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Title: Defense Speech Author: Clement Duval Language: en Topics: Illegalism, egoism Notes: Also known as "I am The Enemy of Individual Property." Taken from "Illegalist Trial Statements" available via Little Black Cart. Unsure of original translator.
While I do not recognize your right to pose to me the questions that you
have, I have responded to you as the accused.
Now, you are the ones that I am accusing. I do not pretend to defend
myself. To what end would this serve me, in front of those as well armed
as you, having soldiers, cannons, police, and finally an army of
mercenaries as your henchmen?
Let's be logical, you are in power, taking advantage of it, and if you
still need the head of yet another anarchist, take it, and when our day
comes we will take this into account, and I have the firm hope that on
that day the anarchists will rise to the occasion. They will be without
pity, because never will they reach the number of your victims.
It is not only you who I am addressing, but to all of this selfish,
cruel, corrupt society, where on one side we see an orgy and on the
other misery!
You have accused me of theft, as if a worker that has nothing could be a
thief.
No, theft exists only in the exploitation of man by man, in a word by
those who live at the expense of the working class. It was not a theft
that I committed, but a just restitution made in the name of humanity,
this money was to serve for making revolutionary propaganda, through
writing and by the deed. To make newspapers and leaflets to show people
the truth; it has been a long time that they have been deceived. To show
the cure to those who are ill.
I busy myself with the chemistry and prepare what is needed for the day
of battle, the day when the workers, conscious, will leave their torpor,
their slump. Because it is time that this diabolic machination of the
old world disappear, to give place to institutions where all will find a
fate that is more fair, which does not exist but within anarchist
communism.
Because anarchy is the negation of all authority.
And anarchy is the biggest social wound, because man is not free, and
one must become free to do all that one wants, as long as one does not
infringe upon the liberty of their fellow- of then one would become a
despot in turn.
In communism, man gives to society according to his skills and
strengths, and should receive according to his needs. Men group
themselves, find each other according to their character, their skills,
their affinities, taking as an example the group which functions the
best, away from vanity, foolish pride, not seeking to do better than
one's comrade for one can do better for one's self.
Out of this will come the useful masterpieces, people's intelligence no
longer reduced to nothing but capital, because men would be able to
evolve freely, no longer under the despotic yoke of authority, of
individual property. And these groups can mutually exchange their
products, unhindered.
Learning, and feeling good about governing themselves, they will
federate and will be nothing more than a big family of workers
associated together for the happiness of all - one for all, all for
one - knowing only a single law: the law of solidarity and reciprocity.
No more gold, base metal for which I am here and which I despise. Base
metal, the cause of all the evils and vices that afflict humanity. Base
metal, with which men's conscience is bought!
With anarchist communism, there is no more exploitation of man by man,
no more of these managers of sweat, no more salesmen with a mercantile
spirit, rapacious, selfish, poisoning, falsifying their products and
their commodities, thereby bringing the degradation of mankind.
You cannot deny this, because you see this all the way to the toy
salesmen, who already poison with these toys the poor little creatures
who are barely born.
And these factories, where they play with the workers lives with an
unparalleled shamelessness, like in the factories of white lead where in
only a few months the workers find themselves paralyzed and soon dead,
or in the tinsmiths who in little time become bald, crippled, weakened
in the bones and die in agony!
There are scientists who know that they can replace these unhealthy
products with innocuous ones. The doctors who see these unfortunates
twist in such agony and who leave things to continue, they allow these
crimes against humanity to happen. It is even better, they decorate the
heads of the factories, and they award them honorary awards in memory of
the service they have given to industry and humanity.
And how many of these unhealthy industries are there? The number would
be too large to count them all, not to mention the foul and unhealthy
capitalist prisons where the worker, imprisoned for ten or twelve hours
is obligated, for the sake of conserving his family's bread, to incur
the vexations, the humiliation of an insolent convict, missing only the
whip for us all to recall the heyday of ancient slavery and medieval
serfdom.
And the unfortunate miners, imprisoned five or six hundred feet
underground, seeing the light of day no more than once a week and when,
tired of so much misery and suffering, they lift their heads to reclaim
their right to sunlight and to the banquet of life: quickly the army is
in the country side at the service of the exploiters, and we shoot this
scoundrel! The proof doesn't default.
And the exploitation of man by man is nothing compared to that
experienced by women. Nature is already thankless in this regard, to
make them sick 15 days of the month, but we hardly take this into
account: flesh of profit, flesh for fun, this is the fate of women. How
many young girls arrive from the countryside, full of strength and
health, only to be enclosed in the workshops, in rooms where there is
room for four and they are fifteen, twenty, without air, breathing
nothing but pollution: hardships they are forced to self-impose. By six
months they are anemic. From there the sickness, weakness, and dislike
of work that is not even sufficient to meet their needs drives these
unfortunates to prostitution.
What does society do for these victims? It rejects them from her breast,
like the leper, puts them on the map, enrolls them with the police and
makes informers of their lovers.
And do you think the workers, with noble and generous sentiments, can
see this picture of the human life unfurling constantly before their
eyes without being revolted? He who feels all these effects, who is
constantly a victim of them, morally, physically, and materially: he who
is taken at twenty years old to pay his taxes in blood, cannon fodder to
defend the property and privileges of his masters: and if he returns
from this butchery, he returns maimed or with a sickness that renders
him half crippled, making him go from hospital to hospital serving
therefore as experimental flesh for these messieurs of science. I know
what I speak of, I who have returned from the carnage with two wounds
and rheumatism, a sickness that has given me four years in the hospital
and which prevents me from working six months of the year. As an
incentive, if you do not have the courage to give them my head as they
ask, I will die in prison.
And these crimes are committed in broad daylight, after being plotted in
the corridors of the government, under the influence of a clique, or the
caprice of a woman, while shouting over the rooftops: The people are
sovereign, The Nation is sovereign, and under the buzz words of
patronage - Glory, Honor, Homeland, as if there were several homelands
between all beings living on the same planet.
No! The anarchists have but one party, and that is humanity.
It is also, in the name of civilization that exists these distant
expeditions where thousands of men are killed with a savage ferocity. It
is in the name of civilization that we plunder, that we burn, that we
massacre an entire people who demand nothing [more] than to live
peacefully in their homes. And these crimes are committed with impunity
because the law doesn't cover this type of theft and armed robbery, au
contraire: We award medals to those who have led all this carnage,
medals to the mercenaries who have taken part, in memory of their good
deeds, and these unconscious ones are proud to wear this insignia which
is nothing but a diploma of assassination.
But on the other hand, the law severely punishes the worker to whom
society refuses the right to exist and who has the courage to take what
is necessary which he lacks, where there is superfluous amounts. Oh! And
then this one is treated like a thief, brought before the court and
finally returns to end his days in prison.
Voila! The logic of our current society.
Ah well, this is the crime that I am here for: for not recognizing the
right of these people to die of plenty while the producers, the creators
of all social wealth, starve. Yes, I am the enemy of individual property
and it has been a long time that I have said, along with Proudhon, that
property is theft.
In effect, how does one acquire property, if not through theft, by
exploiting one's fellows, giving three francs to the exploited for a job
which will bring back ten for the exploiter? And the little exploiters
don't do it any differently. Evidence: I have seen my companion do work
as the second hand, two little detached pieces of lace and pearls, for
which she was paid seven and a half centimes a piece. Fifteen days
later, doing the same work as the first hand, he was paid fifty five
centimes a piece.
So do you think that a conscious worker could be so stupid that one the
day to pay the rent, to give back to the same exploiter-owner a part of
his salary which had been given to him? And he will see his wife and
children forced to deprive themselves of things most necessary for life,
while the idle, with this money, goes to the stock exchange or somewhere
else to speculate, play the market on the misery of the people, or
wallow in some fashionable boudoir in the arms of an unwell girl, who to
live is forced to give her flesh to others for pleasure, despite the
disgust that it inspires in her.
As I do not want myself to be made an accomplice of the likes of these
dishonorables, this is why I do not pay rent (for which you reproach
me), not wanting myself to be robbed by this thief, this vulture that we
call an owner, and this is why I had received bad references in the
different areas that I have lived. Good references are only given for
the vile and the groveling, for those who have no backbone.
Because the law is in all things the accomplices of those who own, the
throw away the anathema at the workers who lift their heads proudly, who
retain their dignity by revolting against abuse, injustices, against the
monsters who make up the owning class.
But, it has been a long time since I have reckoned with anything but my
conscience, mocking the fools and the wicked, feeling certain that I
have the esteem of men of heart who have known me closely. This is why I
am telling you: you are not condemning me as a thief, but as a conscious
worker, who does not consider oneself to be a beast of burden, taxable
and thanklessly exploited, and who recognizes the undeniable right that
nature gives to all human beings: the right to existence. And if society
refuses us this right, we must take it with unshaking hands (which would
be a cowardice in a society where all abounds, where everything is in
abundance, where what should be a source of well being is nothing more
than a source of misery)... Why? Because everything is monopolized by a
handful of idlers who burst from indigestion while the workers are
continually searching for a loaf of bread.
No! I am not a robber but one who has been robbed, someone who brings
justice, who says that everything belongs to everyone, and that it is
this clear logic of the anarchist idea, which makes your legs tremble.
No, I am not a thief but a sincere revolutionary, who has the courage of
his convictions and who is devoted to his cause. Within current society,
[where] money is the nerve of war, I would do all that is within my
power to procure it to serve this noble and just cause which would purge
humanity of all of the tyrannies, the persecutions that it has suffered
so cruelly.
Ah! I have only one regret, which is to have fallen too early into your
hands, this preventing me from satisfying an implacable hatred, a thirst
for vengeance that I have vowed upon so infamous a society.
But what consoles me is that there are combatants that remain, because
despite all the persecution, the anarchist idea has germinated and the
theoretical revolution is ending, being quickly replaced by the practice
of action. Oh, then, that day - rotten society, governments,
magistrates, exploiters of all kinds, you have lived!
Long live social revolution, long live anarchy!