Abolishing the Borders from Below

The Berlin-based collective "Abolishing the Borders from Below" began its activities in autumn 2001 and was formed by a handful of East-European migrant anarchists and political and counter-cultural anti-authoritarians. From the very beginning our activities were focused on both socio-political and counter-cultural aspects, while the anarchist principles of non-hierarchical structures and decision-making processes were taken as the common ground for all our activities. Resisting the rules of capitalistic, parliamentarian and other doctrines dominating all aspects of social relations today, we decided on promoting anarchism as the possible alternative; an alternative to the social-systems based on competition, segregation, obedience, exploitation and violence. However, it has to be stressed that, as a collective, we have never decided on one program or exact description of what form of anarchism we are aiming for. There are many reasons for this. Among them: the great differences between the backgrounds we come from, from a young anarcho-punk standpoint to that of experiences of participation in the "Solidarnosc" movement (polish workers movement of the 80’). From the beginning we have been rather intuitively using this variety of diverse experiences, standpoints and visions, for breaking the dogmas and letting "our vision of anarchism" develope freely and see it rather as an ongoing process than as a particular unmistakable concept we need to reach one day. So if one would necessarily like to place AbolishingBB (2001-2004) on the global map of the revolutionary left one should see our attempts as heading towards a collective that strongly supports a variety of issues but based on anarchist values, while the AbolishingBB version of anarchism should be seen as a permanent process of collective praxis and theory in order to form our own alternative and see it as a little piece of the complexity of the alternative social relations which we call Anarchism. That is also why we call ourselves an anarchist collective and not an anarchist organization.

In these few years of activity, the collective has managed to create, and continuously improve on, a regular anarchist publication with quite a wide popularity among various spectrums of anarchists around the whole continent (and beyond). The publication has the same name as the collective itself and its full name is: Abolishing the Borders from Below - an anarchist courier from Eastern Europe. That is why many people believe we are specifically a magazine publishing collective. Actually there are other projects we have been involved in over the years. We built up (namely!) and opened our office in Berlin, which serves as a meeting space for other anti-authoritarian leftwing groups and which also has a small libertarian library with a focus on Eastern Europe. AbolishingBB has also organised solidarity actions, informative meetings, exhibitions and other political and cultural events. From the very beginning we have cooperated with other anarchist groups, projects and campaigns both locally and around the world, especially in Eastern Europe. Depending on our limited capabilities we have always tried to give our support to various local and global struggles fighting against all kinds of oppression, each time trying to enrich these struggles with an anarchist perspective.

Since the very beginning, the collective has tried to confront and consciously exercise one of the biggest issues of an anarchist perception of social relations, which are the mutual-relations between freedom & preferences of individual and the concept of collectivism. During this time we have been through and created various forms of cooperation within our group, some were better than others. Learning from our own mistakes and enjoying watching the progress within our praxis seems to be two common parts of AbolishingBB reality. Remaining faithful to our intuitive understanding of anarchism as a process under permanent construction (which we are part of) we have never considered this process to be finished. This fact was of the biggest importance especially in winter 2004/2005 when the collective found itself in at a very difficult stage


(This little history, especially the latest developments of project, will be continuated end of April 2005 - u will get this information at least at the solidarity party on 22nd of April 2005 @ EKH)

MOTTO OF our MAGAZINE

There is a justifiable need to abolish the borders between nations, societies, cultures and whatever else separates and defines us. In order that this process does not lead to the formation of new borders or other types of segregation, like those established by elitist institutions such as the EU, NATO or UN, it has to be done from below, by the people.

There is an enduring need to immediately abolish all states, governments and authoritarian institutions so that communities based on common values such as freedom, respect, cooperation and solidarity can be formed. These communities in turn can lead to the transformation of the world order into one based on the above mentioned values. In order to push that process forward with support for the development of the anarchist movement over the borders we have created ... Abolishing the Bordes from Below - an anarchist couriere from Eastern Europe.

REASONS for such a publication

There are many reasons why it is necessary to put out this type of publication on a regular basis. There are a large number of anarchist groups in EE which could operate much more effectively with a continual exchange of ideas, tactics, experiences and materials with similarly minded groups from all over Europe and the World. It is clear that many western activists are also interested in the ideas and actions of the "eastern anarchists". We believe it to be necessary to tighten the cooperation between east and west in resisting Fortress Europe, the globalization of the world economy, and above all capitalism and it"s effects on our life. A mutual exchange of inspirations, motivations, and cooperation from anarchist communities all over Europe is needed on a day to day basis not only in times of international protests like the ones in Prague, Gothenburg and Genoa. The intent of this paper is to set up a better network of communication between groups and individuals from different parts of this continent. It is also a platform for regular presentation and exchange for various anarchist groups from EE itself, as well as helping to strengthen contacts between them and will hopefully lead to mutual inspiration. It also gives an opportunity for effectively organizing common campaigns and struggles. The process of creating an editorial team for AbolishingBB was a great step toward this so we appeal to everyone to make the most of the information here as effectively as possible. Finally this paper can be seen also as a mirror of our movement so every positive development in EE is coming back to us in form of motivation for further work on this magazine ...

Friday, 22nd of April 2005:
Soliparty for Abolishing the Borders From Below
@ EKH, Wielandgasse 2-4, 1100 Vienna (U1 Keplerplatz).

20:00 Videoscreening at the Infoshop:
"borderline south-east-europe" (grenzfall südosteuropa)
a nearly one hour documentation about borders, eu-enlargement, roma - from the perspective of the people, we met on our journey.
:: AK Kraak, 60 min engl, dt

21:00 presentation of Abolishing the Borders from Below magazine

22:00 live:

sangre de cristo
they started playing extreme core together at april 2002. they are 4 (drums, guitar, bass, voice). they describe themselves as stop an go core.

adacta
was formed in 2000, by four kids from Bratislava-Petrzalka, the biggest and the uggliest housing estate in the whole central Europe. they decided to play fast, raw, brutal and noisy music. Exactly like the life in Petrzalka, full of nazis, junkies, stupid majority population and even more stupid cops.
When the ex-drummer of Davova Psychoza, old Bratislavan punk band, joined ad acta, they changed their sound towards more crusty metallic mayhem, still fronted by mercilless female screaming that leaves you with no hope and illusions... with lyrics about desperate existence in this post-communist, would be capitalist system, trapped between two worlds, none of them being close to our ideals we continue screaming and thrashing.

nie geprobt (wien)
"Borders are evil and everywhere! We started to play together when a friend asked us to act like an all-female band in her film about the ekh.
As long as borders are evil and everywhere we will cross male -stage - borders. We play since a few months as NIE GEPROBT (=Never pracised, because before our first time on stage at "FRAUENBANDEN" we only practiced 1 and half hours..ggg) and our program is "heart" to explain. Everything is in progress. Do you like disco and aerobics?? Against cosmetic plague, fuck conformity, come and dance with us and support ABOLISHING THE BORDERS FROM BELOW!!"