Nothing human is achieved in the grip of fear - Os Cangaceiros

The series of bombings committed recently in Paris have as their immediate consequence the reinforcement of the control of the police. Paris is today in a state of siege.

The blabbering of the media, asking "Who did it?", masks the essential question, which is "What end does it serve?" The exploitation of these bornhings by the police and by the specialised liars plays its part in a strategy of the State: to make the climate of generalised defeat in France even more absolute. One idea must, bit by bit, enter one's head: that the growth and systematisation of repressive measures are necessary and inescapable. The banality of the areas targeted by this strategy of diffuse panic reinforce in each and everyone the feeling of anguish and powerlessness. The terrain is ready and justice can bury alive anyone who lifts his head.

In this shit country, every proletarian who does not feel guilty is suspect, and can, as such, be assassinated. Since the flare-up of the French suburbs in '81, the State has left to the initiative of the "beaufs"1 the social reaction which precipitated the crushing of all those who were growing restless in this country. The bombs set off in the cities around Marseilles (in La Cayolle and Bassens in '81, in La Bricarde in '83) and the murderous summers of '82 and '832 , are two aspects of a decisive moment. Terror and isolation now paralize the majority of those who have not given in, when justice hasn't already taken care of them.

The State drives in the nail. It perfects in the legal system what was already imposed in reality. The Badinter project of a modernised penal code confirms the license to kill while extending the right of "self-defense"3 to include the defense of property. The stage is set: police custody for four days, gathering together of criminal and terrorist files, general worsening of the penalties for all forms of delinquency, suppression of remission of sentences...

The media devotes itself to making us believe that only terrorists attack the State, and that, consequently, all those who attack the State are terrorists. Their intention is clear: to define every act of revolt as one of terrorism, all the while increasing tenfold the emotional charge attached to the word. Terrorism is the continuation of politics by other means.

The campaign of sabotage in solidarity with the prison mutinies (summer of '85) was the work of some organized proletarians. The media has attributed it to mysterious "railway terrorists". More recently - the 20th of December - the wildcat strikers of the metro were accused of taking the Parisians hostage. That same day, in Nantes, Courtois, Khalki, and Thiolet were even said to have taken the media hostage4 . This is a sordid reversal of reality on the part of those precisely whose job is to colonize minds; those sharks that particularly displease us.

Manipulation reaches its goal in all this. The trials to come will take place in the most unhealthy atmosphere for those who are the real target of the State. After being nailed to the pillory of terrorism, they will be condemned to a staggering sentence.

Contrary to what happened in Italy in the 70's, these bombings are not the last bullets of a State at bay. In France, partisans of the State intend to consolidate the position of force it has squired these last few years as much as they can. The Italian State used expeditious means for creating terror in the population and for justifying on the same occasion the emergency recourse to the police, indeed, to the army. But we know, since then, that such an "emergency" recourse, imposed for the moment, becomes the rule.

We are suffering directly from the intensification of the means of control. The sinister German precedent gives a foretaste of what is hanging over our heads. It becomes more and more difficult to conceal oneself from the eyes of the State. In this world, only commodities can circulate freely. For us, the poor, the simple fact of circulating is becoming perillous.

DOWN WITH FRANCE

Paris, 12 February, 1986 OS CANGACEIROS

(Translation: March, 1986)

• 1'REAUFS'. An insulting term used by the French against poor lower middle-class, pro-cop, often racist, always suspicious of anyone who doesn't seem to fit. There are millions of these shits and each year they kill several dozen 'misfits' without anything being meted out to them in return. In France, all cops are armed; they constantly and legally carry out the death penalty. They also mutilate or kill dozens of proletarians each year. Since the riots of 81 (mainly in Lyons and also other big cities) these 'beaufs' —particularly those connected with shops— have killed an increasing amount of young and especially immigrant thieves (with virtually no SS [social security] thieving is even higher than here). Such unpunished killings, with a nod and a wink from the State, is one of the most essential objective answers to the question "How come France is so quiet?". These murders have effectively intimidated those at the bottom of the pile into terrorised silence though in Marseilles and Paris there has been some sporadic rioting this year. TN
• 2During these summers, a large number of young proletarians were assassinated by the cops and the "beaufs". In not sending them to gaol (or sometimes sending them only for a short time) the State gave these scum a license to kill. Some shopkeepers even went so far as to organise demonstrations when one of them had stayed 2 weeks in prison. This situation is still the same (Hernu, the former socialist Minister of Defence sacked over the Rainbow Warrior affair, still mayor of Venissieux - a proletarian area of Lyon - recently publicly congratulated a cop for killing a thief).
• 3"Legitimate Defence" is a judicial term which gives someone the right to defend themselves with arms equiva-lent to the arms of their attacketis. The "beaufs" use this argument fallaciously - as a way of justifying killing un-armed thieves or shooting in the back thieves who are running away.
• 4During a trial, Khalki (at that time having been freed from prison just 3 weeks before) went to the courtroom where his friends were on trial in order to free them. They took the judge, some court officials and the fury host-age. Then they demanded that TV cameras be brought into the courtoom so that they could talk publicly about the cops, about prison, about `justice , about their innocence in this trial, about their lives broken by several periods of imprisonment they had been in prison for two years awaiting trial), about.... They surrendered after 2 days in exchange for a promise from the State that Khalki would be deported to a country of his choice, a promise which the State broke in spite of Khalkis' subsequent long hunger strike. Most French proletarians recog-nised themselves in what these three men did and said.