A SINGULAR AND GENEROUS THINKER OF ANARCHISM, HIS WORK TRACED LIVING LINES OF REVOLT AND CREATION ~ David Berry ~ Daniel Colson, anarchist theorist and labour historian, died on 9 January in Lyon. He was 82. Colson was an active member of the anarchist movement in Lyon from the early 1970s, a member of the collective that ran the city’s anarchist bookshop ‘La Gryffe’ from its creation in 1978, and a member of the editorial collective that has produced the anarchist review Réfractions since 1997. A professor of sociology at the University of Saint-Etienne, he published extensively on labour history, revolutionary syndicalism, anarchism and, latterly, philosophy. Colson first moved to Lyon, France’s second biggest city, in 1966, when he went to university there to study sociology, after two years studying philosophy at a seminary near Clermont-Ferrand. At the university he discovered revolutionary politics, and soon became active in the student movement, which was dominated in the late 1960s by Maoists, Trotskyists and other assorted ‘gauchistes’ (‘leftists’—originally a pejorative term used of the student revolutionaries of 1968 by the French Communist Party, referencing Lenin’s “Left-Wing” Communism, An Infantile Disorder). Through his friendship with the libertarian communist Michel Marsella, Colson also learned about anarchism, the Socialism or Barbarism group around Cornelius Castoriadis, Situationism, Luxemburgism, etc. Like so many of his contemporaries he was involved in the campaign against US imperialism and in particular the Vietnam war, and was the prime mover in the ‘Vietnam Committee’ in Lyon’s old town. The group produced a newsletter, Informations rassemblées à Lyon (IRL), and after the repression and collapse of the 1968 movement, the Vietnam Committee transformed itself into the ‘Comité de quartier du Vieux-Lyon’ (Old Lyon Neighbourhood Committee). When asked years later what the objectives of this committee had been, Colson replied: “Nothing less than creating the embryo of an insurrection at a local level.” Influenced by the automobile workers occupying the local Berliet factories, the group decided to occupy the local ‘Maison des jeunes’ (youth centre), which had been where the committee had met over the previous months. “We were very ambitious. We were seriously hoping, when the right conditions arose, to take over the local police station—including its armoury.” That plan never materialised, although the group did occupy the town hall briefly. Colson was inspired by 1968 and especially by his experience of “spontaneity in action and in organisation”, including widespread co-operation between students and workers. He was also inspired by the discovery of three important books: the four-volume history of the First International written by the Swiss anarchist James Guillaume; the Russian anarchist Voline’s The Unknown Revolution (originally published in French in 1947, but republished in the aftermath of 1968 in a series edited by Daniel Guérin and the anarchist artist Jean-Jacques Lebel); and Anti-Œdipus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia (1972) by Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari. Not that he understood Anti-Œdipus at all when he first tried to read it—he found it “pretty indigestible” in fact— and even ten years later when he tried again, it was only the first chapter that he really got to grips with: for Colson, that chapter successfully demolished the “enormous Marxist theoretical apparatus” that dominated the French left at that time, and made clear “not only the theoretical but also the emancipatory, ethical, philosophical and practical power of anarchism”. Colson was actively involved with a number of anarchist newspapers: the Cahiers de mai (the May Notebooks, which was launched in June 1968 and was the voice of the Action Committees which had sprung up across France), ICO (Informations et Correspondences Ouvrières, Workers’ News and Letters, focussed on autonomous workers’ struggles, outside of trade unions and parties), and IRL (Informations rassemblées à Lyon, literally News Gathered in Lyon, which published eye-witness accounts and documents on social struggles in the Lyon area not published by the mainstream press or the main left-wing papers). IRL, which Colson helped create, was interested in workers’ struggles, but also illegalism and other forms of resistance, and discussed a range of movements: anarchism, council communism, feminism, ecology, antimilitarism, sexual liberation, etc. In 1978, Colson was one of the original group of anarchist activists who set up the La Gryffe bookshop in Lyon, and the collective is still going strong. As well as selling the usual range of anticapitalist, antiauthoritarian material, La Gryffe also has a meeting room that regularly hosts debates, exhibitions, film showings, etc. When Colson published a book about the collective in 2020, he was careful not to give an idealised view of a successful anarchist collective at work, but to highlight also the long and sometimes difficult history that La Gryffe was built on, including some serious differences of opinion and conflicts within the collective, but conflicts which were worked through and resolved according to anarchist principles. Having returned to academia, Colson gained his doctorate in 1983 with a thesis—later published as a book—on anarcho-syndicalism and communism in the labour movement in Saint-Etienne, 1920-25. (If ever you’ve been confused about the difference between the terms ‘syndicalism’, ‘revolutionary syndicalism’ and ‘anarcho-syndicalism’, and how the once revolutionary syndicalist French labour movement came to be dominated by Communism, this is the book for you.) A second historical-sociological book followed in 1998 on the iron and steel industry—and its owners, the famous ‘iron barons’ or forgemasters—in Saint-Etienne from the mid-nineteenth century to the First World War. Colson explained once in a talk he gave on ‘Proudhon and the contemporary relevance of anarchism’—the main thrust of which was to argue for the rehabilitation of Proudhon, who remained unpopular in anarchist circles—that he had discovered Proudhon at about the same time in the 1970s that he discovered “the left-wing Nietzscheanism” of Foucault and especially Deleuze. Deleuze, he argued, “developed an emancipatory thought which had a lot in common with Proudhon.” Indeed, moving away from his earlier sociological work, and after writing books on Proudhon and Malatesta, Colson became increasingly focussed on philosophy, and was especially interested in Spinoza, Leibniz, Nietzsche, Deleuze and Guattari (among others) and how their thinking related to anarchism. This led to a number of conference papers, journal articles and books on these subjects—in 2022, for instance, he published a book on ‘working-class anarchism and philosophy’. Unfortunately only one of his books has been translated (by Jesse Cohen) into English: the Little Philosophical Lexicon of Anarchism. From Proudhon to Deleuze—“a provocative exploration of hidden affinities and genealogies in anarchist thought”. Daniel Colson was an active member of the anarchist movement in Lyon from the early 1970s, a member of the collective that ran the city’s anarchist bookshop ‘La Gryffe’ from its creation in 1978, and a member of the editorial collective that has produced the anarchist review Réfractions since 1997. A professor of sociology at the University of Saint-Etienne, he published extensively on labour history, revolutionary syndicalism, anarchism and, latterly, philosophy. Colson first moved to Lyon, France’s second biggest city, in 1966, when he went to university there to study sociology, after two years studying philosophy at a seminary near Clermont-Ferrand. At the university he discovered revolutionary politics, and soon became active in the student movement, which was dominated in the late 1960s by Maoists, Trotskyists and other assorted ‘gauchistes’ (‘leftists’—originally a pejorative term used of the student revolutionaries of 1968 by the French Communist Party, referencing Lenin’s “Left-Wing” Communism, An Infantile Disorder). Through his friendship with the libertarian communist Michel Marsella, Colson also learned about anarchism, the Socialism or Barbarism group around Cornelius Castoriadis, Situationism, Luxemburgism, etc. Like so many of his contemporaries he was involved in the campaign against US imperialism and in particular the Vietnam war, and was the prime mover in the ‘Vietnam Committee’ in Lyon’s old town. The group produced a newsletter, Informations rassemblées à Lyon (IRL), and after the repression and collapse of the 1968 movement, the Vietnam Committee transformed itself into the ‘Comité de quartier du Vieux-Lyon’ (Old Lyon Neighbourhood Committee). When asked years later what the objectives of this committee had been, Colson replied: “Nothing less than creating the embryo of an insurrection at a local level.” Influenced by the automobile workers occupying the local Berliet factories, the group decided to occupy the local ‘Maison des jeunes’ (youth centre), which had been where the committee had met over the previous months. “We were very ambitious. We were seriously hoping, when the right conditions arose, to take over the local police station—including its armoury.” That plan never materialised, although the group did occupy the town hall briefly. Colson was inspired by 1968 and especially by his experience of “spontaneity in action and in organisation”, including widespread co-operation between students and workers. He was also inspired by the discovery of three important books: the four-volume history of the First International written by the Swiss anarchist James Guillaume; the Russian anarchist Voline’s The Unknown Revolution (originally published in French in 1947, but republished in the aftermath of 1968 in a series edited by Daniel Guérin and the anarchist artist Jean-Jacques Lebel); and Anti-Œdipus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia (1972) by Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari. Not that he understood Anti-Œdipus at all when he first tried to read it—he found it “pretty indigestible” in fact— and even ten years later when he tried again, it was only the first chapter that he really got to grips with: for Colson, that chapter successfully demolished the “enormous Marxist theoretical apparatus” that dominated the French left at that time, and made clear “not only the theoretical but also the emancipatory, ethical, philosophical and practical power of anarchism”. Colson was actively involved with a number of anarchist newspapers: the Cahiers de mai (the May Notebooks, which was launched in June 1968 and was the voice of the Action Committees which had sprung up across France), ICO (Informations et Correspondences Ouvrières, Workers’ News and Letters, focussed on autonomous workers’ struggles, outside of trade unions and parties), and IRL (Informations rassemblées à Lyon, literally News Gathered in Lyon, which published eye-witness accounts and documents on social struggles in the Lyon area not published by the mainstream press or the main left-wing papers). IRL, which Colson helped create, was interested in workers’ struggles, but also illegalism and other forms of resistance, and discussed a range of movements: anarchism, council communism, feminism, ecology, antimilitarism, sexual liberation, etc. In 1978, Colson was one of the original group of anarchist activists who set up the La Gryffe bookshop in Lyon, and the collective is still going strong. As well as selling the usual range of anticapitalist, anti-authoritarian material, La Gryffe also has a meeting room that regularly hosts debates, exhibitions, film showings, etc. When Colson published a book about the collective in 2020, he was careful not to give an idealised view of a successful anarchist collective at work, but to highlight also the long and sometimes difficult history that La Gryffe was built on, including some serious differences of opinion and conflicts within the collective, but conflicts which were worked through and resolved according to anarchist principles. Having returned to academia, Colson gained his doctorate in 1983 with a thesis—later published as a book—on anarcho-syndicalism and communism in the labour movement in Saint-Etienne, 1920-25. (If ever you’ve been confused about the difference between the terms ‘syndicalism’, ‘revolutionary syndicalism’ and ‘anarcho-syndicalism’, and how the once revolutionary syndicalist French labour movement came to be dominated by Communism, this is the book for you.) A second historical-sociological book followed in 1998 on the iron and steel industry—and its owners, the famous ‘iron barons’ or forge-masters—in Saint-Etienne from the mid-nineteenth century to the First World War. Colson explained once in a talk he gave on ‘Proudhon and the contemporary relevance of anarchism’—the main thrust of which was to argue for the rehabilitation of Proudhon, who remained unpopular in anarchist circles—that he had discovered Proudhon at about the same time in the 1970s that he discovered “the left-wing Nietzscheanism” of Foucault and especially Deleuze. Deleuze, he argued, “developed an emancipatory thought which had a lot in common with Proudhon.” Indeed, moving away from his earlier sociological work, and after writing books on Proudhon and Malatesta, Colson became increasingly focussed on philosophy, and was especially interested in Spinoza, Leibniz, Nietzsche, Deleuze and Guattari (among others) and how their thinking related to anarchism. This led to a number of conference papers, journal articles and books on these subjects—in 2022, for instance, he published a book on ‘working-class anarchism and philosophy’. Unfortunately only one of his books has been translated (by Jesse Cohen) into English: the Little Philosophical Lexicon of Anarchism. From Proudhon to Deleuze—“a provocative exploration of hidden affinities and genealogies in anarchist thought”. The post Daniel Colson (1943-2026) appeared first on Freedom News.

THE FILMMAKER’S SOCIAL REALISM WAS ALWAYS SUSPICIOUS OF ESTABLISHED POWER ~ Bleart Thaçi ~ Hungarian filmmaker Béla Tarr died on 6 January at the age of 70, after a long illness. His body of work stands among the most severe and distinctive in late twentieth century European cinema, ranging from the early social dramas Family Nest, The Outsider, The Prefab People, Almanac of Fall and Damnation to the later landmark films Sátántangó, Werckmeister Harmonies and The Turin Horse. Discussion of Tarr has often centred on style and form, on duration, repetition or bleakness, yet his films were shaped just as much by a political outlook formed early and articulated consistently throughout his life. Tarr described himself, without hesitation, as an anarchist. In interviews late in life, Tarr spoke openly about his political formation during his final years of high school. He said that he identified with the far left, recalling that he no longer carried a school-bag, since Mao’s Little Red Book in his pocket was enough. He described himself as a committed communist until around the age of sixteen. What followed was a break rather than a conversion. He came to believe that the leaders he had been taught to admire were false communists, concerned with authority and control rather than emancipation. From that point, he distanced himself from communism as it was practised and presented to him. This suspicion of established power remained a constant. Tarr did not move towards liberalism, nor did he align himself with nationalist opposition. His comments suggest a settled distrust of political systems that claim moral authority while reproducing hierarchy. In later public appearances, he spoke sharply about the historical record of communism, at one point remarking that he had never seen a good communist. His political views were shaped as much by circumstance as by ideology, and when plans to study philosophy fell through he went to work at the Óbuda shipyards. Living and working among industrial labourers informed what he later called his social cinema. His earliest films emerged from the Budapest School and the Béla Balázs Studio, an experimental and semi-underground environment that favoured small budgets, amateur equipment and non professional actors. These films focused on housing shortages, unstable employment, the pressure of economic conditions on personal relationships or the wear of poverty on everyday relations. Tarr spoke of being close to working class people and of wanting to record daily life as it was, rather than impose symbolic narratives. Frame from Satantango He often explained that his turn to filmmaking came from frustration with cinema itself. Films, he said, were full of false stories that bore little resemblance to lived experience. Making films became a way of showing conditions as they were, without embellishment or instruction. This approach extended to his working methods. He avoided professional polish, relied on non actors, and resisted narrative forms that dictated meaning from above. These choices reflected a broader opposition to authority rather than an attempt to promote a fixed political programme. As his career developed, Tarr became more outspoken about contemporary politics. He was an atheist and a consistent critic of nationalism. In a 2016 interview, he described Donald Trump, Viktor Orbán and Marine Le Pen as national shames, framing his criticism in explicitly moral terms. His denunciation of nationalism was especially pointed in the Hungarian context (under the aforementioned prime minister), where he became an outspoken critic of the state’s handling of migration and asylum. During the European migration crisis, Tarr wrote a statement that was displayed near a pro-migration exhibition in front of the Hungarian Parliament. “We have brought the planet to the brink of catastrophe with our greediness and our unlimited ignorance… Now, we are confronted with the victims of our acts.” In it, he argued that Europe had helped bring about global catastrophe through greed, ignorance and wars waged for exploitation. He then asked what kind of morality was being defended when fences were built to keep out people displaced by those same actions. In his final years, Tarr continued to speak out publicly, even as his health declined. In December 2023, he was among a group of filmmakers who signed an open letter (alongside Pedro Costa, Aki Kaurismäki, Claire Denis, Ryusuke Hamaguchi, Christian Petzold, Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Jia Zhangke, etc.) calling for a ceasefire in Gaza, an end to the killing of civilians, the establishment of humanitarian corridors, and the release of Israeli hostages. To remember Béla Tarr is to remember a filmmaker for whom politics was neither decorative nor secondary. His anarchism was not a posture but an orientation that shaped how he lived, how he worked and how he spoke. It remains present in his films as a cinema that refuses obedience, legitimacy, or consolation in the face of power. The post Béla Tarr (1955-2026) appeared first on Freedom News.

THE INTERNATIONALIST MILITANT AND EDUCATOR WAS ALSO A PIONEER OF LGBT+ ORGANISING ~ Cristina Sykes ~ Tino Brugos, a committed trade unionist, educator and internationalist whose activism spanned more than four decades of social struggles in Spain and beyond, died on 10 November 2025 in his native Cantabria. He was 67. Born in Santander to a working-class family, Brugos became a history teacher and long-time syndicalist militant. Colleagues describe him as a figure of rare coherence and generosity, a union organiser who “brought people together, listened, and worked with rigour, tenderness and a sense of humour”. Brugos was central to defending public education, secular schooling and equality in the classroom, transmitting to generations of students a critical understanding of the world and a belief that social transformation was possible. He played a key role in the Inter-syndicalist Confederation, later becoming its head of union action, and was known for his democratic instincts and ability to hold diverse movements together. An early pioneer of LGBT+ organising in Asturias, he helped open spaces where visibility still carried personal risk. He was also active in feminist, ecological and labour struggles, seeing them as inseparable fronts of the same fight for collective emancipation. Brugos’s internationalism was equally deep. He participated in solidarity campaigns with Kurdistan, Palestine and the Western Sahara, and travelled repeatedly as an observer to support human-rights defenders. In 2023 he was expelled from Turkey for his work accompanying the Kurdish movement—an episode fellow activists cite as emblematic of his commitment. Anticapitalistas Asturies remembered him as “a revolutionary encyclopaedia” whose homeland “was anywhere an oppressive regime was doing the oppressing”. He was also active in antifascist memory work with La Comuna and other groups documenting Francoist repression, viewing historical memory as a living tool for present struggles. The CGT union, which had been collaborating with Brugos on recent working groups, noted his tireless dedication to anti-militarist organising, opposition to NATO and solidarity with peoples resisting war and occupation. Brugos had recently retired from teaching but remained active until days before his death. Friends and comrades across the left have expressed profound loss. “Your loss is enormous for the movement in Asturies, the Spanish state and internationally”, wrote Anticapitalistas. For the Confederación Intersindical, his legacy is a mandate to continue “the defence of public services, critical education, equality of rights, democratic memory and solidarity between peoples”. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Verified machine edit The post Tino Brugos (1958–2025) appeared first on Freedom News.

THE CONFLICT FRONTMAN WAS ONE OF THE FEW WHO WALKED THE PUNK WALK AS MUCH AS THEY TALKED IT ~ Phil ~ Colin Jerwood, frontman and organiser of legendary anarcho-punk band Conflict, has passed away after a short illness, his family said in a statement released yesterday. The band also released a statement saying “As you can imagine we are struggling to find the words to describe how sad and upset we feel upon hearing of the loss of our band member and dear friend Colin. We extend our deepest condolences to James, Georgia and the rest of Colin’s family and friends. We ask that you respect their wishes and understand that we are all currently grieving a great loss”. Jerwood, who was 63, had led Conflict since their formation in South London in 1981. The band’s first release was the 1982 EP “The House That Man Built” on Crass Records. The next year they started their own label, Mortarhate, which also released music by other artists including Hagar the Womb, Icons of Filth, Lost Cherrees, The Apostles, and Stalag 17. Self-described as the Ungovernable Force, Colin and Conflict were in the thick of the action, whether the agenda was anti-war, animal rights or anti-capitalism. They gained notoriety for acts such as providing addresses of vivisectionists on the inside of their record sleeves, and they financially supported organisations and bust funds. A concert at Brixton Academy in 1987, labelled The Gathering of the 5,000, with Steve Ignorant added to the line up and poet Benjamin Zephaniah enlisted to help out, was violently attacked by the police and ended in a riot that had major consequences for the band. In Colin’s own words: “Three punk bands have been the subject of parliamentary debate, The Sex Pistols, Crass and Conflict. Only one has ever been officially banned from making live appearances by order of a white paper, and that is Conflict”. With Conflict in Los Angeles, 1985. Photo: Luis Castro The band’s latest work, “This Much Remains”, was released only last month, and recently Colin had been working on his memoir, encompassing “Conflict, the movement, and me.” His untimely passing is a major shock for many, and a tribute page has been created where many fans are paying their respects. “Colin and Conflict, Crass, and all the rest of those bands from the early 80s set me on the trajectory of my whole life”, wrote one contributor, “I now work for a trade union as a consequence of those politics and ethics. No compromise with the servants of power! An inspiring life Colin. Thank you”. Another fan wrote: “I remember the day 1983 when the 16 year old me went off to buy the first album. It’s a cliche to say that a record changed your life and the way you think. But inside every cliche there’s a grain of truth. This was mine. Thanks for all the gigs, the music and the sentiment. You will always be missed.” My personal recollection goes back to the summer of 1990, when a 17 year old version of me saw the Stone Roses play in Spike Island. I also saw Conflict play at the Marquee in Charing Cross Road. You can guess which had the bigger impact. A rare gig for Conflict at that time, they hadn’t played for a while and had to play previous gigs secretly under pseudonyms. I had only recently been introduced at school to Crass and Conflict, both bands were before my time and punk had already gone underground. It was a miracle I ever heard of them. I’m so glad I did. The lyrics of these bands opened windows, and actually blew the bloody doors off in my case of how I thought about the world. The blinkers were off. While I found Crass to have more of an individualistic take on things, I warmed to Conflict, their desire to build a movement and their emotional take on politics and humanity. What was very important to me was Colin’s honesty about the scene he saw around him. Performing at T-Chances, 2017. Photo: Del Blyben When I found out yesterday he had suddenly passed away, I was first in disbelief (Conflict have been touring with their new record), and then very, very sad. Colin Jerwood, the man who led a band but never wanted to be a leader (“you never wanted leaders but you treated us as such”), one of the few who walked the punk walk as much as they talked it. He supported human rights, animal rights, class war and anti-fascism, and dealt head-on with police and state violence. There are so many stories that could be written about Colin and so many points of view, lots has been written and I’m sure lots more will be. Recently he featured in the publication Anarcho-Punk: Music and Resistance in London 1977-1988 by David Insurrection. Colin talked about freedom, about anarchism, about hypocrisy and about the power we have and don’t realise. He turned me, a teenage council estate kid, into new ways of thinking and I will be forever grateful.  -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Top image: Jerwood at Punks against Cancer 5, Derby, 2017. Photo: Ian Taylor The post Colin Jerwood R.I.P. appeared first on Freedom News.

~ James Barrett ~ From an anarchist perspective, Pope Francis was certainly not the worst of the men who have sat their elderly backsides on Papal thrones in living memory. Both John Paul and the execrable red-shoes Ratzinger were aggressive social conservatives and controlling personalities who used their power in the most unpleasant of ways, enabling the worst elements of Catholic communities to indulge themselves. Francis, by contrast, was a soft leftie and a sympathetic figure towards liberationist movements particularly in Latin America, once memorably declaring he saw little difference between the aims of communism and Catholicism. A bit silly perhaps, and he spent his later years carefully refuting any insinuation that he might be a Marxist, but a good example of where his general principles lay and often, where he took action. His position at the top of a fundamentally reactionary structure negotiating the halls of power across several continents was, however, an obvious straightjacket and in many ways, a perfect example of the anarchist critique writ in practice. Whatever his personal views might have been, he was subject to pressures that frequently led to regressive statements, struggling to get anywhere advancing the position of women and especially LGBT+ people beyond a vague line of “it’s a sin but don’t judge” (his vocal position on trans people being a low), and having his focus on the poor and downtrodden largely ignored by the wealthy and powerful. Where his predecessors were able, in their alignment, to largely let loose the dogs of what we know today as culture wars, he was reduced to an often symbolic role, a kindly figure in a golden cage. Francis was, as far as can be told, a decent and well intentioned man within the limitations of his beliefs and position. And he was an example of how the hierarchies of power are not designed to set us free. ~ Victoria Alcock  ~ We might say that Pope Francis was a more liberal Pope than his predecessors, where for example he backed the decriminalisation of homosexuality, saying that “Persons with homosexual tendencies are children of God” [1], or where he argued the exploitation of people and the earth “for the sake of making money” forced people to have to migrate as a result of war and hunger [2]. In terms of actually enacting change, however, the Pope was good at talking the talk, less so walking the walk. We see this with issues such as the historic claims of paedophilia and rape within the Catholic church. Child sexual abuse has been happening since the origin of the Roman Catholic Church as an institution in the 1st century [3]. When it comes to Pope Francis’ response to cases within the church, he was seen to only really denounce abuses publicly when scrutinised about what the Vatican had been doing to deal with it more recently. In 2014 Francis established a panel of international experts to “recommend how to protect minors”, but the panel members had so many problems dealing with the Vatican’s evasiveness, lack of transparency and cooperation that by 2023 most had resigned [4]. He also only denounced the abuses of a Chilean bishop in 2018 after heavy pressure, initially defending the bishop “demanding the accusers show proof of his guilt” [5], and later that he had made “serious mistakes in the assessment and perception of the situation” [6]. Despite all this, it must be said that he has done more than any Pope before him to deal with the issue of sexual abuse within the church, holding a four day Protection of Minors in the Church summit in 2019. He also made a “never again” pledge after an earlier scandal amongst a variety of parishes in Australia in 2012 [7]. The problem, as a variety of sources have described it, is the fact that the Catholic Church is a global institution, and the official stances on issues that the Vatican tries to put into effect through policy are hard to control given the priorities and actions of all the different Catholic governing bodies across the globe. Though Francis may have had the best intentions among his peers, he still failed to recognise the fact this is a systemic issue within the church, saying in the 2019 summit “The consecrated person, chosen by God to guide souls to salvation, lets himself be subjugated by his own human frailty, or by his own illness, thus becoming a tool of Satan. In the abuses, we see the hand of evil that does not spare even the innocence of children” [8]. He used the issue to reaffirm one of the fundamental beliefs at the heart of the Catholic faith, that good must triumph over evil, and that as Catholics we must remember to follow God, and not fall victim to the tricks of Satan and sinful human desires. But then, I suppose, what is the point of the job of the Pope if not to encourage people to believe in God as the head of the Catholic Church? He did the most that any Pope has done in the 20th and 21st century to tackle the church’s history of sexual abuse, but much, much more has to be done. He had the opportunity to do more, but at times failed to commit to radical action, protecting his clergy first. After so many years of abuse, the Pope shouldn’t have questioned the validity of the claims of victims. Pope Francis set the ball rolling with regard to more liberal reforms within the church. Whoever the next Pope is, if they want to continue in Pope Francis’ legacy, will have their work cut out for them because, (pardon the pun) the bar is in Hell. [1] Pope Francis says laws criminalising LGBT people are a ‘sin’ and an injustice [2] XXXI World Youth Day Address [3] The Roman Catholic Church: A Centuries Old History of Awareness of Clerical Child Sexual Abuse (from the First to the 19th Century) [4] [5] Clerical sex abuse: Pope Francis’s thorniest challenge [6] Pope Francis’ Letter to the Bishops of Chile, Following Archbishop Scicluna’s Report [7] How will Pope Francis deal with abuse in the Catholic Church? [8] Pope Francis compares child sex abuse to human sacrifice The post Papal Accounts: Some thoughts on Pope Francis appeared first on Freedom News.

THE GLASGOW ANARCHIST POET AND PROPAGANDIST WAS A SEEKER OF PEACE ~ Ethel McDonald ~ One of the leading lights of contemporary anarchism, John Couzin, died at home in Glasgow, Scotland in his partners arms aged almost 91. Active in Glasgow, and deeply interested in social history, John was angry that the lack of preservation of anarchist history played to the power of the State and was easily exploited by other political parties, because it was also the denial of our existence. John started to gather names and events, produced the online Strugglepedia wiki and researched Clydeside Anarchists in his book Radical Glasgow which led to the set up the Radical Glasgow History Project. Eventually he was the main driver behind the co-founded Spirit of Revolt Archives of Dissent and uploaded almost all of it online. John ran a blog (including radical map and local events list) under the pseudonym AnnArky for 20 years reaching around 2 million hits. The blog lent itself to a free street paper format thus the birth of – the Anarchist Critic. He founded Voline Press under which he self published his 5 poetry books. John played chess daily to a very high level and tried to start a club last year but ill health slowed him down as it did over the years from time to time. John was known in the family as Jack but by his comrades as John. He was born in 1934 before WW2 in the notorious Garngad Glasgow slums, so bad the City Council demolished it and renamed the area. The family moved to Balornock. Johns father William was a coal miner and mother Lizzie mostly a factory worker, he had two older sisters Sadie and Margaret and a younger sister Betty. It was a deeply loving and supportive family. He was a tall quiet boy, talented pianist and very keen on chess from age 11. He was evacuated out of Glasgow with his sisters to a farm, treated there like a son and remembers the joy he witnessed from the old horse, kicking and frolicking as it was let out to the grazing field on its last day of toil. He refused University which the Miners’ Union would have paid for and instead took up an engineering study course followed by apprenticeship at the Fairfield’s Shipyard. He enjoyed his time, discovered Anarchist ideas and was vocal and active there, taking part in the Apprentices strike 1952. He was also exposed to asbestos later developing pleural plaques and saw his best friend Ian, die of mesothelioma. He witnessed the drowning of his young friend Archie, a riveter who fell from ship scaffolding, an event which deeply disturbed him his whole life. He saw first hand government contracts and the waste of public money swishing around the Defence Industry by being employed to build ships that got decommissioned after their launch. He was refused a contract there and moved to Vickers where he soon realised the different pay structure of piecework was responsible for the backstabbing race to finish first for bonuses at the expense of health and safety. John left engineering and got a job selling round the doors in slum areas. He sold furniture, TVs and insurance, returning weekly to pick up the payments. He saw the worst things that haunted his mind, cold hungry unwashed children, families burning floorboards to heat and cook, babies sleeping on bundles of coats for a bed. He eventually left it and moved into shop retail as by now he had met Ann and they had two children, Brian and Corinne to support. He succeeded at retail working his way up to manager, breaking records for profits because by default he gained bonuses he needed to keep the family. They moved to Pollokshaws and he grew roses, the kids settled at school and made friends. He bought a boat which the whole family enjoyed. By the time he was in his 50’s they had left home and he joined Amnesty International which John regarded as a useful way to raise awareness and denounce injustices at the hands of the powerful everywhere. He was the Urgent Action Coordinator for Scotland, reading daily bulletins of torture victims and trying to promote these in the Scottish Press to establish support campaigns. After three years he found it too painful to read another one and he moved on to SACRO, volunteering to drive prisoner’s families for visits across Scotland. He retired from sales aged 59 and increased his time in the gym as well as his long distance road cycling regular 90 miles, with overnight stay and returning home the next day. In his 70’s he had established the AnnArky blog, he had completed the book Radical Glasgow selling it at book fairs, and he had started to produce the Anarchist Critic street paper which ran for 20 years from 2002-22. It was an anti-capitalist paper exposing the flaws and contradictions of Capitalists; multinational corporations, empires, clubs, States and Borders, IMF, European Central Bank, World Bank and Davos Economic Forum. The Anarchist Critic was anti-war, anti-authoritarian, anti–imperialist protest literature but not pacifist, as John believed self-defence is an immutable right. He was a very well known face in Glasgow giving out his paper. His Depleted Uranium feature was published in Freedom. His family was now expanded by Stathis his new son-in-law and Stavros and Stefania two lovely grandchildren. In 2005 he met Stasia a fellow activist and soulmate, and they very happily fell in together as a deeply loving couple for 20 years. In 2011 he co-founded with others the Spirit of Revolt Archives of dissent, both online and publicly accessible at the Mitchell Library. John also tried to establish the return of May Day to Glasgow Green, the gathering place, execution site and historical location for voicing political agitation in Glasgow for hundreds of years. Over recent years the city council under-invested in the People’s Palace museum running it into closure and the March organisers have diluted May Day”s impact, rerouted it, dissociating it from the Glasgow Green site thereby actively diminishing the importance of the event, deeply significant to Anarchists. In January John’s son Brian died very suddenly which shook the whole family and broke his heart. John was an avid reader and poet throughout his life and produced 5 books of powerful poems now being translated into French. We are all grieving for John now, he may have left us but his work for Anarchism in Scotland raises our profile, legitimises our existence and paves the way for future generations to build upon as he had wished. His big hearted love for everyone has left a deep impression upon us all and the memory of John Couzin’s own spirit of revolt will forever remain a source of inspiration in our lives. The post John Couzin (1934–2025) appeared first on Freedom News.

FAMOUS FOR HIS PHILOSOPHICAL ANARCHISM, HE WAS ALSO A CHAMPION OF BLACK LIBERATION AND ANTI-WAR MOVEMENTS ~ James Birmingham ~ Philosopher and professor of Afro-American studies Robert Paul Wolff passed away at the age of 91 on January 6, 2025. Wolff was born in Queens, NYC and earned his philosophy degrees at Harvard, finishing his PhD at the young age of 23. He spent his academic career in philosophy until 1992 when he transitioned to the Afro-American studies department at the University of Massachusetts Amherst until 2008. He was a champion of Black studies and his dedication to the field of thought is expounded in 2005’s Autobiography of an Ex-White Man. Wolff had a long and prolific career with a wide range of research interests including Kant, Rawls, Marx, critiques of Liberalism, and Anarchism. For most readers of Freedom the book he will be known for is 1970’s In Defense of Anarchism. I first read this text at the age of 19 and it truly helped refine and sharpen my own sense of Anarchism as a philosophy in and of itself. Most other books that are offered as introductory texts about anarchism focus on classical thinkers (Wolff’s book, arguably in error, eschews mention of Bakunin, Kropotkin, Goldman, etc.), events in Anarchist history and labour movements, and the culture of people and organisations that used the A-word. When most of us use the term anarchism we are referring to a milieu – not just thought, but practice, culture, fashion, and a sense of connection to a history of anarchists. Wolff’s book is different – and that difference is quite useful. Reading In Defense of Anarchism armed me with ideas and arguments that proved extremely effective in discussions with professors and students who did not have classical anarchist thinkers in their repertoire. It is a sharp and incisive book that is reliant on Kant’s philosophy but ultimately makes broad arguments nigh all anarchists would agree with. Wolff didn’t just write from and for the Ivory Tower—he was a loud and insistent voice for various social movements, from Black liberation to protests of the war in Vietnam to nuclear disarmament. His letter to the editor from the July 30, 1967 issue of the New York Times deserves to be reprinted in full: Right to Rebel To the Editor:    The men who founded this nation believed that when a people were oppressed, and their pleas for justice were ignored, and they were denied all redress for their legitimate grievances, then that people had a moral right to rise up against their government and throw off its yoke. The Negro ghetto dwellers of this nation are oppressed; their pleas for justice have been ignored; the Congress of the United States mocks their misery; their peaceful demonstrations make no change in the oppression. The conclusion is obvious and inescapable: American Negroes have as much right to rebel now as the patriots of 1776 had then. Can anyone maintain that the British rule was more oppressive than that of the modern slum? Are Stokely Carmichaels’s speeches more inflammatory than those of Patrick Henry? The tragedy of the riots is not that they are happening, but that they will fail. For unlike the patriots of Colonial America, today’s oppressed Negroes are a minority, without a genuine chance to free themselves as the colonies once did. Until the injustice of the ghetto is eliminated, the American Government is illegitimate, and no decent man has a moral obligation to obey it. I’ll end this obituary with thoughts on a piece titled “APOLOGIA PRO VITA SUA” from Wolff’s personal blog dated June 1, 2020: “Many years ago, more than forty now, I gave a talk at Hampshire College in South Amherst. My theme was the relative unimportance in the struggle for social justice of disquisitions on the philosophical subtleties and niceties of Marxist theory. Invoking an image I had used before and would use again, I said that social change was not like brain surgery, where the slightest misstep could lead to death, but rather like a landslide, with huge boulders and uprooted trees sliding down a mountainside, accompanied by countless branches, clods of dirt, and even little pebbles. The important thing in life was not how big a boulder you were, but rather that you were tumbling down the right side of the mountain. “During the discussion period after the talk, a student asked, ‘If that is what you believe, why do you write books about the subtleties and niceties of Marxian theory’? I replied, ‘Writing books is a quite minor contribution to the struggle, but I am good at it, and I enjoy it, which means I will keep on doing it even when there is not much excitement in the struggle. Not everyone can be a boulder, but I think my pebble is rolling down the right side of the mountain’. “At times like these, when my world is exploding and I am sitting in my study, self-quarantined and offering my opinions to a world otherwise occupied, I remember that talk and comfort myself that at least I am bouncing down the right hillside”. I often think about this passage when asked about what I do as an anarchist. As a board member of the Institute for Anarchist Studies I mostly fundraise for our grants program and facilitate the publishing of our books co-published with AK Press. I’ll be 40 in February and I simply don’t organise in the streets in ways I did in my youth. But I know I’m rolling down the correct hillside—and I know R. P. Wolff is resting now on that same side of the mountain, awaiting the landslide. The post Robert Paul Wolff (1933-2025) appeared first on Freedom News.

THE FORMER DEPUTY PRIME MINISTER WEAPONISED HIS NORTHERN ROOTS AND TRADE UNION AFFILIATIONS TO ENABLE NEOLIBERAL LABOUR AND ITS WARS ~ Uri Gordon ~ John Prescott, the plainspoken northern bruiser who riled upper-class Tories while loyally advancing the New Labour project, has died. For many anarchists, the former Deputy Prime Minister embodied the grim transformation of Labour from its flawed but working-class-oriented roots into the hollowed-out machine of neoliberal opportunism that Tony Blair engineered. Prescott, for his part, played his role with gusto, casting himself as a champion of the common people while enabling policies that dismantled working-class solidarity. Prescott’s public persona was crafted around his origins. Born in Prestatyn, Wales, and raised in working-class Yorkshire, he became a ship steward and union activist before moving into politics—a trajectory that, on paper, seemed to mark him as a man of the people. Yet, once he ascended the ranks of the Labour Party, Prescott proved himself less a representative of working-class interests and more a willing enabler of Blairite capitalism. Prescott leaned into his northern roots and trade union affiliations with unflagging zeal. It is easy to see how, for the mainstream media, his unvarnished accent and sometimes mangled syntax made him a convenient foil to the Conservative Party, playing into the narrative of Labour as the party of “ordinary people”. Yet Prescott weaponised this image to give the Blair government a free pass for mass privatisation, devastating wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and a surveillance society at home. The infamous “Clause Four” moment, which symbolised Labour’s abandonment of its commitment to common ownership, defined the Blair years—and Prescott’s complicity in that shift was undeniable. He presided over massive council housing demolitions under the guise of urban renewal, gutting working-class communities and enabling private developers to seize prime land. It is little wonder that anarcho-punk veterans Chumbawamba famously doused Prescott in water at the 1998 BRIT Awards. Their act, they declared, was “a metaphor for the underdog pissing on the steps of Downing Street”. To his credit—or perhaps by sheer chance—Prescott occasionally found himself out of step with his New Labour colleagues. He reportedly harboured doubts about the Iraq invasion, calling it “Bush’s war”, but dutifully fell in line when the time came for Blair’s government to sell its lies to the public. He also expressed regret for Labour’s support of private finance initiatives (PFIs), which saddled the public with debt while lining corporate pockets. Yet these moments of self-awareness came long after the damage was done, and Prescott’s loyalty to the party always trumped any pangs of conscience. As anarchists, we might sympathise with Prescott’s moments of raw defiance—against aristocratic sneers or flying eggs—but they remain empty gestures when set against his political record. His career reflects the broader failure of social democratic parties to resist the pull of power and privilege. When confronted with the choice between serving the working class and serving capital, Prescott—like Labour itself—chose the latter. So farewell, Johnny Two Jags. Your bluster will be remembered, but so will your embodiment of Labour’s final divestment of its socialist pretences. History may afford you a small place in its annals as the man who punched an egg-thrower, but it will not be kind to your political legacy. For the working class you claimed to represent, you were not a champion but a cautionary tale. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Photo: Wikimedia Commons The post John Prescott: The Blairite bulldog who forgot the working class appeared first on Freedom News.

THE FRONTMAN OF HATE TO STATE AND CHALIERA DIED LESS THAN TWO YEARS AFTER A STINT OF POLITICAL IMPRISONMENT ~ from Naša Niva ~ Viktar became interested in punk as a teenager, during the Soviet era. In the early 1990s, he went to Germany and lived there in a squat occupied by punks, participating in the local punk movement. After returning to Minsk, Mao brought not only impressions, but also knowledge about the punk scene in Europe. Mao wanted to play a style called crust punk, which is usually rough and heavy music with radical social lyrics. In 1997, Viktar Žarkievič became the founder and lyricist of the Minsk punk band Hate To State, which performed alongside outstanding figures of Belarusian rock of that time. The band existed until 2000, and they played the last concert together with the group Pravakacyja, in which [prominent fiction writer] Alhierd Bacharevič was the singer. After that, Viktar sporadically played in various bands and engaged in lesser-known projects. [He also worked for Navinki, a 1998-2003 satirical journal founded by members of anarchist group Čyrvony Žond – tr.] Žarkievič was detained by Belarusian political police in September 2022. During the detention, Viktor was severely beaten. In addition, they broke a frying pan on his head and forced him to drag the fridge door, which had punk and anarchist stickers and magnets from different years, into the police station. The man’s friends say that his health and morale were greatly undermined by 30 days in Akreścina detention centre. He complained of pain even after being released from prison. Žarkievič was fired from his job at the construction site and, at least at first, was not hired for a new one due to political charges. Victor had trouble making ends meet and often complained to his friends about his health problems. Viktar ‘Mao’ Žarkievič died on September 22, 2024 in his apartment in Minsk. According to acquaintances, his heart gave out. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- A poem Mao would read at the start of every Hate To State gig, here taken from a 2013 reunion: Dictatorship is foundation of fascism, Stalin also loved dictatorship. Let a moron walk under the flag of totalitarianism With a hockey stick in hand. The main enemy of liberty is the state. It’s as simple as physical training: Discipline is foundation of fascism, Anarchy is the mother of order! The post Viktar ‘Mao’ Žarkievič (1973-2024) — Belarusian punk legend appeared first on Freedom News.