A-Infos (en) Italy, FAI, Umanita Nova #36-25 - Deserting War - Caring for the Land. For a Collective Management of Land and Resources (ca, de, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

Over the weekend of November 29 and 30, 2025, as the Mikhail Bakunin FAI 
anarchist group of Rome & Lazio, we participated in two initiatives, 
different in form but deeply united in content: on November 29, 2025, at 
the antimilitarist march in Turin against war and the economy of death 
that sustains it, and on November 30, 2025, in Colloro, for the concrete 
construction of a coordination between mountain communities based on 
self-management, mutualism, and egalitarianism.

Two days that, from different perspectives, recount the same tension: 
the break with a world based on borders, armies, exploitation, and 
devastation, and the patient construction of free, supportive 
relationships rooted in local communities.

The November 29 march saw a broad and determined participation. The 
black and red-and-black flags flowed through the streets of Turin like a 
living river, traversed by slogans, speeches, music, and tactical 
frivolity that combined communication, mockery of militarism, and a 
strong commitment to struggle and desertion.

Banners like "Fuck war, stand in solidarity with the massacred peoples," 
"Let's break the wings of militarism," and "Let's desert the war!" were 
not simply slogans, but clear statements against a system that 
transforms human life into a expendable commodity.

Toward the head of the march, comrades dressed as clown soldiers, both 
male and female, parodied armed power, exposing its wretchedness. 
Ridiculing the uniform, emptying it of its symbolic authority, was a 
direct way to shatter the aura of sacredness with which states and 
governments seek to cloak their violence. Murga then concluded the march 
in Piazza Vittorio with a rousing performance, transforming the square 
into a space of collective liberation.

The march made a clear political point: we do not enlist on the side of 
this or that state. We reject patriotic rhetoric as a tool for 
legitimizing war and expansionist claims. There are no good 
nationalisms; there are only divisive borders and states that push 
proletarians to kill each other for interests that are not their own. We 
stand with those, in every corner of the world, who refuse conscription, 
desert, and sabotage war.

Militarism is not an accident of history, but a structural function of 
capitalism and the state. It is the armed instrument that defends 
accumulation, extractivism, the plundering of resources, and the 
repression of populations. In this sense, war not only massacres 
peoples, but also territories, transforming nature into a battlefield, a 
weapons dump, a space for conquest. Here, the rejection of war is 
directly linked to the defense of the land.

As Kropotkin reminded us, cooperation is a law of evolution as much as 
competition. Militarism destroys this tendency, imposing hierarchy, 
obedience, and death. Deserting war, then, means returning to the 
practice of mutual aid as the foundation of human and social relations, 
against the logic of mutual annihilation.

The following day, we moved to Colloro for an equally political 
initiative, albeit far from the marches and squares of the city: the 
birth of a coordination between the groups that live, fight, and resist 
in the mountains.

The day began with lunch at the Colloro Club, a simple yet powerful 
moment of concrete sociality. From the first exchanges, something rare 
could be felt: a relational fabric not yet totally devastated by the 
competitive individualism of the cities. After lunch, the assembly was 
so well attended that we were forced to march and occupy the square 
between the church of San Gottardo and the Carabinieri Park Unit - 
Premosello Chiovenda, where numerous speeches were given. Marco, a 
fellow member of our group, spoke about overtourism, depopulation, and 
self-management networks as tools for reclaiming territories.

In the mountains, more than anywhere else, what Bookchin called social 
ecology is evident: there is no environmental devastation that is not 
also social devastation. The same logics that militarize borders and 
cause wars empty towns, transforming territories into playgrounds for 
mass tourism or sacrifice zones for industry. The alternative cannot be 
a "nature protected" by the state, but inhabited, self-managed, 
liberated territories.

Here, anarchy and nature cease to be abstract concepts and become 
everyday practice: collective management of resources, non-commodified 
relationships, solidarity among those who resist. Once again, the mutual 
aid that Kropotkin spoke of appears to be a concrete instrument of 
survival and liberation.

Turin and Colloro were not two separate experiences, but two sides of 
the same journey. On the one hand, the clear rejection of war, states, 
borders, and nationalism; on the other, the daily construction of 
alternatives rooted in the local communities, outside the logic of 
profit and competition.

We saw at work, on both days, a dynamic opposite to the exclusionary, 
authoritarian one, founded on the denial of any coexistence that doesn't 
involve obedience: the protagonism of those who fight against borders, 
states, religions, and exploitation. We saw that joy, creativity, and 
community are powerful weapons against the organized sadness of power.

These two days confirmed to us that building an alternative is not only 
possible, but is already underway. It won't come from new governments, 
or from "better" armies, or from false green transitions imposed from 
above. It will come from free relationships, from communities in 
solidarity, from territories that reclaim their lives.

Deserting the war and caring for the Earth are, today, the same struggle.

Nestor & Rico

https://umanitanova.org/disertare-la-guerra-prendersi-cura-della-terra-per-una-gestione-collettiva-di-territori-e-risorse/
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