Hold Your Head Higher

“They can bun my flesh, but they can't touch my spirit, They wan' take way my freedom, but they can't take away my spirit”

Every cell, every hair, every drop of blood is a part of my body. With the extraction of a DNA sample, from body cells, against my will, my body has been hurt by the justice of the state and its minions, just like through imprisonment.

I will not go into the futility of the arguments in favour of extraction in this procedure because I generally do not want to justify DNA sampling. The DNA databases introduced a few decades ago are no longer hiding behind the false arguments of dangerous violent crimes, but are a permanently used instrument of the state’s mania for data collection and control. To them we should all be better already preventively stored in their databases; from graffiti writers to shoplifters.

And also in court we see the progressive development of DNA, from being just an indication to now being the proof. For example in many other European countries it has already long been a reality to be convicted based on DNA as the main evidence. Because DNA as a thoroughly ideological instrument makes it possible to make, from an image of a person, a biography or position combined with an alleged offense, a verdict. Even if it proves nothing.

But it would be a mistake to argue inside the framework of their self-legitimating theatre. The ever-increasing collection of data of any kind is obviously not for our protection, for our good. But it is for the defence of their rule of money, property, and power over other people. Contrary to widespread misconception, there are no neutral databases. They work by the logic of domination. Because what is still “harmless” data today can be used tomorrow against those that it concerns. History has taught us this lesson in a cruel way. What is a list, register, membership one day can be a death sentence on another day. And we all know that conditions change quickly and are never as stable as they claim. The fact that the enemies of freedom collect data and categorise people for their own purposes was again made clear by some recent events. For example, the death lists of the right-wing network “Nordkreuz”, consisting of (elite) soldiers of the army, police officers, reservists, as well as persons from the judiciary and politics. Or the threatening letters against anti-authoritarian and anarchist revolutionaries in Berlin, compiled and sent by LKA [police department for serious crimes] officials with data from police files and databases. Or the databases that are used across Europe against displaced people in which their bodies, like those of animals, are measured in order to be able to identify them elsewhere…

But the ubiquitous digitisation of everything also plays a major role. The data of social networks, the telecommunications and GPS data as well as all that is collected about us through online shopping and the digital apps of “shared transport schemes”, are now the main sources of repressive institutions. And unfortunately there is a frighteningly high level of voluntary participation in this process. This is accompanied by the exclusion of all those people who cannot be part of the established legal society, as they have no papers for example. Because with the evermore transparent society the spaces in which there is no permanent control disappear. The social fog vanishes for domination.

Individuals who feel the urge to live a life of freedom should, regardless of their own situation, create and defend uncontrolled spaces and meet and support those who are persecuted, threatened, exploited and oppressed.

But this means conflict with those who rule us. Let's face their order with our self-organized struggles.