Written by a Spanish member of the Anarchist Federation living in London in the immediate aftermath of the March 11th bombing in Madrid.

“I can see the picture on the internet of a maimed corpse lying at a spot where I used to go for a walk with my dog. One of the train stations where the explosions took place is down the road where I used to live. I took the train there every morning and travel to uni at about the same time when the attacks happened. That was a few years ago.

My friend is still working in the botanical garden, across the road from the main station, where most of the carnage took place. I couldn’t speak with him until late last night. He’s alright but very shocked. The local meeting place of the CNT (anarcho-syndicalist union) is nearby and we used to go into bars in this area for a drink after the meetings.

Well all these are painful memories now. All this zone is the main working class area in Madrid, some of the most conscious and militant workers in Spain. It is obvious that those who did this have no regard for life, at all. Whether they were Muslim extremists or Marxist Basquian separatists they have shown the conception of the human being that underlies their ideologies. They despise people, they simply don’t care about suffering as they considered themselves devoted to a superior cause or abstract being. Something that transcends real persons, individuals, who can be sacrificed by the dozen. For the Muslim extremist, what counts is the selfish will of salvation, self-salvation, carried ahead despite of the others, who are the instruments and victims of his holy war. Religion and carnage, that’s pure fascism. For the Marxist nationalist the individual must be submitted to ideology and hierarchy, so as to achieve a supposed better world. Only that this again is carried ahead against the will of the individual members of that society, that are tools in the hands of the bureaucrat.

That is why I am an anarchist, as probably also were more than a few of those who died today. The difference is that we privilege the individual whose freedom and happiness are our real goals. We don’t care about gods or heavens, we believe only in this real world, that of people who work and laugh, suffer and struggle with courage. Real people, that’s all we need, not superstitions and myths that justify death and hatred. We don’t care either about economic abstractions according to which increased production means increased happiness. The real persons, individuals, are what we care about, people like those who died that day. That each one of these normal people is happy, or at least has the means to be, is our goal. And this must begin, obviously, for absolute respect for life.

There’s been a lot of speculation about who did this, and we’ve seen the shameful show of politicians trying to take advantage of it, making this and that declaration. They don’t care either about normal people, but we knew this already. Same as banks, big companies and corporations, none of which interests have been attacked now, but which have been consistently opposed by the very conscious working class population of the area affected by these blasts.

To all my CNT and anarchist comrades living in the area:
Rodri, Juani, Hector, Quicar…
I still don’t know, at the time of writing this, if you are all right. Keep up the struggle for freedom and justice.

THEIR WORLD DESTROYS US LETS BUILD UP OUR OWN
National Committee, CNT.

In Madrid, this 11 March, we are killed again. We, the workers, the people, are again the victims, this time maimed and shattered in the most brutal way. We, the workers, the people, are always the victims of all terrorism. Those that are called so, and those other that are in disguise. We are the victims of unemployment, bad housing, misery, manipulation, exploitation, casualisation… we are used in every war, in every power struggle, by every fanatic, by every power. We are the victims of their decisions, of interests and wants of groups that use us to hide behind and bargain over.

In Madrid, in Iraq, in Palestine, in Afghanistan, in New York, in Chicago, in Bilbao, in Russia, in Chechnya… everywhere we are killed for causes that are not ours.

We must state clearly and loudly, that only we, the workers, those of us who don’t have bodyguards or armoured cars, who don’t decide on any one else’s lives and futures, can mourn really our death. We can say clearly and loudly, with real pain, that we are one with the victims and their families, because they are us.

A wordless hug, from the heart, to all those effected.

Their world destroys us, let us build our own.

National Committee, CNT.