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Title: Remembering Paul Z. Simons Author: CrimethInc. Date: April 4, 2018 Language: en Topics: Paul Z. Simons, eulogy Source: Retrieved on 16th June 2021 from https://crimethinc.com/2018/04/04/remembering-paul-z-simons
We’re saddened to announce the passing of Paul Z. Simons, longtime
anarchist, journalist, and author. Paul was an anarchist writer with a
playful spirit, an uncompromising love of life, and equally
uncompromising hatred for authority—be it from the right or the left. We
treasure our memories of Paul. His presence will be sorely missed.
Recalled by his eldest daughter as “a uniquely intelligent writer,
traveler, idealist, and fire-breathing anarchist,” Paul participated in
some of the most inspiring thought and action of the past forty years.
We are not equipped to properly write his eulogy, but we hope others
will, and now that he is no longer able to speak to you himself, we urge
you to read the materials he left behind.
Paul wrote with great eloquence and erudition on everything from theater
to insurrectionary strategy, from play to hallucinogens. His historical
writing ran the gamut from the anti-racist insurgency of John Brown to
the English Revolution of 1645, all from an insurrectionary perspective.
He reported firsthand from the front lines of riots in Athens, Greece,
revolt in France, and reaction in Brazil, never hesitating to subject
himself to great risk or set off on a romantic adventure in pursuit of
his ideals and desires.
Embracing illegalism and open confrontation with the state not only in
his younger days but also throughout his life, Paul nonetheless managed
to remain free, demonstrating how much is possible despite all the
oppressive forces arrayed against those who defy the prevailing order.
In his lifelong rebellion, he offers an example for younger people who
would also like to arrive at the age of 57 without tempering their
enthusiasm for freedom.
At the cusp of the 1990s, in an article entitled “Social War” in the New
York publication Black Eye, Paul wrote:
The single task that presents itself now is that of social insurrection,
the stripping away of centuries of consensus based on coercion… the
ripping up of the social contract and the tearing down of the edifice of
capital.
Over a quarter of a century later, when some of us met him in Oakland
after his return from the Syrian civil war in Rojava, Paul had not lost
a single spark of this fiery determination. He welcomed us warmly into
his company, readily sharing his experiences, friendship, and resources.
Paul published “Rojava: Democracy and Commune” with us about his
experiences visiting Rojava and participated in the dialogue that
produced our book From Democracy to Freedom. The book draws on a train
of thought much older than our collective, which Paul had participated
in years before we joined in.
As a participant in the generation of anarchists preceding ours, Paul
was a repository of the kind of historical knowledge that is rarely
passed on properly in English-speaking anarchist movements. Last
December, for example, Paul published Waging the War on Christmas: King
Mob and the Battle of Selfridges, recounting the adventures of
anti-authoritarian rebels in 1960s Britain. It is tragic that he was not
able to pass on more to us before his passing.
In the photo above, we see Paul at Père Lachaise cemetery in Paris,
standing before the wall where the last participants in the Paris
Commune were executed. He is displaying a YPG flag, proclaiming the
continuity of insurgent struggles for freedom from Paris in 1871 through
Rojava in 2015. His aspirations, his struggles, and his legacy are now
passed on to us, and it is up to us to craft lives of joyous resistance
that are worthy of them.
To learn from Paul today, you could begin with these resources:
name and his pen name, El Errante.
experiences in Rojava.
Paul participated in at the end of the 1980s.