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Stay Radikal!
"It was never about illegality as such, rather the promotion of
free communication and the conveyance of radical political
content."
- Interview With A Radikal Group, 1989
Statement From Radikal
On June 13, 1995, federal police in Germany carried out a
major coup against left-radical structures. At six in the
morning, around 50 homes and leftist projects all across Germany
were stormed. The mainstream media praised the action as a "blow
to terrorist groups", spewing forth the cops' line that the raids
were directed against the Anti-Imperialist Cell (AIZ), the group
K.O.M.I.T.E.E., and the illegal magazine 'Radikal'. The usual
stigma of "terrorist group" was attached, justified with
Paragraphs 129 and 129a. Standard pig procedure. It's a part of
German reality to have homes being stormed, children rousted from
their beds by masked cops with guns, weapons pointed at the heads
of individuals whose "only" crime was their work on a
left-radical newspaper. Even on the suspicion of simply
distributing Radikal, people were terrorized all over the
country, from Berlin to Hamburg to Cologne. This was the biggest
raid on the German left in years - the Kurds, of course, have
been subjected to such treatment on several occasions recently.
That night on the TV, there was little mention any more
about the AIZ or the K.O.M.I.T.E.E. Hell, we haven't enjoyed so
much publicity in a long time, as images were flashed of the
cops' Radikal archives, followed by a report of the arrest of 4
people for "membership in a criminal organization", Radikal.
Investigations are continuing against 21 other individuals on the
same charge. So we felt this was reason enough for people to hear
from us between issues. Sorry it took so long for this to happen,
but these things take time, as anyone familiar with
inter-regional structures knows.
We won't try to make the intensity of this repression or our
status in the left-radical scene seem any greater than it really
is. We always knew such a raid would happen at some point. But it
is surprising that such a hard action against a publishing
project could be carried out without so much as a peep from the
"left- liberal public". It's characteristic of the continuity of
the repression against leftist structures, even in times when the
radical-left is weak. The BAW [federal prosecutor's office] had
just finished in their failed attempt to criminalize Gottingen's
Autonome Antifa (M) under Paragraph 129, and let's not forget the
cop raids and the banning of the Kurdistan Information Bureau in
Cologne because it published "pro-PKK" paper 'Kurdistan
Rundbrief', so now they decided to go against other organized
structures of the radical-left in Germany - on the same day as a
Nazi letterbomb terror attack on an SPD politician in Lubeck.
It's clear that these raids weren't just aimed at us. We
were just a convenient excuse. "The action was an aimed
preventive measure designed to deter the left-radical scene",
said interior minister and deportation specialist Kanther that
same evening. While right-wing terror grows worse and the
consensus of social democrats/greens/conservatives in Great
Germany is ready to send the Bundeswehr on its first foreign
mission, it seems clear that the real threat is still the left.
The message being sent is clear, and by lumping together the AIZ,
K.O.M.I.T.E.E., and Radikal, it is that much easier to
criminalize the entire left.
Who We Are
We produce and distribute a magazine. A magazine which, in a
time of state control and self-censorship, is a forum for a
discussion of street militancy and armed struggle. Of course, we
aren't "neutral" in this discussion. We fundamentally reject the
notion that the state has a monopoly on the legitimate use of
force. The existing social conditions can only be changed if
left-radical groups and associations build up their abilities and
structures so as to be able to counter some of these effects even
today. This, of course, includes militant and armed intervention,
but these would be empty gestures if there wasn't also some sort
of linkage or means of conveying their message. Of course, we are
very happy when militant anti-fascist initiatives disrupt Nazi
meetings. So we also see one of our functions as exposing fascist
structures so as to make both old and new Nazis attackable, and
we think this is one very important aspect of anti-fascist work.
Of course, it would have been awesome if the cover of our
next issue had had a big picture of the new deportation prison in
Berlin-Grunau reduced to rubble. All people who seek to intervene
and oppose Germany's refugee policies would have been overjoyed
at this disruption of the state's deportation machinery. A
radical-left which takes the past 25 years of its history
seriously must discuss the successes and failures of the various
armed and militant groups, such as the RAF, the 2nd of June
Movement, the Revolutionary Cells, and militant autonomist
groups, and it must draw consequences for the future from this
discussion.
In order that we don't just keep looking back at our
history, but rather so that we keep up to date with actual
developments, it's important that we be active in current
anti-fascist initiatives or, for example, discuss the politics of
the AIZ, of whom we are very critical. We must continually fight
for the necessary space to carry out such discussions and defend
ourselves from state attacks. Radikal tries to do jut that, no
more, no less. We try to make it possible for various structures
to have a means of being heard on a regular basis. It's seem like
we're stating the obvious when we say that the cop attacks on
Radikal are, at the same time, a criminalization of other leftist
structures which provide this necessary space, like infoshops and
other magazines for example.
The present attacks on us, however, are qualitatively
different than past repressive campaigns for two fundamental
reasons. Firstly, we have now been declared a "criminal
organization", and secondly, it has now been stated that Radikal
has "entirely criminal content". A look back at the last few
issues, therefore, will reveal what criminal means: new
anti-racist street names in Braunschweig, articles on nationalism
and the liberation struggle in Kurdistan, an analysis of the
history of patriarchal gender divisions, an appeal from
non-commercial radio stations, debates about leftist campaigns
surrounding the May 8th commemorations...that's criminal content?
Before, the authorities used to point out specific articles which
"supported a terrorist organization" so as to criminalize them,.
Now the cops don't want to go through all that trouble so they
have just called the entire project a "criminal organization",
therefore the content must be criminal, too. But it's the mixture
of theory and actual attacks, discussion and practical tips,
which makes Radikal so interesting to read for so many people.
And we value this mixture. Radikal aims to mobilize people to
oppose Nazis and to stop the Castor nuclear waste shipments,
while at the same time giving information about debates on
anti-nationalism or the background of the origins of capitalist
and patriarchal social structures. What's more, it should offer
space for people from even the most remote corners of Germany to
discuss their actions or their difficulties, things which have
been ignored for far too long by a jaded left fixated on the
metropoles. The federal police have called this mixture criminal.
If you listen to what the cops say about all of this, it
sounds like some sort of cheesy novel. We are supposedly
organized in a "highly conspiratorial manner" with "fixed
organizational structures". It seems that really banal things are
actually dangerous. Anyone who produces a magazine needs "fixed
organizational structures", they need to sit down together and
talk about what should go into the next issue and how to
distribute the magazine, mail out subscriptions, write articles,
answer letters from readers, and so on and so forth. The only
difference between us and normal, legal magazines is the fact
that we have removed ourselves from state control, out of the
reach of the censorship authorities. Over the years, we have
built up an organizational structure which allows us to
distribute a relatively high number of magazines nation-wide, by
radical-left standards that is. As with other groups who seek to
build up open or hidden structures, we are subject to state
repression. From their point of view, the BAW had good reason to
act now, since all their previous actions against us had been
fruitless. Radikal kept being published, and there was nothing
they could do about it.
In 1982, about 20 homes, bookstores, and printing shops were
raided in an attempt to prosecute Radikal for "supporting a
terrorist organization". In 1984, 2 supposed editors of the paper
were sentenced to 2 1/2 years in prison, but they avoided going
to the slammer by getting elected to the European Parliament for
the Greens. In 1991, the federal prosecutor exchanged the jail
terms for a fine. The next step came in 1986, when Radikal was
already organized underground. Now, 100 homes and shops were
raided by the cops. Nearly 200 court cases were opened, and in
the end 5 people were given suspended sentences of 4-10 months.
The wave of repression in 1986 - in addition to the obvious aims
of scaring people and just being repressive - had one major aim,
namely to drive Radikal out of the public realm and to lessen its
effectiveness. But that didn't succeed. Despite the fact that
several book stores, most of which dated back to Radikal's legal
days, backed out on us and left us with heavy debts, work on
Radikal and its distribution became much more decentralized. A
network of groups and individuals took up responsibility for the
magazine, based on their conditions. In 1989, the state
authorities went into action one more time after ID-Verlag in
Amsterdam published an interview with us as a brochure.
The latest moves by the BAW have again made it clear that
claims by the mainstream media and left-liberals concerning armed
groups - "Your attacks make it possible for the state to turn the
screws of repression even tighter!" - are total crap. Even the
cease-fire from the guerrilla did not open up any "new levels of
social debate". The defenders of law and order are continuing to
act against left-radical groups, who are all equally defined as
dangerous, and these are attacked at the same high level.
4 people are now in prison! We can't just forget that fact.
In any case, that's why we'd like to call for exchange and
communication with the solidarity groups. The charges against the
4 are as follows: They produced and distributed Radikal. But who
actually "produces" Radikal? Those people who send in reports of
antifa actions, or is it those people that take 10 copies and
give them to their friends to read, or maybe it's those people
that write a few articles and do some lay-out, or maybe it's the
people that see to it that a few copies get into the prisons? Or
maybe the BAW thinks it's those people that discuss for weeks on
end which articles should go in the next issue of Radikal? Or is
the ones who stand for long hours behind the printing presses?
We're not really sure who exactly the cops are referring to
when they talk about Radikal, but we know they really mean all of
us! All people who see the continued need for radical-left
structures for discussion and communication, away from state
control and the apparatus of repression. And all people who
recognize the need for women and men to become organized to avoid
being swallowed up by capitalist and patriarchal reality. That's
why it's the task for all of us to not accept this attack nor to
let it go unanswered.
We need an uncontrollable resistance media!
Read, use, distribute, and stay Radikal!
Powerful greetings to Rainer, Ralf, Werner, and Andreas!
Free the prisoners!
The teeth will show whose mouth is open!
some Radikal groups - Summer 1995