Pour one out for a real one. #Originalantifa Octavio Alberola has passed away at the age of 97. Via Marcolino Jeremais:
"Born into a deeply anarchist and rationalist family — his father was a teacher at the Ferrer i Guardia Modern School — Octavio experienced the horrors of the Civil War and exile, traveling through France and Mexico since the age of ten. It was in this exile that he absorbed liberal ideas, forged his character, and decided to devote his entire life to human emancipation.
He was associated with Juventude Libertária and CNT; participated in the July 26 Movement in Cuba. His struggle led him to found — as a representative of FIJL — the clandestine group Home Defense (1961-1965), which organized actions against Franco's regime and symbolic attacks with deep social and political content. In the mid-1960s, he founded the Group 1o de May (1966-1974), an internationalist anarchist alternative that denounced Franco oppression and terror with courage and determination. He was arrested in Belgium (1968) and in France (1974) he was arrested with 10 other companions for participating in the kidnapping of the director of the Bank of Bilbao in Paris, Baltasar Suárez, in protest against the execution of Salvador Puig Antich. He spent almost a year and a half behind bars for his steadfast commitment.
After Franco's death, he continued the democratic resistance: collaborated with CGT in Spain, COJRA in France, Radio Libertaire and various memory rescue initiatives, such as the review of Franco trials and support for libertarians in Cuba. He was an essayist, lecturer and a polyglot of critical thinking, able to debate quantum physics and art with the same passion with which he denounced social injustice. His life was a testimony of thought in action, of conscious rebellion, of an armed struggle contextualized by oppression, but always permeated by the ethical imperative of not harm innocent people."
#octavioalberola, #originalantifa, #rememberingmeansfighting, #spain, #nopasaran
