Submitted by mambabasa in Anarchy101 (edited )

Historically, the FAI in the Spanish Revolution operated "humane" concentration camps where guards and prisoners intermingled and the prisoners didn't really have a need to escape. I suspect they didn't escape because living in the anarchist concentration camp was better than dying for Franco as Franco's army was composed of more mercenaries than fascists.

This is not the place to discuss the merits and demerits of historical anarchist concentration camps. What about current wars? Rojava maintains prisoner camps for Daesh (ISIS) prisoners who do try to escape and rejoin Daesh.

What do we do with these prisoners of war if we operate under an abolitionist framework? Drug users we treat medically. Abusers we rehabilitate and reconcile. Antisocials we accommodate and help them improve themselves. Rapists and murderers we eject from the community or even exile. But what if there's a war going on? What do we do with the prisoners of war? What if they're not like the Franco soldiers who don't really have an urge to escape? What if they're the fascist or terrorist kind like the Daesh who do want to escape to conquer and enslave?

9

Comments

You must log in or register to comment.

Hibiscus_Syrup wrote

I'm surprised you consider this a 101 question! Still, I wish more people had answered, I would have loved to see what others think is possible.

Drug users we treat medically. Abusers we rehabilitate and reconcile. Antisocials we accommodate and help them improve themselves. Rapists and murderers we eject from the community or even exile.

I don't think abolition is as straightforward as any of these examples.

4

Alt wrote (edited )

I couldn't say without more knowledge of the specific context and I don't know really how I would respond if I was there in the flesh.

I like CrimethInc.'s frame of accountability for Mussolini that they used in Against The Logic of The Guillotine.
But that is in a broader context where Mussolini is powerless.

In the event that there is an ongoing war and there's no significant possibility of an individual's rehabilitation, then I think it might be the right thing to kill that person.

The killing should never be systematised, or impersonal.

Already I am aware of myself as someone who would, if for some reason I happened to walk past someone like Bezos, or Musk, choose to suffer any consequence afterward to ensure that they die in that moment. Though we have never met, they are in a real sense my enemy in a personal way.

And in fact I think that we should if we can, in the form of the SHAC model, be killing billionaires. And similarly, those fascists who we have in our locales, who we have a more intimate relationship with, they will never be 'reformed', and once we understand their ecosystem, it will often be appropriate to kill them if we can get away with it.

I don't like military framing, but I understand myself and anarchists all over the world already to be at war with them in a real sense. We must kill them as humans fully attuned to their humanity.

Critique and contributions to this are invited.

2