A-Infos (en) Italy, Umanita Nova #26-25 - Louise Michel and the Animals. Between Anarchism and Antispeciesism (ca, de, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

At a time when all forms of oppression - patriarchal, racist, 
capitalist, and speciesist - are strengthening and reorganizing, it 
seemed truly illuminating to us to return to a figure like Louise 
Michel: a radical activist of the revolutionary nineteenth century, a 
woman who dared to hold struggles together before categories separated 
them, before movements themselves became trapped within identity-based 
or sectorial enclosures.
What is now widely recognized about Louise Michel is her being a 
Communard, an anarchist, a feminist, but also a pioneer of libertarian 
pedagogy, a writer, and an internationalist. Yet among the thousand 
facets of her struggle, her antispeciesist voice - so early, so lucid - 
remains like an unheard echo in the historical narrative.

In a century when concepts such as Animal Liberation and Animal 
Resistance were not even imagined, Louise already recognized their 
immense political significance. For her, it was not simply about 
"defending animals" in the name of a vague sensitivity or purity, but 
about rejecting the hierarchy of human superiority that founds and 
legitimizes every other oppression. Louise understood - with a radical 
clarity that still shines today in the darkness - that domination over 
humans and over nonhumans has the same root and, inevitably, they feed 
each other.

Louise Michel and the Animals. Between Anarchism and Antispeciesism is 
therefore an attempt to recover a political genealogy of antispeciesism 
that was not born in academic think tanks, nor in campaigns for "animal 
welfare," but from below: in popular, anarchist, anticolonial, and 
transfeminist struggles. It means remembering that the animal question 
is a political one, and that any liberation movement ignoring the role 
of speciesism in reproducing power risks becoming complicit - even 
unintentionally - with that which it claims to fight against.

With this book, welcomed by Cronache Ribelli Edizioni in its series 
expressly dedicated to antispeciesism, we wanted to restore voice and 
body to a comrade from the past who has too often been reduced to a 
neutral icon, a folkloric figure of the Commune. On the contrary, Louise 
Michel was dangerous for the established order and, thanks to her 
writings, still is today. She spoke of the violence of vivisection with 
the same fury with which she denounced colonial repression. She linked 
the domestication of animals and that of humans with the same passion. 
In prison, she sought comrades in struggle among prostitutes as well as 
political prisoners, yet on the barricades she stepped away from battle 
to save a cat. For her, liberation was one and the same, and it 
concerned all bodies, human and nonhuman.

This book is therefore not a biography, but an intersectional proposal, 
alternating key phases of Louise's life (and quotes from her writings) 
with the thoughts and actions that today characterize animal liberation 
movements. It is through these two parallel lines - often intersecting 
chaotically - that we sought to highlight the essence and heart of her 
message: no liberation is possible if it continues to rest on the 
exclusion of other bodies, other lives, other worlds.

Weaving together what power divides - species, gender, class, but also 
visions of liberation such as anarchism and antispeciesism - is today 
more than ever a revolutionary act. An idea and a practice that rejects 
the logic of domination and hierarchy. From here, a truly shared freedom 
can be born: not a privilege for a few, but a common horizon. Because 
even freedom, if it is not for everyone, is just one more privilege 
among many.

Louise Michel and the Animals. Between Anarchism and Antispeciesism
by Troglodita Tribe
Zanne Series. Antispeciesist Books - Cronache Ribelli Edizioni
114 pages, EUR12
https://cronacheribelli.it/products/louise-michel-e-gli-animali-tra-anarchismo-e-antispecismo

https://umanitanova.org/louise-michel-e-gli-animali-tra-anarchismo-e-antispecismo/
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