Millenarian Rebels & A Crime Called Freedom | Writings of Os Cangaceiros, 2 Volumes
OS CANGACEIROS was a group of delinquents with nothing but contempt for the self-sacrificial ideology practiced by "specialists in armed struggle". This uncontrollable band of social rebels wreaked havoc on the French state by attacking the infrastructures of oppression, supporting popular revolts, stealing and releasing secret blueprints for high-tech prisons, raiding the offices of corporate collaborators, and creating their lives in complete opposition to the world based on work.
Members of the French revolutionary group Os Cangaceiros write about their fierce Brazilian namesakes, as well as the millenarian groups of the dispossessed and the urban poor who joined together in movements of social reform at the dawn of the 20th century, only to find themselves in an apocalyptic struggle with the Brazilian state.
I find the sympathy of the cangaceiros for the millenarian movements of their time interesting because their way of life in their world seems to parallel that of the Free Spirit movement of the middle ages. The Free Spirits are often described as millenarians, but their millenarianism was distinctly different from that of Conselheiro, Thomas Münzer, the Münster millenarians and most other millenarian movements. The distinction lies in the fact that the Free Spirits did not see the millennium as something that was going to come soon, but as something that already existed within them. Their perspective was not apocalyptic — aiming toward a future end of the world — but rather based in the immediate present. This is why the Free Spirits, while still using religious language, actually attacked the foundations of religion: dependence on an external supernatural power, hope in a heavenly future, faith in an external source of salvation.
Wolfi Landstreicher is the editor of the insurrectionary anarchist journal Willful Disobedience and publisher of Venomous Butterfly Publications. He has translated works by Renzo Novatore, Alfredo Bonanno and many other Italian-language anarchist publications. We would be a shadow of what we are if it were not for his work.
NOTICE:These are small press/anarchist made books and may have flaws or bumped corners, or other marks of DIY imperfection.
Members of the French revolutionary group Os Cangaceiros write about their fierce Brazilian namesakes, as well as the millenarian groups of the dispossessed and the urban poor who joined together in movements of social reform at the dawn of the 20th century, only to find themselves in an apocalyptic struggle with the Brazilian state.
I find the sympathy of the cangaceiros for the millenarian movements of their time interesting because their way of life in their world seems to parallel that of the Free Spirit movement of the middle ages. The Free Spirits are often described as millenarians, but their millenarianism was distinctly different from that of Conselheiro, Thomas Münzer, the Münster millenarians and most other millenarian movements. The distinction lies in the fact that the Free Spirits did not see the millennium as something that was going to come soon, but as something that already existed within them. Their perspective was not apocalyptic — aiming toward a future end of the world — but rather based in the immediate present. This is why the Free Spirits, while still using religious language, actually attacked the foundations of religion: dependence on an external supernatural power, hope in a heavenly future, faith in an external source of salvation.
Wolfi Landstreicher is the editor of the insurrectionary anarchist journal Willful Disobedience and publisher of Venomous Butterfly Publications. He has translated works by Renzo Novatore, Alfredo Bonanno and many other Italian-language anarchist publications. We would be a shadow of what we are if it were not for his work.
NOTICE:These are small press/anarchist made books and may have flaws or bumped corners, or other marks of DIY imperfection.
