarchist_resistance_to_nazism.html