At our last meeting in Witten, we decided to rename ourselves into the Federation of German speaking Anarchists in order to reflect the upswing in our structures.
Even though it is still a long way for us to be present in all of the German speaking region, we still wanted to dare this step and proclaim the Federation of German speaking Anarchists. We lay great stress on the fact that we, of course, don’t see us as the “federation of all anarchists” and therefore don’t presume to be the sole legitimate representation of anarchists. Nevertheless, anarchists from all currents are welcome to join us, as long as they concur with our principles.
“German speaking” means in this context the geographical language area, especially Germany, Austria and the Northern part of Switzerland. As anarchists we want to overcome nations and state borders, a fact that we want to stress by widening the scope of the organization to this language area. Language as a criterium doesn’t have an identitary meaning for us, it’s simply the most reasonable thing regarding the daily practice – not everyone of us has the knowledge of other languages and translating all relevant information would overextend our possiblities (for now at least). Nonetheless, we have good contacts to federations and groups in other regions.
There were several reasons for this step from forum to federation: one the one hand, after a phase of stagnation in the work of FdA over the last years there is a fresh breeze and a lot of interest in supraregional networking. On the other, a lot of anarchist groups have been newly founded over the last three years. General interest in anarchist ideas has risen noticeably too.
Many groups from the Southwest of Germany have joined FdA in the last year, for example, as the first regional federation, the Anarchist Network Southwest*. Furthermore, we are present with groups in many other regions of the German speaking area, but also with a printers’ collective in Zurich, Switzerland. At the moment, large efforts are made to form a common organization of groups in the Rhine-Ruhr region, that is closely linked to FdA. For over two years, our monthly newspaper, the Gaidao, has been published as an online document, and since January also in a printed version.
We consider it important to create structures that are free of domination, to experiment with them, to gain new experiences and to consolidate those structures by doing so. We want to use our common resources in a better way, to learn from each other, to organize and practice solidarity. Together, we want to look at the bigger picture, be active supraregionally and globally. For a common international organization FdA is part of the IFA, the International of Anarchist Federations. IFA offers us the opportunity of an exchange of ideas with anarchists from around the globe and to be able to help each other in our local struggles.
Unlike other regions, like the Iberian peninsula, the French speaking region or the British Isles, we cannot resort to an organization that is functioning for decades, but need to develop a lot by ourselves. But we can see that also as a chance. We can learn from the experiences of other federations. This process is a neverending one, as it calls for a constant query and improvement of our own structures, our practices, our way of life. Of course, by proclaiming the Anarchist Federation we haven’t achieved our goal yet. Especially now, that we can see a rise in social struggles in other countries, as the capitalist crisis widens and countless people are left with nothing, as nationalism, racism, antisemitism and other inhuman ideologies are on the rise and there is a greater danger of facing fascist parties and organizations, it is important to organize ourselves against these impositions at a larger scale.
We won’t tire to fight against oppresion, exploitation and domination in order to overcome them as a whole.
With this in mind:
Live anarchy – organize anarchism!
Federation of German speaking Anarchists (FdA – IFA)
March 21, 2013