"CRIMINALS" OR "BARBARIANS" ?

The production of crime and mechanisms of criminalisation
in service of social control and exploitation

(on the example of “Biedaszyby” – a crises region in Poland)

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AGE OF “SLAVES” & “CRIMINALS” -
AGE OF RECONSTRUCTED IDENTITIES

For a long time it was my conviction that I would never wish anyone to have to work in the coal-mines as I consider this kind of work as one that could be replaced, especially if the technology of the work reminds me of the late middle age, as it is just too much for a human being. Even more than that, I was quite sure that I will never in my life meet people who would ask to be locked in prisons and even want to have their families to be locked in with them. But no notion is stable enough when the reality is being shaped by the barbaric processes of neo-liberal capitalism having to their use instruments of state control. The most unbelievable contradictions can happen. For example your social identity can be completely reconstructed. For everyone around, you may be a friend, colleague, work-companion or neighbour, but for the needs of the system of exploitation and control your social identity may be reduced to a being a “criminal”; with all the consequences included. As it that would not be enough, more or less the same mechanisms will implicate in your personality the consent to be a “slave”. Let have a look around us. On the one side masses of people take on the role of slaves uncritically (by consciously taking decisions to work on conditions of slavery). On the other side there are masses of people which are not able to get rid of their “criminal” identity in the eyes of society. In fact, the millions on the earth are facing the same choice: should I go to be a “slave” or rather a “criminal”? And only a tiny spark of the dignity and natural instincts of resistance people cultivate in them, help to reclaim their social identity of friends, colleagues or just humans. This text will describe both processes: the one in which people are now made into slaves & criminals, and the second in which people maintain the enthusiasm of “resistance” and reclaim their primary identities; on the example of the situation in the Lower Silesia region in south-west Poland, (in)famous for the BIEDASZYBY, the self-constructed coal-mines under self-management. But we should keep in mind that this story is just an example picked up from a very global reality, a reality so visible nowadays in the region of Eastern Europe.

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SETTING GROUND FOR EXPLOITATION


TIMES OF RELATIVE ABUNDANCE,
REGULAR RESISTANCE
AND PUNCTUAL ISOLATION

Walbrzych is a town of over 100 000 inhabitants, situated in the Lower Silesia region of Poland, For over 100 years it has been famous for coal-mines and its general rich mineral resources; but not only for that. In the times of state-capitalism/real-socialism this region was called a “Red Basin”, and was an unofficial barometer of the mood among the polish miners. According to the relations of politicians involved in the government structures in 70-90’, this definitely smaller on of two polish coal-basins (except the one of Lower Silesia there is the much bigger and much more populated Upper Silesia with tens of thousands of miners) was causing much more problems to the authorities in terms of rising demands and resistance. Each time the miners in Walbrzych went on strike, the government was doing everything to hide this fact from the rest of the country, isolating the struggling miners. As well in the times of the Solidarnosc activities in the 80s, many of the over-regional strikes and radical protests of Polish miners found their beginning here, in the “Red Basin”. These were as well the Lower Silesia miners who recognised and tried to oppose the treason of Solidarnosc-elites in the second half of the 80s. Again isolation was ordered so that the spirit would not spread among the “barbarians” country-wide…

In these times, even if hard working, even if facing serious health problems (as the state was still saving too much on work conditions and medical care) and even if being part of the industry causing serious ecological disasters in this beautiful mountain region (as the “communist” state was blind for environmental issues), miners and most of the people in this region were living in relative abundance; at least not afraid of their future. It may appear strange but in these terms an appropriate example is that the region was also famous for very successful sportsmen, in all possible disciplines. The prisons were quite full – mostly of those who did not comply with the uniformisation, homogenisation, and with the restrictions on criticism of personal and political freedom within the current relations. Finally the region, because of its mineral-resources potential, was considered as rich, and everybody was conscious of that fact: common people, local authorities, authorities in Warsaw … and obviously some other people as well!

NOTHING IS IMPOSIBLE.
GOVERNMENT MAKES THOUSANDS HEALTHY IN ABOUT ONE DAY … WITHOUT ANY TRICKS WITH GOD!

These “some other people” are most probably those mysterious visitors of the city council in Walbrzych in the very beginning of the 90’ about which people are talking here now, years later. However unclear the content of these visits remains, the occurrences which followed are clear like black coal one white snow. A piece of paper suddenly appeared explaining that the mineral resources in the region are running short. Stamped, signed, fact. There was no time and instances to verify this information – nobody was anyway used to closely examine what officials were stating: for 50 years, elites in power were the only ones to check and analyze everything. Some days later another surprise: if the resources are running short and the output of coal has no future the whole industry has to be closed. Stamped, signed, fact. The reasons why the polish coal-industry had to be put down … why it happened so rapidly … and why it started so radically in exactly this region - are very complex ones and have both economic and political dimensions. But 4 things can be stated for sure very shortly: these decisions were made behind closed doors; they were made by a very small elite; there was not even a shadow of consideration for the people, especially of the opinions of local people. Some people made huge profits from these decisions – obviously not the miners and their families. There were few miner-engineers who tried to oppose the move and conduct plans of modernisation of the industry to make it more effective without massive dismissals. Today we know that these plans were not only the most modern plans of the time around the continent, but as well that the process of modernisation was almost finished. The coal-mine “Kopernik” was almost ready to open, only a few more weeks were needed to start a mine that would have been new, safer and healthier for the miners, and more effective in output. In fact, these engineers were the first persons which lose their jobs. Their plans disappeared for years. Miners, hundreds after hundreds, day by day, were welcomed at the doors of the mines with documents of dismissal. Altogether a few thousands workers were forced to go.

The “Red Basin” could hardly react as the workers’ structures dissolved too much in the period of enthusiasm caused by the overthrowing of “communism”. These workers who started to organise the solidarity and protest actions, were the very next ones to pick up the tickets of dismissal. The next ones became more careful and paranoid. Families made pressure: stay cool, primarily we need you working and only then struggling, and not the other way round. Soon the families also recognised how wrong they have been: the obeying workers got the “tickets” as well … just a few weeks later then their protesting colleagues. However, already on this level the first chains of solidarity between people got broken. The “Red Basin” lost its own spirit. After the coal-mines, industry linked to them, machine factories, manufacturing sites, coking-plants etc were closed, as their lost their reason of existence. Someone must have been in a very big hurry here as the process was very quick. And who was it? - Old elites seeking for easy profits?… polish EU-protagonists? … Leszek Balcerowicz (polish Finance Minister 89-91 and the author of the so-called “shock-therapy economy reforms”)? … All of them together? … Some other actors …?
Which alternative was offered to the people? - None, instead of the words that “after some time of harder transition everything will be better than it was before”. At least the miners with some years of probation in the mines had quite high health pension according to the high level of “wear and tear”of these people during their work time – one of the remains of the “communist times”. But even this didn’t last for long. The government follows the logic: if there is no existing mine-industry in the region anymore, there is no existence of a health danger, so there is no need for health-support for the (ex)-miners. Most of the pensions got deleted from one day to another. Ex-miners in Walbrzych were talking about the wonder: “The government declared us to be healthy. Officially we all became healthy in one day”.

POVERTY AND EXTREME SOCIAL CRISES HITS THE STREETS.
THE LIFE FOR SURVIVAL BEGINS.

So in the second part of the 90s, everything that has been mentioned some lines above, which includes “Red Basin”, resources, future plans, sportsmen, etc … was gone. A spirit of resistance and solidarity between people are steadily decreasing. The life for survival begins. Most people don’t know what to begin with. On the one side, they seem to be victims of their own dependence from the work – lack of work causes a lack of the sense of life (no other desires in perspective, no other options). On the other side, the coal and the mines meant more to these people than only a job and a basis of gain; it was a constant part of their lives, their spirit, their culture and their dignity. Omnipresent frustration took its place. And in Poland, unfortunately, the most popular medicament against all sorts of frustrations is alcohol. New aspects of “social life” started to fill up a day of the large ex-miners community. These are: the individual and collective collecting of scrap-iron, collecting anything else that could be cashed, the desperate search for any short-term jobs, prostitution, the self-production of alcohol and drugs and their distribution, formation of gangs and mafia structures (for example to make profits of prostitution and of the distribution of drugs), seasonal and one-way emigration, street-begging, “organising things”, stealing different properties and robbing different kind of people, alcoholism, … spending time and making social contacts in the arrest cells and in prison, and some more of these kinds of things.

GOVERNMENT COMES WITH HELP…

In the meantime, already the forth or fifth government since the “time of the wonders” speaks about working on solving the problems and about the better times coming soon. Programs on decreasing unemployment are introduced. The crucial one is the creation of Economic Free Zones - new investors will bring new workplaces with them. And they do. The new workplaces show typical slave-condition characteristics. Most of the ex-miners have no chance to get these jobs, even if they would like to work (mostly they don’t because the jobs have completely nothing to do with what they have learned and what they can do). The jobs are mostly offered to young people, who are ready to take any job on any conditions just to not end up on the streets. New workplaces are not safe and in many cases people are dismissed after 1,5 year for no specific reason (what the workers and students in France fight against these days is normality here. Most jobs are so badly paid, that one can probably make more money by “organising” than one would get for a full time work.
In such a situation the choice between being an informal “criminal” or an “slave” is hard to avoid; at least not before the restauration of a more radical and collective consciousness of resistance.

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CRIMINALISATION


DIG OUT THE IDEA OF “BIEDA-SZYBY”/ “PAUPER-SHAFTS”

It is not first time in the history of this region that during an extreme crises people start to dig in the ground and put out the coal with their own hands. But in the second part of the nineties it happened for the first time that people started to put out something … what was officially considered as having disappeared – as literally not existing! It started with the moment when – in the old archives - someone found 19th Century plans about the location of coal-loads. Officially they should already have been empty. But … mistrust against the authorities is one of the strongest cultivated traditions in Poland. Some people just went and checked the places (coal-loads in Walbrzych lie just one to a few metres below the ground). Whenever they made a test they found a piece of coal! Some weeks later the map was copied in conspiracy in big numbers, distributed within the communities and … the self-output began. Brigades of 3 to 6 men were formed and people start to dig - at first next to the old mines. This form of primitive self-output had already been called “Biedaszyby” in the past, which means “Pauper-Shafts”. Coal was everywhere – especially where it was supposed not to be! In a short time the number of people involved in this primitive output (“Biedaszybniks”) reached 2-3 thousand. It was 2002/2003. Most people were doing it for their own needs, the needs of their families, relatives and neighbours. Some organised the work better and even made some relative profits. In this way, the people undertook very hard work, but at least they found a way to survive and by doing exactly what they can do best: “mining” for coal.

STEAL EVERYTHING THEY HAVE AND WHEN THEY START TO TAKE IT BACK CALL THEM CRIMINALS…

The news spread around the entire country (and even to neighbour Czechia): the cheapest coal can be bought directly from the miners in the Walbrzych region! Transporters from all over the Poland were picking up the “non-existing” coal. In Poland most of the population is living on reserves, so everybody who depends on coal was interested to trade with Biedaszybniks. The state was automatically excluded from this specific work and trade market. The reaction of the authorities was typical. The old law was pulled out from the deepest cellar: everything what can be found more than 0,5 meter under the ground belongs to the state! Taking it away is an offence; the selling and trade of these goods is a crime. Around 2003/2004, the hunting of “criminals” began: police-rides, observations, confiscations, interrogations, confrontations with police violence, threats, arrests, sentences, fines … In the years between 2003 and 2005 over 1000 cases of “illegal” output or “illegal” trade with coal went to the courts; all against the Biedaszybniks themselves, their families (involved in the trade) and their clients. In March 2006, on the schedule of the local court, one can hardy find a particular day without at least one case connected with this activity. But people are desperate; they don’t want do join these colleagues which already became alcoholics or are homeless, or those which began to rob others in order to survive. “If you don’t allow me to do this work, please put me into prison. There, I can at least get a warm meal, a warm shower and spend the winter under a roof. But I obligate you to take care of my family during this period, and if you ca not guarantee it, lock them in together with me!” – This kind of declaration could be heard from the mouths of the Biedaszybniks again and again during the court processes - especially during the winter.

The repressions made the work even more dangerous; people started to work faster and under stress in order to limit the chances of being caught. Work often took place in the night and in less adaptable locations but in places where the police-rides were easier to avoid … many times in the middle of the city, in the gardens, under the buildings … Many more experienced minors got scared due to the repression or they already found themselves in prison. It means: younger members of communities, which never had an opportunity to really learn these specific work-skills, were forced to replace them. As well more women and some children got involved in the working process. And accidents increased. 5 deadly victims until March 2006.

NARROW-MINDED LOSERS

At the same time local elites use all accessible means to glorify their politics. They proudly present that the unemployment in Walbrzych decreased from “50% to 40%” or so, in last 2 years. Of course they did not admit publicly that this “decrease” mostly consists of the following facts: there is massive emigration from the region; most of the people with work do the temporal jobs, without safety and on a minimal salary; young people do not even see a sense to register themselves in the (un)employment-office; in most statistics the imprisoned people are not considered as unemployed. On the question why most of the ex-miners still remain without any work they have one answer: it is their own fault, they are narrow-minded losers who are not able to adapt themselves to the new needs of the market… Or maybe just people who, against all odds, still have some dignity in themselves in contradiction to the majority of the young generation which already grew up in capitalist circumstances and do whatever “the market” wants them to do…

“CRIMINALS”? …

So we are talking about several thousands of people which got brutally cheated, pauperised, brought to desperation and – in order to keep their anger and any sort of collective reaction - criminalised. An army of thousands of people is reduced to “criminals” and narrow-minded losers, kept under control by “law and justice”, isolated, alienated and almost deprived of a spirit of dignity which was so vital in this region 10-15 years ago. Along with dignity, the people have lost a spirit of solidarity and resistance. So how do these “criminals” live their “criminal lives”? They live from what is available around them; for example coal. When the state decided to break them down, and the output became to be too dangerous (in the years between 2003 and 2006 the number of the Biedaszybniks decreased from 2000-3000 to about 300) they started to take everything around that can help them survive another week. Many earn money in countries far away. Many women were forced to work as prostitutes. And many are not ably to live and act in social ways any more and they commit cruel things which are hard to justify but are deeply rooted in the circumstances these people live their lives in, destroyed by poverty and everything that comes with it: depression and more serious mental problems, physical illness, addiction… But then, the law knows just one term for all of them: criminals.

… OR “BARBARIANS”!
(SELF-ORGANISATION TO DEFY CRIMINALISATION)

But behind this construction of “criminals”, more pleasant “creatures” are hidden - disguised in the very same people. One just needs to take off the glasses of state-logic to discover our resisting “barbarians” there. If anyone of you people, people about which I am writing here, feel offended by being called this way – believe me: there is only pure sympathy, respect and hope (so difficult to awake nowadays) to be found in there. “Barbarians” means people, reacting and resisting in the complex-less, unpredictable, often spontaneous (to not say “natural”), sometimes explosive, sometimes even enthusiastic way; resisting various mechanisms of oppression with huge impacts on their lives – be it the indirect but truly barbaric impact of the processes of capitalism or be it very direct effects of state mechanisms maintaining the false notion of democracy. “Barbarians” in large restores they wealth in the most direct way.

As it was mentioned, Biedaszybniks have already started before from the point of: Don’t believe anyone in power! And they proved e.g. that the talks of the officials about non-existing loads of coal are pure lies. They organised themselves to work by output. They shared some machines (later stolen by the police), some transporters (as well stolen). They support each other with knowledge and skills of where to find and how to put the minerals out. They organised horizontal structure of work in brigades as well as teams of specialists to control the safety conditions of the self-made shafts. They created distribution and trade of the coal, health-service in brigades, and support for those which cannot be involved in the process of output (e.g. imprisoned persons) and for their relatives. They organised self-defence structures against the police rides …

But some of the Biedaszybniks went even further – they started to organise beyond the workplaces: they create the Association “Biedaszyby” in order to reach more attention for the problems of the region. They started the conscious work with the mainstream media as well as developing some own media activities (making video documentaries about their daily resistance). They have begun to take a more conscious approach towards the repressions – educating themselves in terms of law, defending themselves during the court, and spreading a spirit of self-confidence among their colleagues.

Then the Biedaszybniks began to participate in social gatherings, protests and confrontations: they appeared a on series of workers conferences all around Poland and in Germany, they organised some massive manifestations in Walbrzych, as well as participated in wider social protests, be it alter-globalists and anarchists marches against the summit of the European Economic Forum in Warsaw (2004) or in general protests of polish miners as well in Warsaw (from time to time).

More, their began to make their local demands more concrete, formulated them in the form of some postulates, set a campaign in order to push them forward, confront the local authorities with them and finally, they even developed some very concrete proposals for social programs to solve the problems of the region, programs to be conducted and controlled by the people themselves, including e.g. ecological re-cultivation of the post-output terrains. Last but not the least, these “narrow-minded losers” and “criminals” have already established international contacts with groups and movements - and are very open for more.

SO HERE IS THE PROCESS OF PRODUCTION OF CRIMES AND THE CRIMINALS

The last two decades of the history of the city of Walbrzych and the short history of existence of contemporary Pauper-Shafts show the role the concept of “crime” plays in today’s world very well. Everything begins in the unjust social system which creates underprivileged and over-privileged people. Underprivileged people are finding themselves in the position of having minimum influence on decisions concerning their lives. Over-privileged people, whatever “good intentions” they declare to have, will always see to that there is a functioning system of “law and order” to maintain their privileges. This system is not only at their service but they are as well the masters of “tuning” it in the way they want it “to sound”. It means that they are deciding what is and what isn’t a crime, and about the whole technology of how this system works. At the same time a huge amount of people remain deprived of some privileges, mostly they will be discriminated economically or politically but the world knows enough other forms of discrimination. In case of the Biedaszybniks, they were already discriminated economically and politically by the “communist” elites, and as effect of their underprivileged position they were completely ignored and ultimately degraded on the arrival of neo-liberalism.
Yet, however “democratic” would be the face of the system of “law and order” it not only allows those in power to maintain existing statues quo, but as well to successively exploit the underprivileged. Exploited people earlier or later will reach the point of desperation and start to act in spite of the law; they will be punished for that, because the law stays here for “justice” so the real existing injustice can be only be repaired in the frames of this fictive justice (the law). The longer such system exists than more the entire society adapts it (absurdly) logic. Even the most underprivileged and exploited start to accept it - they find themselves in this vicious circle: they are permanently breaking the law in order to survive, and at the same time the most of them believe that the system of “law and order” is maintaining the justice. Additionally, with each next punishment they are becoming even more deprived through cruel imprisonment system and marginalised/alienated by the society which in meanwhile adapted as well the fear of the “criminals” and the “crimes”, so that in its eyes the “criminals” are the worse “kind” of human. The more they are alienated … the less feeling of social ties … the more anti-social behaviours … the more punishments … the more imprisonment … the more depravation … the more marginalisation by society … the less feeling of social ties, etc, etc.

This way unfortunately entire society carry on the responsibility for maintaining of this cruel circle, however the role of the executors (economical and political elites, bosses, judges, cops, prison guards, etc) in this process is not only naive and passive (like most of the society), but very conscious and active, therefore of much more heaviness.

THIS IS JUST THE BEGINNING!

In this place the most welcome would be presentation of the anarchist position of how to break the circle of “crime and punishment”. As the description the complex problematic of its dismantling would extend this text to at least sizes of the pamphlet, I will leave it for now and do my best to convince the rest of the editorial collective of ABB to give some more space to this topic in the next issues. But except of providing analyses and concrete ideas of how to work in the communities on this issue, there is enough to do on the ground right now; for example in context of the “Biedaszyby” as well as certainly in hundreds of similar communities around the Eastern Europe. Unfortunately, already pretty far established contacts between the Biedaszybniks and polish anarchists in the past seem to asleep a bit today and this rather from the side of the anarchists as the Biedaszybniks. This has of course much to do with the number and variety of the social problems and interventions in which this, in fact not too big, movement is involved. And again unfortunately, in today’s Poland many of struggling communities and social movements face intensive indoctrination and influence from some right-wings organisations. In this sense, not only the general discourse about “crime and punishment” is being dominated by right-wings but as well the very practical work with criminalised but yet resisting communities is being lost.

The very possibility to change these circumstances provides, paradoxaly, the chain of processes against the Biedaszybniks. Chain which seems to not have any end for now. Anarchists, with their structures and experience could not only effectively support criminalised Biedaszybniks but as well restore the contacts for further cooperation. As there are hardly any anarchist structures in Walbrzych itself, it would be a challenge for the comrades from not far located groups in Poland, Czechia or in Germany. For now the situation in Walbrzych proofs that the more consequently and consciously the “barbaric resistance” is the more intensive the processes of criminalisation and marginalisation are.

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Veronika
March 2006