Political violence can be understood, from an anti-authoritarian perspective, as an aggressive response that seeks to break, attack, or fracture each of the components that make up domination.
This response could be limited to damaging the symbols of authority, thus leaving a powerful propaganda message, that is, one that manages to capture each of the motivations behind the action and, ideally, causes the violent response to be repeated or spread, or at least part of it.
As I said earlier, it is possible to attack symbolically, understanding that the current system of oppression can be seen represented in different elements or physical objects, or even in people.
For example, we have the case of Sante Caserio, who stabbed French President Sadi Carnot. From my perspective, he did this because the president represented political power, which at that time had led to the deaths of his comrades Ravachol, Vaillant, and Henry. His action sought to be a direct attack on those who publicly upheld power in the territory dominated by the French state in the 1890s. In addition to carrying out revenge, Sante wanted there to be no doubt about his motivations, which is clear in his cry: “Long live anarchy!” At the time of his arrest, as well as in his court statement.
Currently, we understand that the capitalist, heteropatriarchal system of domination is intertwined with complex social and cultural relationships, in addition to material structures and the people who sustain them. Consequently, and from an anarchist perspective, I have (and have held for several years now) the following questions:
How could a decisive qualitative leap be made that goes beyond attacking the symbolic? Is it really possible to “hit where it hurts” the capitalist system, in a world where relations of domination have reached a network of networks throughout the world?
The answers to these questions have changed as I have come to understand how domination has developed and persisted, and I have tried to act on these answers by shaping the many ways in which we can destroy everything that prevents the full development of each individual.
On the long road of how anti-authoritarian political violence is exercised, the successes and failures must necessarily be a collective learning experience for those of us who stand on the same side.
Among those of us who have found ourselves in anarchist/anti-authoritarian “action,” we constantly meet new comrades, just as we painfully say goodbye to many others.
Comrades Belén, Tortuga, Lupi, your memory lives on.
Health and Anarchy!
Mónica Caballero Sepúlveda
Anarchist prisoner
Black August 2025
Source: Informativo Anarquista
$hile: Political violence. Words from anarchist compañera Mónica Caballero