For many years vegetarianism, veganism and alcohol abstention has been common in revolutionary circles. Just do a quick search on the quick search on the internet to run into a list of utopian figures, reformist, revolutionary, communitarians and individualists who chose this lifestyle. Great figures of anarchism as Jules Bonnot or anarchist militant Severino Di Giovanni maintened a sober life. But abstemious life style was not only a personal choice, it has also been promoted at a collective level.
As we can see in the documentaries "Collective dreams" and "Living Utopia" during the Spanish Social Revolution of 1936 many anarchists communities rejected the use of alcohol. The rebellious position within the hardcore punk community were evident, though only some bands were highly political in nature, as Larm or Manliftingbanner. In the nineties many vegan straight edge bands were commited to animal rights activism, environmentalism and anti-imperialism. Bands like Birthright and Chokehold had position very close to anarchism, who later would be reflacted in bands like 7 Generations or Gather. In general, many of its values can be transferred to the anarchist ideology. Thus, the philosophy of Do It Yourself (DIY) has much to do with anarchist concepts of individual responsibility and self-management, and the convictions and commitment shown are equivalent to those of every revolutionary movement with social impact. Straight Edge has also had its influence in the anti-imperialist resistance and anti-globalization movement in Latin America. In Argentina the Cooperative Libertarian Straight Edge, which was responsible for spreading information about veganism and straight edge was created. In turn, many bands began to have a high political component closely tied to veganism or vegetarianism. Europe has also made the connection between straight edge and anti-fascism. Joel B. Almgren and Linus K. latter Neighborhood band singer, are in prison for his role in the Swedish anti-fascist movement. In Russia there is a large participation of straight edge people in the anti-fascist and anarchist movement in the country, as you can see in the video reportage International Research Project Episode 1. Straigh Age. Anarchists? Another country in Europe with an anti-fascist attitude in and out of the scene is Poland.
Anti-fascist fight and drugs
Drug addiction, like alcoholism, has been a problem that has always affected mostly the opressed classes. For years, workers and revolutionary movements have sought to adress this problem, as they saw it one more consequence of a life of misery. Anarchism goes futher, as evidenced by the fact that the fight against alcohol is a transverse element to this ideology, since its inception. Alcoholic beverages are presented from the first founding texts as poison sinister capitalists Borgias intended to maintain dull, far from the revolution, the will of workers: "Contaminated by the toxic, the worker doesn't feel the chains, nor the degradation of enslavement" a temperance treated with eloquent title "The damn poison". In Argentina there was a great work of awareness of the problem of alcohol on the working clas of the time, something that is seen in the film "La Patagionia Rebelde", based on the book The Anarchist historian Osvaldo Bayer: "Alcohol only serves to stultify the people, it is a weapon of the bourgeoisie". One of the greates anarchists in Argentina, was the Italian insurrectionary anarchist Severino Di Giovanni, living sober in an anti-fascist struggle and after the long-awaited social revolution. In Chile the anarchist sector devoted to generate new forms of sociability and a new working system based on mutual support and solidarity in the struggle for full emancipation of human values. Constant learning would only cease at the tavern and the capitalist vices. They should change the glass of alcohol alienating sociological and scientific books "Workers, do not drink!". Many workers, lously parents and worse, husbands, forgot the most sacred duties, wasted half or a third of the already meager wages they receive, in alcoholic libations in the tavern, in the game, leaving women and children without bread, forced fasting and victims of alltribulations of life - "Tierra y Libertad", April 1, 1909. In the weekly anarchist, libertarian, one could read: "a higher core drinkers biggest advantages of subjugation, as it gradually removes energy, health, nobility and understanding and, what is worse, the sense of dignity. Product and supper of the capitalist regime, alcoholism will not disappear but he will". The effect will not cease as long as the cause. Even alcohol is seen as a formidable competitor revolutionary ideology inself - as Bakunin says, "the dangers of alcohol could derail the revolution to see workers in their consumption the wrong way out of their humiliating situation and an easy way to escape the miseries of capitalism". "To escape their situation (meaning the people) there are three methods, two chimeric and one real. The first two are the tavern and the church, debauchery of the body or debauchery of the mind; the third is the social revolution". In the United States at the hight of the hippie movement and unbridled hedonism, drugs were present; However, although little known, many organizations such as the American Indian Movement viewed alcoholism and drug addiction problems as the fight to be fought. The Brown Berets along with the Black Panthers banned in their ranks consumption and distribution of drugs, which were seen as weapons of alienation. The Black Panther Party created a network of support and rehabilitation for drug abusers. With the infiltration of drugs in American black, Latino and Native communities in place, the US government conducted a campaign to slander the name of such organizations, in particular that of the Black Panthers, being linked to drug trafficking and other illegal activities.
At present, the new group opened in Derry, Northern Ireland, where there is a war on drugs by the Republican Action Against Drugs (RAAD). This group takes the fight against drugs to another level, reaching the houses, threating drug dealers with either bombs or incendiary devices. In 2010 the RAAD declared an amnesty for drug traffickers who will cease operation in the region of Derry, which ended in June of that year, giving rise of the persecution of harmful elements in the community. The RAAD, like many other Republicans revolutionary groups seeking freedom from British rule and self-determination of their people against drugs see it as contrary to its purposes and harmful to the youth of the community. The RAAD, like many revolutionary groups, have blamed the police in Northern Ireland (PSNI) for the introduction of drugs in their communities under the complicity of UK, which is why in 2012 attacked a patrol of the PSNI, both for their role in drug trafficking and drug defense and for their constant harassment of Republicans and families. That same year, a rally against the government bill of PASOK tripartite legalization of drugs was held in Greece. Before it said a member of the central council of the young communists: "They know they are always faced with strong opposition from working people; which they are always faced with a wall of people who do not want the future of their children is drugs. And why do you bring now? It is clear. They want the awareness of young people being drugged so that they demands, not to fight, not to react. Drugs are no free choice, no right. It is despotic option and is the abolition of all right..." This is an important issue for a country where misery of the financial crisis had led to increased drug use and increased use of SISA, cocaine of the poor, and introduction of drugs in the combative neighborhood of Exarchia. With the increasing Kurdish conflict in Syria and the fight against the Islamic State, the Turkish state has intesified the repression of the PKK. In the response, the Patriotic Revolutionary Youth Movement, the youth PKK, has generated a response from the attacks of the Turkish special forces and turned against drug trafficking, cleaning the areas controlled by drugs and the trade, while creating a new form of organization neighborhood and increasing solidarity and mutual support in the neighborhoods.
Since many years Revolutionary Youth and DHKP-C fight against drug gangs in Istanbul's neighborhoods. On 29 september 2013 a young revolutionary, left-wing activist Hasan Ferit Gedik, was killed by the drug gang...