The RAF Was Not The Answer For Liberation - It Was One Aspect Of It Although many questions remain open today, we are sure that from the liberation ideas of the future the seed of free relations can arise, if it truly does embrace the variety which is needed to overturn the conditions. It is useless to speak of the correct line, the aspect of life outside of which everything else seems inefficient, just as it is to seek a revolutionary subject. The project of liberation in the future will know many subjects and a variety of aspects and content, and this had nothing to do with being random. We need a new proposal in which seemingly very different individuals or social groups can be subjects, and yet still be together. In this sense, the liberation project of the future will not contain the old concepts of the German left since 1968, not those of the RAF or other groups. The joy of building an encompassing, anti-authoritarian, and yet binding organizing project of liberation lies before us still, sadly too little attempted up until now. We see that there are people all over the world who are trying this, to finds ways out of the vacuum. We draw hope from the fact that everywhere, even in the most remote corners of this country - where the cultural hegemony of the fascist right is no longer a seldom thing - there are people who have the courage to join together against racism and neo-nazism, to defend themselves and others and to struggle. It is necessary to recognize that we are at a dead end and we need to find ways out. So it makes sense to abandon things which can only be carried forward in a theoretical sense. Our decision to end something is the expression of our search for new answers. We know that we are joined with many other people around the world in this search. There will be many future discussions until all the experiences have been brought together and we have a realistic and reflective picture of history. We want to be part of a joint liberation. We want to make some of our own processes recognizable, and we want to learn from others. This excludes the notion of a vanguard which leads the struggle. Although the concept of being the vanguard had been dropped from our understanding of the struggle for years, the old concept of the RAF would not allow this to be actually done away with. Thats another reason why we had to cut ourselves loose from this concept. The Guerrillas In The Metropoles Brought The War Back Into The Belly Of The Beast, To The Imperialist States Which Waged Their Wars Outside Their Own Centers Of Power Despite everything which we could have done better, it was fundamentally correct to oppose the conditions in West Germany and to seek to wage resistance to the continuity of German history. We wanted to open up chances for revolutionary struggle in the metropoles as well. The RAF took up its own social terrain of struggle and sought to develop it for more than two decades, a terrain which historically knew little resistance, lacked a movement against fascism, and which was characterized by a population loyal to fascism and barbarism. Unlike in other countries, in Germany, liberation from fascism had to come from the outside. There was no self-determined break with fascism from below here. There were very few people in this country who resisted fascism; too few with any trace of humanity. Those who struggled in the Jewish resistance, in the communist resistance - in whatever anti-fascist resistance - were right to struggle. And they will always be right. They were the few glimmers of light in the history of this country since 1933, when fascism began to kill off all that was social in this society. In contrast to these people, the trend in this society was always more or less to accept what those in power said; authority determined what is legitimate. In the social destruction of this society, which was a precondition for the genocide by the Nazis, the indifference to any other essential moment remains today. The RAF broke with German tradition after Nazi fascism and refused to grant it any legitimacy. The RAF came from the revolt against it. It not only rejected this national and social continuity, it waged an internationalist struggle in place of this negation, a struggle whose praxis rejected the ruling conditions in the German state and attacked the military structures of its NATO allies. All over the world, this alliance, in whose hierarchy the USA was the driving force and the unquestioned leader, sought to defeat social rebellions and liberation movements by means of the military and war. The guerrillas in the metropoles brought the war, which the imperialists waged outside their centers of power, back into the belly of the beast. We answered the violent conditions with the violence of revolt. It is not possible for us to look back on a smooth and perfect history. But we tried to do something, and in doing so we overstepped many of the ruling powers laws and the internalized boundaries of bourgeois society. The RAF was not able to point out the path to liberation. But it contributed for two decades to the fact that there are still thoughts about liberation today. Putting the system in question was and still is legitimate, as long as there is dominance and oppression instead of freedom, emancipation, and dignity for everyone in the world. There are nine former militants from the struggle of the RAF still in prison. Although the struggle for liberation is far from over, this conflict has become part of history. We support all efforts which seek to get the prisoners from this conflict out of prison upright. At this time, wed like to greet and thank all of those who offered us solidarity on our path for the past 28 years, who supported us in various ways, and who struggled together with us in the ways that they could. The RAF was determined to contribute to the struggle for liberation. This revolutionary intervention in this country and in this history would never have taken place if many people, not organized in the RAF themselves, hadnt given a part of themselves to this struggle. A common path lies behind all of us. We hope that we will all find ourselves together again on the unknown and winding paths of liberation. Our thoughts are with all those around the world who lost their lives in the struggle against domination and for liberation. The goals which they strived for are the goals of today and tomorrow - until all relations have been overturned in which a person is but a lowly object, a downcast, abandoned, and contemptuous being. It is sad that so many gave their lives, but their deaths were not in vain. They live on in the struggles and the future liberation. We will never forget the comrades of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) who lost their lives in the fall of 1977 in an act of internationalist solidarity, seeking to liberate the political prisoners. Today we would especially like to remember all those who chose to give their all to the armed struggle here, and who lost their lives. Our memories and all our respect goes out to those whose names we do not know, because we never knew them, and to Petra Schelm Georg von Rauch Thomas Weissbecker Holger Meins Katharina Hammerschmidt Ulrich Wessel Siegfried Hausner Werner Sauber Brigitte Kuhlmann Wilfried Bose Ulrike Meinhof Jan-Carl Raspe Gudrun Ensslin Andreas Baader Ingrid Schubert Willi-Peter Stoll Michael Knoll Elisabeth van Dyck Juliane Plambeck Wolfgang Beer Sigurd Debus Johannes Timme Jurgen Peemoeller Ina Siepmann Gerd Albartus Wolfgang Grams The revolution says: I was I am I will be again Red Army Faction March 1998
Posted on: Sun, 16 Mar 2014 17:09:41 +0000
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