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Title: Writings
Author: Gabriel Pombo Da Silva
Date: 2011
Language: en
Topics: prison, insurrectionary, Italy, Spain, Germany, letters
Source: Retrieved on April 16, 2013 from https://waronsociety.noblogs.org/?tag=gabriel-pombo-da-silva

Gabriel Pombo Da Silva

Writings

Introduction to the French Edition of Xosé Tarrío González’ Huye,

Hombre, Huye

From

Culmine

(July 10, 2011) translated by

this is our job

I like to sit down in front of the typewriter just as I’m waking up,

when I still don’t know who I am, where I come from, or where I’m going.

My head is in the clouds, hazy and chaotic, beyond Space-Time or any

Dialectic.

While I write, my sense of self (whatever that may be) gradually

“returns.” I open “my” cell window, take a deep breath of the cold

morning air, and feel my lungs expand. I make coffee, and its aroma

relaxes me, reminding me of “another time”—my childhood—as well as my

mother.

My mother woke up every day at 5 a.m. to go to work. She would put the

coffeepot on the kitchen stove, and in a few minutes that familiar aroma

I found so appealing was wafting through the air. When I was little, I

was convinced that one of the reasons my mother was so “dark” was

because of all the coffee she drank. Who knows why? Kids have crazy

ideas.

On weekends, “class” wasn’t in session, so I was usually able to go to

work with my mother. I enjoyed helping her.

My mother was (and is) a “cleaning worker,” and to earn a living she had

to clean other people’s shops and offices. She always took pride in her

work. Or perhaps it just was pride in having a job. I never knew exactly

which.

My father (now dead) was a construction worker, and he built houses for

other people while we lived in a rented shithole. He also took pride in

his work. Or perhaps it was also just pride in having a job. Again, I

didn’t know which.

Even as a child, a deep feeling of hostility was beginning to grow

within me toward what we now call “wage-labor,” but what was simply

called “work” back then. Somehow, my daily reality was teaching me that

those who had nothing were being forced to sell their time as well as

their energy to whose who had everything.

When I asked my parents why there were poor people and rich people, they

told me it had always been that way since the beginning of time. My

parents’ “mentality” always shocked me: beggars were beggars because

they were lazy, whores where whores because they were depraved, thieves

were thieves because they were evil.

You had to work, obey, be honest, and be a “good Christian,” always

willing to suffer and turn the other cheek. Someday, in the “great

beyond,” we would find our reward.

When I was a child, I was embarrassed to say that my mother was a

“cleaning worker.” Now, I feel embarrassed for having been ashamed of my

mother, for having been ashamed of being poor (I mean “proletarian,”

since we never had to go begging)—as if having been born poor, in the

heart of a proletarian family, was a “sin” or something you chose.

No, I couldn’t get used to that “order of things.” I didn’t want to

accept such an order. I didn’t want to be a proud worker who worked for

“other people” and sold his time, his strength, all his energy, and

sometimes even his Soul for money...

To me, prison wasn’t anything distant or mysterious. Half the people in

my neighborhood had been or were currently locked up in some cell.

Very early in the morning on (prison) visiting days, I would watch

mothers, sisters, and wives (why are women always the ones who

unconditionally make trips to prison year after year, while it’s the

“men” who disappear into thin air after no time at all?) set off with

their little plastic bags full of food and clothing to wait for the bus

that would drop them off near the prison.

Off those women went, with clean clothes and food that were often bought

on “account” (credit), because in those days money and well-paid work

were in short supply in my neighborhood. That’s exactly why so many

people were in prison. It had nothing to do with being “lazy,”

“depraved,” or “evil.” Not everyone wanted to join the diaspora of

immigration (like my parents did) or exile, so instead of accepting the

exploitation of wage-labor or the dictatorship of the post-Franco

market, they decided to “steal” or “take up arms” against that entire

order of things.

Those women who bought on “credit” and marched with their little plastic

bags like a silent army toward prison, often depriving themselves of

food so that their sons, brothers, and husbands would never have to do

without their little package of food and clean clothes, were the very

embodiment of love and solidarity. I felt tremendous love and respect

for them.

One of those women (she was both a mother and a grandmother) was called,

or rather we called her, Doña Cristina. She was a little old wrinkled

lady with a kind, cheerful personality, but so tiny that the plastic

bags she carried almost touched the ground, making each step she took

seem like a superhuman effort. On more than one occasion I helped carry

her bags to the bus stop.

Doña Cristina’s son had been in prison for 12 years. He had stolen

several cars (during the Franco era) that he later sold for parts to

scrap yards and repair shops in order to make some money. He was one of

those (thousands of) prisoners who didn’t benefit from the “political

amnesty” at the end of the 1970s. He was also one of the rebels who

organized the Committee of Prisoners in Struggle (COPEL, which was

already in decline by then), and no one wanted anything to do with them.

If my family was “poor,” then Doña Cristina’s family lived in the most

abject destitution. The subhuman conditions in which that woman survived

(together with her daughter and her children’s children, and without a

“husband” or any kind of economic support) infuriated me so much that I

decided to help her out...

It was the summer of 1982.

Like every morning, a swarm of human beings was set in motion. They

spread out in all directions like tiny worker ants—little rows and

groups of men, women, and children on the way to their workplaces and

schools. From their outfits and uniforms, it was easy to figure out

their job, schooling, and even the “social class” they belonged to.

Few workers went to work in their own cars. Most of them used public

transportation or woke up a little earlier and went on foot.

I was sitting at the wheel of a Seat 131 I’d stolen that very night from

another part of the city. My friends’ faces were tense, observing every

movement on the streets adjacent to the Bank—every car, every person,

everything.

I watched a cleaning worker enter the Bank at this early hour: the

headscarf covering her hair, the yellow rubber gloves, the little

plastic bucket that probably held cleaning products and supplies. I was

reminded of my mother, who was doing exactly the same thing as this

woman, but in another country 2,500 kilometers away.

Toni tapped my shoulder and told me to move the car. Here, parked right

in front of the Bank, we were drawing too much attention to ourselves.

Toni was known as “Lefty.” Years later he was found murdered alongside

his girlfriend Margot. Both of them had been shot in the head. Word on

the street was that it was the work of the Vigo police department’s

Robbery Squad.

Toni was 15 years older than me, so he must have been around 30 at the

time. He had just recently been released from prison and was part of a

group that was responsible for supporting and disseminating the struggle

of prisoners.

I always liked his demeanor. He didn’t talk too much, and when he did

speak, he was usually very specific.

Moure (who committed suicide years later) was sitting next to me in the

passenger’s seat. He winked at me, smiling while he cleaned the oil off

the weapons he had in his lap.

Moure also belonged to the prisoner solidarity group. Like Toni, he was

older than me and had been in prison.

We drove to the outskirts of the city since there usually wasn’t any

police presence there. After all, the poor didn’t need to be “protected”

from their misery. The money was downtown, in the Banks.

Once we were out in the sticks, we got out of the car to stretch our

legs a bit. We’d spent the whole night driving around, and we were tired

and needed sleep.

Toni picked up a twig. In the dirt, he began to sketch out the positions

we would take up and the steps we would follow during the robbery. We

also discussed the roads and routes we would use for our escape after

the robbery.

During this first action, I would have to remain in the car and “cover

our withdrawal” in case the pigs showed up. For the task, Moure handed

me a Winchester repeating rifle that very much reminded me of the ones

“cowboys” carried in Hollywood movies.

Once everything was sorted out, we got back in the car and headed for

our target. Each one of us was immersed in himself. At such moments,

there is nothing left to say. Everything has already been said. All that

remains is total silence, complete concentration, and indescribable

tension.

We arrived. When we were a few meters from the Bank, Toni told me to

stop the car, but we hadn’t yet come to a full stop when I saw him leap

out as if propelled from a slingshot. With a ski mask covering his face

and a pistol in his left hand, he shouted: “Come on, let’s go, let’s

go!”

Moure followed a few steps behind, also masked and armed with a

revolver.

I saw them disappear into the Bank. Some pedestrians were dumbstruck by

the whole scene. They were staring at the Bank, and then they looked in

my direction.

I didn’t know exactly what I was supposed to do with these “spectators,”

but to calm my nerves I decided to get out of the car and do something.

I grabbed the rifle and approached them, saying something like: “Move

along assholes! Get out of here before I start shooting!”

I wasn’t wearing a ski mask, and the only thing partially covering my

face was a pair of sunglasses. Luckily, it wasn’t necessary to repeat my

threats. The spectators left the scene. I remained outside the car,

watching the Bank with my rifle pointed down the street in case the pigs

showed up. My heart was beating furiously in my chest. I reached for my

asthma inhaler, then remembered that I had left it at home. My hands

were sweating. Each minute became an eternity. If the pigs appeared, I

was prepared to shoot. That’s what we had agreed to. I told myself that

next time I wasn’t going to stay in the car. It was better to be inside

the Bank. Finally, I saw my friends exit the Bank and come running in

the direction of the car. I jumped in, threw the rifle in the back seat,

and picked them up.

In the car, all the tension and energy that had built up during the

robbery was released. My friends were all smiles, and so was I. They

joked about how I looked with the rifle and sunglasses. We took the

prearranged route at top speed, and I left them at a spot we had chosen

in advance, where they hid themselves, the weapons, and the money. I had

to get rid of the car far away from our “base,” and I usually torched

the cars we used.

A few days later, Doña Cristina found a bag full of 150,000 pesetas on

her doorstep. Around the neighborhood, graffiti appeared in red paint:

Total amnesty! All prisoners to the streets!

The neighborhood leftists talked about “political prisoners,” but people

in the neighborhood didn’t understand them. After all, the “political

prisoners” had already been released thanks to two partial amnesties.

They talked about “solidarity,” about “freedom,” but only for prisoners

from their organizations. What about the prisoners from the

neighborhood?

I didn’t attend “political” meetings. I was 15 years old and didn’t

understand what the people there were saying. Also, it was always the

same ones who spoke. They talked like “television personalities.”

I said goodbye to my friends with an embrace. They had a meeting to go

to. I was planning to rob a food warehouse in Revilla and then

distribute the food throughout the neighborhood. It was an action I

managed to pull off successfully.

“Call me when you’re planning another action. I’m just not interested in

politics.”

Over the course of two years, we managed to successfully expropriate

over 20 bank branches and a dozen gas stations, along with other actions

of that type...

Almost 30 years have now gone by since those events, those times, those

“speeches,” yet differentiating between prisoners still seems to be

“topical.”

It’s absurd to think that only prisoners with political consciousness

are worthy of our “solidarity.” As if Doña Cristina’s son wasn’t also a

result of the system’s contempt. As if the “lumpen” were incapable of

drawing conclusions from their own experiences and circumstances. As if

their lack of “education” and “culture,” of money and support, wasn’t

punishing and ostracizing enough in itself.

In prison, those differences are meaningless and irrelevant, because the

architecture of prison doesn’t “mix” prisoners according to their

“political ideology.” It’s quite the opposite. Time, architecture,

“employees,” conditions, attitudes, and individualities are all

artificially constructed in such a way that the “day-to-day operations”

produce relationships of power and coercion—in other words, alienation,

contempt, etc.

One defense mechanism (or even better, self-defense) against these false

“dichotomies” (compartmentalizations), inside as well as outside (the

System is the same on both sides of the walls), is informal organization

based not only on action, but on any activity in accordance with a

“distribution of tasks” that pursues two simultaneous ends: “living our

lives in the here and now,” but also defining more “ambitious” goals

that “transcend” our own “individuality” without dehumanizing or

alienating anyone in the name of some hypothetical “community” or

“communism.”

What we want, or at least what I want, is the disappearance of power

relations based on coercion: to live and act according to the principles

of our hearts, to see “others” not as “objects” and/or “subjects” but as

individuals.

Freedom doesn’t mean “alienating” ourselves. It means understanding our

common “interests” and desires in pursuit of a shared liberty, and in

that sense living/organizing and acting/thinking in concert without

having to “sacrifice” oneself to delegation, participation, dirtying

one’s hands, getting involved, accepting “responsibilities,” etc.

No single organization takes precedence over my individual liberty, and

I don’t want to be part of any revolution that doesn’t let me dance.

‘There is nothing to reform’

words from

Gabriel Pombo da Silvia

via

culmine

, translated by

war on society

I am not so naive as to believe that what I am living here is something

exceptional… and since “the prisoners” are not born here but come from a

very concrete social context I do not look for the directly responsible

“only” among the salaried jailers and the jailing administration which,

in the end, reproduce on a microcosmic scale the politics and the

ignobilities of the System and its “Society”… There is nothing to

reform; everything must be demolished down to the foundations…

They are mistaken who believe (or imagine) that my radicality comes from

the indigestion of “utopias” and various “theories”… actually, in the

end and from the beginning I owe “my radicality” to the System and its

miserable Society… or, if someone wants to look for the “theorists”

responsible for my radicality, they can start in the offices of

Department of Corrections and leave in peace the poets of the dynamite…

(…)

For me, I have never been left indifferent to the beggars who fill the

metropolis, those who, brutalized by a whole life of wage slavery end

their days taking refuge in programmed leisure activities, alcohol

and/or drugs… or those who, in order to survive, sell their bodies to

satisfy the pleasure of those who can buy bodies as if they were

commodities… but it has not been all this legion of miserable and

exploited who have filled me with the strength, inspiration and dignity

necessary to combat the system that generates all this… for that my

brothers in struggle are responsible: some were “bandits” and others

were revolutionaries… that is the fundamental difference between the

majority of “anarchists” and me… I do not need “excuses” and

revolutionary “subjects” in order to confront the System… I hate the

System because it taught me to hate it… and in this path of frontal war

against the System I am learning who are my accomplices and who are my

enemies, beyond “isms” and “conceptualizations”…

Aachen, July 2011

For a black Christmas!

I express my total fraternal solidarity with the anarchist comrade

Gustavo Rodríguez, for the continual attacks that he is receiving from

the authoritarian and reformist trash.

I express also my solidarity with all the groups and individualities of

action (from the Autonomous Cells for Immediate Revolution to the

Individualists Tending toward the Wild, and all other groups) and

insurrectionalists of Mexico and of the World, regardless of whether

they adhere to the project of the FAI/IRF or not.

I salute with pride each action of our sisters and brothers in struggle…

all of them!

For a black Christmas against the consumption, capitalism and

repression!

A black Christmas that recalls our incarcerated sisters and brothers of

the CCF and the FAI (Indonesia), those of the so-called “bombs case,”

Tortuga, and the prisoners of the Struggle in the Street in $hile, those

who were murdered in San Miguel prison last December, Marco Camenisch,

Juan Carlos Rico, Tamara, the antifascist Jock and all the anarchist

prisoners of the world.

Gabriel, December 2011

“Don Pedro” (an authentic stoic)

Don Pedro was (and may still be) a “true Stoic,” a “Unique” and “Egoist”

being who ended up in prison for killing or stabbing someone (I have

never been able to find out the entirety of that chapter of his life)…

I met him in the “Special Department” (FIES module) of “El Acebuche,” in

Almería. Physically, he was a person who perfectly matched that

stereotype we all have of Don Quijote: relatively tall, thin, in his

fifties, with a pointy grey goatee and short hair…

He walked very erect, exaggeratedly majestic, but most remarkable of all

was his tone of voice and manner of expression. He spoke very slowly and

he conscientiously selected each word while fixing his gaze (which

oscillated between arrogance and irony) on a person, trying to uncover

whether or not his interlocutor was worth his time and would comprehend

what he was trying to express…

They say that he had been a professor of literature (which is plausible

enough) at some institute in Valencia. The reason why he ended up in

FIES was not, certainly, for participating in protests, riots or

escapes… That would have gone against his “values” and “philosophical

principles,” not in vain and aside from considering himself a “True

Nietzschian,” I would presume because of his misanthropy…

No, Don Pedro took out the eye of a prison guard when he put it up to

the door’s “snitch” to see what he was doing in the cell… From this

incident on, the existence of Don Pedro was a long drawn-out pilgrimage

through the special prisons of the Spanish democracy…

It is obvious to say that he did not “lower” himself to “denouncing” the

innumerable times that he was the target of beatings and torture by the

guards.

Even though we (the FIES) had the habit of laughing at him (or more than

him, at his “philosophy of life”) we fell “sympathetic” to his

“particularity,” and because his hatred for the guards was real and

whenever they gave him the opportunity he sought confrontation with

them.

Don Pedro liked to converse with me… he could never understand how

“someone like me” (a student of Philosophy with a great knowledge

of/about the works of Nietzsche) could “be a Marxist” (he could never

understand the differences between Anarchism and Communism; and even

less so Anarchist Communism) and “embrace metaphysical illusions”…

So we killed the time: sometimes we spoke (philosophized?) about the

philosophers of Mileto, about Diogenes Laertius,

Socrates-Plato-Aristotle, to wind up with his Master–Nietzsche–and his

favorite work, “Thus Spoke Zarathustra”…

Sometimes I lie in bed with my gaze fixed on the ceiling and I imagine

Don Pedro speaking about this philosophical fusion of his master with a

political “ideology” like Nihilism… and I laugh…

Don Pedro–a stoic and misanthropic “Over-Man” so consistent with himself

that he refused to allow any kind of “transcendence” to live over him,

enemy of humanity and of humanism, egoist and unique–no one who has not

met him personally knows about his life and his work materialized in

himself–in his ethic…!!

And for him everything was reduced to this: the “over-man” was his ethic

and his moral, his attitude before and in the face of adversity and the

existent–without regret or glory…

Because, obviously, if there is no ethic and moral (which is, in sum, a

way of conceiving oneself to oneself and acting consequently) then it’s

all the same anyway* and we would end up in a “relativism” that has

nothing to do with the philosophical current of modern stoicism.

I imagine him all erect saying: Those are “charlatans,” “Don Pombo,”

charlatans!!

It is worth mentioning that Don Pedro referred to those he respected as

“Don” and to the rest as “you”… He was (and/or is) a true Stoic: Don

Pedro…

Gabriel, Early September 2012, Aachen.