Letter of Solidarity From Barcelona

[it is things like this very smart letter that give us conviction, knowing that whatever we may do wrong, we are not alone in trying, to "find common voice," to become a "practical negation." We are not, and should not wish to be, sparks of inspiration: we are sparks off a larger fire that keeps flaring up, around the globe. Our solidarity back to you, La Rimaia, is indeed expressed in every action we do.]

Dear comrades at the University of California,

We wish to express our support for your endeavor. As the current crisis of capitalism attempts to reconfigure its ability to impose its social forms upon our varying situations, we cannot help but recognize that its utilization and manipulation of educational systems is no exception. Such an attack, whereby the stable reproduction of capital remains the incentive for developing education, is ipso facto of an international character, and thus our response to these assaults must also be fortified with an international character.

It must be recognized however, that the quality and maneuvering of our responses will always be contingent upon the specified manner in which we find ourselves deprived of an adequate and active relationship with knowledge, and of the social organizations which might cultivate such a relation. Thus, while our struggles might resonate differently with one another, and the strategies utilized therein of a diverse arsenal, they simultaneously find common voice as the practical negation of a society dominated by commodity production.

Our point of departure remains this resonance, this ability to recognize one another as subject to the same global processes of transforming education into a system producing mere conduits of unrealized exchange value. With the impotence of a singular strategy out of our way, it is the construction and development of our global and diffuse networks of resistance that offer a defense to the imposition of capitalist normalization. Our plurality remains our strength, if for only its promise and potential trajectory of coalescence.

As our own occupation at the Universitat de Barcelona, and of course others across the globe demonstrates, eviction, whether externally or internally inflicted, always remains a possibility. The recent arrests in Santa Cruz are exemplary of this risk. But it is from our common solidarity that we are able to wage war against these attempts to derail our efforts.

We also wish to express our understanding of the limited capacities of this letter of support. Solidarity cannot exist within the circumscription of spectatorship and while we write now to demonstrate our affinity with your struggle, and of course while understanding the importance of such a correspondence, our real solidarity, that is, a solidarity which acts as a material force against our common enemies, resides in our determination to continue with our own struggle. It is from your own actions however, that our perseverance gathers a strength, which in turn makes our mangled era tremble.

In solidarity,
La Rimaia

Postscript

“La Rimaia” is a social project in a squatted building in the centre of Barcelona. This so-called “free university” is an endeavor by a group of activists to create an alternative teaching-learning environment.

The activists behind the project previously squatted the historic building of the University of Barcelona as part of the student movement fighting the implementation of the Bologna Process in Catalonia. The students’ international commission has superseded its previous form and has risen, much like a phoenix, to set fire to everything and build an international network of people willing to fight for an emancipating education.