Never forget: Interview with Anarchist Black Cross - Gent

Can you tell us a bit about the history of the ABC?

In short the ABC started in Russia after the revolution of 1917. When the Bolsjeviks started taking over the revolution they also started arresting people with opposite thoughts. Anarchists formed the ABC in order to help comrades in Prison. This organisation grew out to be a sort of international network of groups who try to help all sort of prisoners. ABC groups were active to help anarchists in jail under Franco in Spain. And during and after the sixties lots a groups started in the U.K. and the U.S. and all over the globe in Western countries. Now there are ABC's in Poland, Finland, Greece,...

The ABC-Gent started from a general feeling we had towards repression from the state. We wanted to be ahead of the state for once, and wanted to have a group that can support anar-chists who are threathened with imprisonment and is ready when this happens in our area. But we also saw the importance of the support of politi-cal prisoners in other countries. We didn't just wanted to form a local 'arrest-group' we wanted to show international solidari-ty. The visit of Lorenzo Komboa Ervin a year and a half ago was very inspiring to most of us. Lorenzo spend 15 years in prison in the US for being a black revolutionary. We also learned a lot from the campaign for Mumia Abu-Jamal, who lives on death row in the US and lives under a daily threat for his live.

What are the aims of the ABC and what's the ideology?

I quote from one of our leaflets. 'The Anarchist Black Cross is an international network of groups and individuals that give practical solidarity to working class prisoners. We support anarchists, revolutiona-ries and others who have been locked-up for resistance to the rich and their capitalist system. We support and publicise prisoners efforts to organise and resist the system fom the inside. In all that we do , we try to create links in and out of prisons. Ultimately we are working toward the creation of a revolutionairy working class movement which will sweep away the capitalist system and it's prisons. As anarchists we belie-ve that prisoners have no usefull functions other than the interest of the ruling classes; and need to be abolished' So basicly we believe in an anarchist society without prisons and we support everyone who fights for this cause.

Where does ABC get it's resources? Is all the work voluntary?

We get our money from the usual stuff: benefits, selling of T-shirts, donations,... We also have a supportfund for local activists. For this we collect mainly in anarchist meeting places and squats. We put a jar on the bar and people can drop in a couple of coins. This fund is working really well and we collected a lot of money destined to be used in trials against activists.

Yes all the work is voluntary, we are not a subsidised group. The little money we have comes from our own community of anarchists.

What activities do you or other ABC groups undertake? Do you publicize?

As a group we try to follow up these issues: Supporting campaigns for the release of prisoners, Protests, Publications, raise money for our fund to support people under perse-cution of the authorities, Juridical support, Writing to prisoners, Fighting the death penalty, Fighting torture me-thods, Supporting other groups who are helping prisoners, Support of actions against prisons.

Talking to inviduals we ask them especially to write to priso-ners. If you read a zine, or a brochure and you find and address, don't think about it write. It's crucial that priso-ners don't loose contact with the outside world. It's very important that people know there is still a movement outside. ABC groups do lot's of different things. In the U.K. for example they work a lot with prisoners who commited 'common crimes'. They do a huge amount of work over their for priso-ners. Lot's of other groups support single campaigns for political prisoners with different political background.

What do you answer to people who think 'Political activists are condemmed - ergo criminals - and deserve their punishment' or

'If we support ABC, we might support murderers and terrorists'? First of all what is a terrorist, what is a murderer. Who defines these words. I think it's very important that we realise that a lot of words we use are defined by 'our' autho-ri-ties and those who want to maintain the status quo.

Secondly, if you're an anarchist, which means you oppose the state, you don't follow their settings. A court rule has no meaning to me. I have my own opinion and moral views on how people act, and I don't need a judge who rules over laws. Maybe with an example you learn more on how we think about supporting prisoners. In Belgium there are four well-known political prisoners: Pierre Carette, Didier Chevolet, Bertrand Sassoye and Pascal Vandegeerde - correct, the people from the CCC (belgian underground armed groups who were active in the middle of the eighties). All four of them are in prison for over ten years. They be released under belgian law. The state refuses to release them because they don't want to denounce their political beliefs. We call for their support. Why? Simple because they are only in prison for their beliefs and our civilised western world refuses to admits that it has po liti-cal prisoners in it's caves. At this point I do not want to discuss the politics of the CCC which was a vanguard maoist group (I do not agree with), but I want to discuss the cruel and injust ruling of the Belgian police state.

If you're a revolutionary you know what you're up against. The capitalists have the intend to crush every form of fundamental opposition. I have a problem with words like 'terrorist' and 'murderer' in a society where every day 38000 children die because of hunger caused by capitalist 'entrepeneurs' and western 'democrasies'.

And we're not only speaking out for the 'political prisoners'. We speak out for everyone who sits in prison. We don't consi-der ourselves in the position to judge upon individuals who have to survive in a hard and unjust society. Yes people do wrong things and there is such a thing as anti-social crime we all condemm. But the standard for dealing with those people are not set by us or the people but by the ruling elite, who has interest in puting people in prison. In the US the figures of imprisoned people are growing enormously, and Europe is following this trend. The state which sees growing threats in the form of unemployed and working class people, puts more and more people in prisons in stead of for example putting money in education. It is scaring to see how refugees are put in concentration camps.

And how society deals with drug addiction by building more jails instead of solving the cause why people intoxicate and poison themselves. It is scary to see how companies like for example group 4 in the U.K. and Australia, and Wackenhut in de U.S.A. are building and managing privatised prisons. This is the side of the medal we want to focus on.

Some people see anarchist still as 'violent bomb-throwers out to cause chaos', how can we change those people's ideas?

It's not easy to change people's ideas about certain things. We don't have the same propaganda tools as our opponents. A lot of work can be done in your own community. If you just act and do your thing, people get to know you and learn that anarchist are not bringers of chaos. Anarchy is a natural way of organising. More natural than authorities who need brutal force and lies to maintain themselves. The word anarchy itself comes from greek and means something like 'absence of autority', this is something totally diffe-rent from the word 'chaos'. It's funny to remark that the most known anar-chist symbol - the A in a circle - comes from a French group of the fifties and means 'Anarchy is Order'. If you read some of the old guys (Bakoenin, Kropotkin, Proudhon,...) you'll learn more about this. It's not all old crap they write about. The anarchist movement consists of many people with different opinions. A lot of anarchists struggle in a 'non-violent' way, lot's of anarchists think capitalism and the state won't give up without a fight. From both groups people are imprisoned. And we support all of them! It's easy to pin somebody down on a simplified image. I never ever read one word in the bourgeois media that what based upon our ideas and thoughts. This doesn't deliver good copy, and could be a threat for those who want to maintain status qou. We don't want reforms and they know this very well. Our views are not only based upon the slogans we shout out and the simple words we use in this interview trying to express ourselves. Anarchists have been refining their ideas and trying to build up an alternative for decades now. We don't want to stick to these academics, but also want to focus on those who were out there doing things and got 'caught' doing them, or were simply framed by the cops, or were just survi-ving in a cruel world.

Lot's of people think there's no better alternative than capitalism... What's your idea?

There must be an alternative to starvation and oppression. Wouldn't it be a bit sad that after all these years of 'civilisation' we've come to this? Capitalism is an economical system based upon the accumulation of goods by privileged people. It's is not based upon cooperation based upon need both it only serves the greed of the happy few... To make a short and simple analy-sis. As individuals we have a choice, and together we can make a change for the better. People should believe more in them-selves then in those self-appointed lea-ders who claim they know what good for us.

How can the ABC Gent be contacted?

If you want to know more about our group, the ABC in general or about prisons and prisoners please write us for more information. But maybe even better then writing us, write to a prisoner. Write to ABC Gent, c/o PO BOX 40, 9000 Gent 2, Belgium (don’t write ABC on the envelope), e-mail: abc_gent@yahoo.com, http://www.xs4ll.be/ance/abc-gent

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