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Canenero ( selections from the Italian anarchist paper) Wolfi Landstreicher, Ardent Press
Canenero was a weekly anarchist publication that came out in Italy between the end of 1994 and the beginning of 1997 with one break. This was when the Marini investigation against anarchists began to bear its rotten fruit in an attempt to imprison dozens of anarchists on charges of “subversive association” or membership in an “armed gang”. One of the ideas behind Canenero was to provide a means for ongoing communication and discussion in the face of this repressive operation of the state. A substantial portion of the material in the paper dealt with the situation and the various anarchist responses to it.
But the editors of Canenero were not willing to allow the repressive activity of the state to define the limits of the discussion in the paper they published, so along with information and analysis of that specific situation other significant questions and idea were raised in its pages. Thus, within its pages one could find pointed, but brief, theoretical articles, social and historical analyses and bitingly witty looks at the weeks news.
Of course, as is appropriate for a weekly publication, most of the articles are specific to the time they were written, intended for immediate use in the heat of the situation that was going on. But there were enough articles of more general interest that I considered it worth my while to translate a number of them for publication in this form. I have already mad some of this material available in More, Much More, a collection of writings by Massimo Passamani whose ideas I find particularly thought-provoking, and The Fullness of a Struggle Without Adjectives, texts originally intended to stimulate a discussion about armed struggle groups that appeared in the last few issues of Canenero.
In this booklet, I have collected a number of articles that I find particularly stimulating. I am certainly not in agreement with every word here. But I have found all of it to be a stimulus to deepening my own thinking on the sorts of questions raised. If, for example, Mario Cacciuco’s description of relationships between people as that of “spheres that bounce of each other” and his consequent rejection of the very idea of love and friendship seem rather bleak to me, this is precisely why his article provokes me to examine the nature of everyday relationships more closely, particularly those that we call “love” and “friendship”. In fact, one of the things that stands out for me in these articles is the way in which they are able to raise significant questions, often about matters that we take for granted, in so few words.
I have chosen to print the material in chronological order. The first article was an introduction to the project and the last was the editors’ explanation for bringing the project to a close. In this last piece, the problems that confront any anarchist publishing project are made clear. As anarchists, hopefully, we do not publish just in order to have something to do. There has to be a purpose that relates to our broader life project of revolt. If we don’t want to be leaders or evangelists carrying a supposed revolutionary gospel to whatever imaginary “masses”, then it seems to me that the idea of developing relationships of affinity and complicity in which significant discussion plays a central part would be a primary reason for publishing. Without this, publishing seems to be a meaningless spewing forth of words playing into the degradation of language that this society imposes through its own one-way “communication”. And real discussion is not a mere taking of positions and defending them from the fortress of our various ideologies. It has to be the real encounter between various and conflicting ideas.
If, ultimately, the editors of Canenero did not feel that it stimulated the sort of discussion they desired, it is my hope that in publishing these articles in English, discussions may be stimulated here. There is a lot to think about in these brief writings. Perhaps it will stir something up.
Wolfi Landstreicher
February 2006
Canenero was a weekly anarchist publication that came out in Italy between the end of 1994 and the beginning of 1997 with one break. This was when the Marini investigation against anarchists began to bear its rotten fruit in an attempt to imprison dozens of anarchists on charges of “subversive association” or membership in an “armed gang”. One of the ideas behind Canenero was to provide a means for ongoing communication and discussion in the face of this repressive operation of the state. A substantial portion of the material in the paper dealt with the situation and the various anarchist responses to it.
But the editors of Canenero were not willing to allow the repressive activity of the state to define the limits of the discussion in the paper they published, so along with information and analysis of that specific situation other significant questions and idea were raised in its pages. Thus, within its pages one could find pointed, but brief, theoretical articles, social and historical analyses and bitingly witty looks at the weeks news.
Of course, as is appropriate for a weekly publication, most of the articles are specific to the time they were written, intended for immediate use in the heat of the situation that was going on. But there were enough articles of more general interest that I considered it worth my while to translate a number of them for publication in this form. I have already mad some of this material available in More, Much More, a collection of writings by Massimo Passamani whose ideas I find particularly thought-provoking, and The Fullness of a Struggle Without Adjectives, texts originally intended to stimulate a discussion about armed struggle groups that appeared in the last few issues of Canenero.
In this booklet, I have collected a number of articles that I find particularly stimulating. I am certainly not in agreement with every word here. But I have found all of it to be a stimulus to deepening my own thinking on the sorts of questions raised. If, for example, Mario Cacciuco’s description of relationships between people as that of “spheres that bounce of each other” and his consequent rejection of the very idea of love and friendship seem rather bleak to me, this is precisely why his article provokes me to examine the nature of everyday relationships more closely, particularly those that we call “love” and “friendship”. In fact, one of the things that stands out for me in these articles is the way in which they are able to raise significant questions, often about matters that we take for granted, in so few words.
I have chosen to print the material in chronological order. The first article was an introduction to the project and the last was the editors’ explanation for bringing the project to a close. In this last piece, the problems that confront any anarchist publishing project are made clear. As anarchists, hopefully, we do not publish just in order to have something to do. There has to be a purpose that relates to our broader life project of revolt. If we don’t want to be leaders or evangelists carrying a supposed revolutionary gospel to whatever imaginary “masses”, then it seems to me that the idea of developing relationships of affinity and complicity in which significant discussion plays a central part would be a primary reason for publishing. Without this, publishing seems to be a meaningless spewing forth of words playing into the degradation of language that this society imposes through its own one-way “communication”. And real discussion is not a mere taking of positions and defending them from the fortress of our various ideologies. It has to be the real encounter between various and conflicting ideas.
If, ultimately, the editors of Canenero did not feel that it stimulated the sort of discussion they desired, it is my hope that in publishing these articles in English, discussions may be stimulated here. There is a lot to think about in these brief writings. Perhaps it will stir something up.
Wolfi Landstreicher
February 2006