A-Infos (en) Brazil, CAB: WHAT ARE WE NOT DOING? - OPINION LETTER (FAS) - 52 YEARS OF THE MILITARY COUP IN CHILE (ca, de, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

September 11, 1973, marks the date of Chile's military coup. Fifty-two 
years later, among the actions taken to commemorate that day and keep 
its history alive among new generations, the Anarchist Federation of 
Santiago (FAS) published an opinion letter addressing the current 
political situation in Chile. As part of an effort to look to the past 
and seek relevant lessons for the present, enabling us to build a 
different and revolutionary future, the FAS offers a critical reflection 
that we believe is also useful for reflecting on the current situation 
in Brazil.

Thus, as an effort to bring together topics discussed in various Latin 
American territories, the Brazilian Anarchist Coordination (CAB) 
reproduces the FAS opinion letter translated into Portuguese. Timely, 
considering that on September 11, 2025, Brazil was convicted of the 
genocidal Jair Bolsonaro and his cronies, the text leads us to reflect 
on periods in which bourgeois democracy presents itself as a more 
palatable alternative. At the same time, this reading alerts us that the 
institutions of bourgeois democracy and the authoritarian outbursts of 
segments of the political elite are nothing more than two sides of the 
same coin, whose objective coincides: to maintain a ruling class of 
bosses and business owners in power at the expense of the oppressed 
people, who see their living conditions worsen regardless of who 
occupies the seats of the State's institutional rabble in its control of 
capital.

WHAT ARE WE NOT DOING? An important question 52 years after the military 
coup.

In times like these, it is difficult to be self-critical and question 
what we are not doing. This exercise of self-criticism seems merely 
self-flagellating, its only achievement being to discourage organized 
comrades, or even demotivate some. But we believe these reflections are 
necessary to advance what we believe in: a dignified life for our class, 
and those who do not submit to this exercise only advance toward 
self-complacency.

Let's begin, then, with what we are doing.

We are constantly tracking reality, monitoring and diagnosing it, which 
is undoubtedly essential, but not sufficient. The global reality is a 
scenario in which the paradigms imposed in the second half of the 20th 
century are in full transition. New world orders are emerging, liberal 
democracies, in their capitalist nature, are giving way to fascist, 
conservative, and authoritarian structures. However, this does not mean 
that the mechanisms of domination will necessarily transform. The 
brutality of the genocide carried out by the Israeli state, with the 
direct complicity of the United States, demonstrates, in our opinion, 
that war will be a tool that capitalism and patriarchy will continue to 
use. This reveals at least two things: the civilizational regression of 
societies globally and the passive complicity of the rest of those in 
power in different territories and at different levels of the world. The 
global reordering, this transition we speak of, will be marked by the 
genocide of the Palestinian population in Gaza, and the world will have 
to live with it.

A global perspective makes it inevitable that we look at our immediate 
reality. In an exercise of diagnostic synthesis, perhaps the statement 
we consider most pertinent is that the (neo)liberal democracy in which 
we live is not in crisis, as many claim, but rather in the process of 
completing its capitalist mission, something reflected in different 
political, social, and economic dynamics that are constantly 
intertwined.[In Chile], after the restitution processes, a restitution 
of the order of domination was established, which was challenged in part 
by the 2019 uprising and its preceding processes. This necessarily had 
to be accompanied by the sharp implementation of state repressive force, 
a social dynamic that, behind the curtain of social security, only 
succeeded in murdering and instilling terror in the population and 
undermining social organization, in addition to allowing the return of 
the naturalization of hate speech, patriarchy, and denialist discourse. 
We observe closely and are on constant alert, because one expression of 
all this is the open dispute over community spaces recovered and 
occupied by social organizations, where women resist the attacks of the 
state and corporations.

We also identify how conventional political dynamics produce a media 
spectacle, expressed, for example, in electoral disputes or some 
parliamentary maneuver, that seeks to numb the class conflict.[In 
Chile], this false dichotomy between "left" and "right" is merely the 
populist face of the party of order, with which they try to make us 
believe that there are abysmal differences between these factions. The 
best example in the current situation is the supposed political distance 
between the progressive and social-democratic candidate, Jara, and other 
nefarious figures like Kaiser, Kast, and Mathei. In practice, however, 
all these conglomerates have invested in a class-based project, the 
reproduction of a system of capitalist and patriarchal domination based 
on ideas like xenophobia, individualism, racism, authoritarianism, etc.

The model we live in has a well-oiled machine to continue reproducing 
capital, which, protected by bourgeois legality, keeps us submerged in a 
world of consumption, financialization, labor exploitation, and 
ecological devastation (in this regard, just look at how the party of 
order legislates the law of permits without much difficulty, which will 
only further the devastation of our bodies and territories).

However, it seems relevant to emphasize the other economy this democracy 
promotes daily: that of organized crime. The façade of the rule of law 
and the battle against organized crime is crumbling. Liberal democracy, 
as state and capital, operates in both a legal and an illegal market (in 
its own terms). They tell us they are against all organized crime, that 
they condemn drug trafficking, but what we see daily in our communities 
is different. Although the state publicly presents itself as a staunch 
opponent of organized crime, reality shows that the very model of 
consumption it promotes, coupled with the various corrupt practices in 
the territories, generate functional ties to these illicit structures. 
In many cases, far from confronting them, these dynamics end up 
transforming the State into its best ally, as they allow the 
installation of social control mechanisms that serve to harass and 
intimidate those who organize and fight for a dignified life. Just look 
at what happened with the "King of Meigs" case, an emblematic example of 
the complicity between business, the corrupt State, organized crime, and 
the world of television entertainment. Violence, consumption, and state 
and police corruption are at the core of the free market model protected 
by this liberal democracy.

And now, what aren't we doing?

The simplest answer we can give is that we aren't offering an 
organizational alternative that makes sense to the majority of the 
population. The social and organizational backlash is tremendous, and 
those of us who remain organized are trapped in the difficult task of 
reconfiguring a scenario of favorable social struggles. Most likely, in 
practice, we are building a militancy that promotes organizational 
spaces, but with a series of limitations and difficulties. In this 
sense, we believe that certain impulses are lacking, which we will 
attempt to describe below.

The current political climate raises questions: are we prepared for the 
upcoming political struggles? Currently, it is most likely that the 
right-wing wing of the Party of Order will take over the state 
administration for the next four years, which will mean that 
progressivism and social democracy will return to the streets, 
attempting to lead any expression of the social movement. This issue, if 
they maintain the government's continuity, will continue to be an 
obstacle to the class struggle, as they have been until now. In this 
sense, we propose that organizations positioning themselves on the 
revolutionary side develop plans of struggle with the aim of creating a 
strong people, which implies resuming and being an active part of the 
struggles for demands. The reorganization of the residents' movement 
fighting for housing and affordable housing is inevitable, putting 
forward a horizon of confrontation against the bourgeois state and the 
business community represented by the Chilean construction chamber. In 
turn, the struggle of workers cannot continue to be consumed by the 
clientelist or caudillo-like logic of certain leaders. Unions must rise 
up in struggle, with the imperative need to bring the idea of 
unionization to workers who, until now, believe that the best way to 
solve their problems is individually. Militant capacity must be directed 
toward creating spaces for struggle and organization, avoiding isolation 
in identity-based actions, where each demand to the state and employers 
is made in a confrontational and political manner, avoiding falling into 
technicalities, as the political dispute always precedes the technical 
dispute.

It is not only essential to fight against reformism and its siren songs, 
since fascism advances daily, building political structures, and 
establishing itself as an ideological project that resonates with a 
portion of the population. In light of this, the battle of ideas becomes 
fundamental, where agitation and propaganda become transcendental. The 
ideas that inform our historical construction of struggle must be 
accompanied by a reinterpretation or reimagining of the revolutionary. 
The political and social revolution must once again become a possible 
idea, an idea that permeates a different life, a dignified life. 
However, the struggle of ideas will not be sufficient in this period 
unless we can build them from the social foundations. That is, popular 
protagonism in the creation and strengthening of grassroots 
organizations is what is called to produce and reproduce the new 
imaginaries of revolution.

From these premises, it is possible to identify our shortcomings and 
define, as anarchists, how we move forward. The call is to create an 
Anarchist Political Organization, where tactical and ideological unity 
are the basis of a strategy of revolutionary rupture aimed at creating a 
Front of the Oppressed Class. We must revive the idea of anarchist 
militancy, which creates organizations where there are none and 
strengthens those that already exist. We are not served by 
individualistic stances that do not contribute to rebuilding the social 
fabric, nor by self-indulgent experiences that sustain spaces to feed 
the egos of the convinced. Direct action militancy is necessary, but one 
that is dedicated to organizational tasks, so that every attack on power 
is imbued with massiveness and revolutionary legitimacy.

Two years after commemorating the 50th anniversary of the civil-military 
coup that ushered in the bloody and brutal dictatorship in the Chilean 
region, we believe that the reflections we made at that time are still 
valid. We reaffirm our critical stance toward the institutional 
government of the UP (Unidad Popular) and its capitalist modernization 
project that promoted class conciliation and the strengthening of state 
mechanisms of domination. We also continue to recognize and emphasize 
the processes that were being woven from the social grassroots, outside 
of bourgeois institutional agendas and party leadership. We believe that 
it was these demonstrated capacities of the popular and oppressed 
classes that mobilized the civil and military coup conspiracy.

We continually look to the past, in an exercise of permanent memory 
against forgetting, which allows us to identify with certainty what 
happened and reveal the lessons and practical wisdom, in order to 
dispute the present and build the future.

https://cabanarquista.com.br/o-que-nao-estamos-fazendo-carta-de-opiniao-fas/
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