politics
‘Buenaventura Durruti’ is a Welsh, Unitarian, eclectically left-of-centre postmodernist radical with nostalgic memories of youthful Trotskism. He is opinionated and angry; he is grateful to George Bush and Tony Blair for making him realise that he’s an angry older man rather than just another grumpy old man: he just wishes they hadn’t killed so many people in the process.
He has always been a dissenter: happy to raise embarrassing questions, and happy not to be one-of-us. But he could never aspire to run the kind of rigorous, articulate and self-reflexive critique worthy of being described as intellectual.
He lost his faith in the grand narratives of history and religion a long time ago, but strongly believes you can have morality without ethics.
With Bertolt Brecht, he believes: ‘Because things are the way they are, things will not stay the way they are.’
the durruti column
the durruti column documents Buenaventura Durruti’s reaction to current events.
the durruti column has no connection with the band The Durutti Column.
the real Buenaventura Durruti
Buenaventura Durruti (1896—1936) was a central figure of Spanish anarchism during the period leading up to, and at the beginning of, the Spanish Civil War. He played a key role in the initial resistance to the military rising of Francisco Franco, and was largely responsible for securing Barcelona for the Republicans.
On 24 July 1936 Durruti led over 3000 armed anarchists from Barcelona to Zaragoza. In November 1936, Durruti led the militia column — which became known as Los Amigos de Durruti, literally the Friends of Durruti but perhaps better known internationally as the Durruti Column — to Madrid to aid the besieged Republican defenders of that city; he was killed by ‘friendly fire’, aged forty, while leading a counter attack in the Casa de Campo of the city.
His body was returned to Barcelona, where over a quarter of a million people accompanied the cortege during its route to the cemetery on Montjuich.
We are going to inherit the earth; there is not the slightest doubt about that ... We carry a new world here, in our hearts. That world is growing this minute.