January 24, 2014, Chicomóztoc, México.
1.- When did Individualists Tending towards the Wild emerge, what ideas motivated you as an affinity group and what strategies have you decided to pursue to give continuity to this antagonistic project?
Before we begin to respond to this interview, ITS would like to clarify that while we do not share many of the ideas presented in this book, we see a chance to be able to explain our ideas in a more real way, and this is what we are doing. We do not want to emphasize membership with anyone, our ideas are our own, but now that they are out in the public light, it is necessary that they (or the important parts) are completely understood, as there seems to be much confusion in regards to various themes (including criticisms previously given in our communiques), which were not understandable to the reader or which were not accepted or assumed.
While we are not anarchists, we appreciate this space given by the Editorial Ácrata.
Now that we have clarified this, we will begin the interview:
Individualists tending towards the wild formed at the beginning of 2011, and was motivated by the reasoning acquired during a slow process of getting to know, questioning, and the rejection of all that encompasses leftism and the civilized, and accordingly, employing all the above, we deemed it necessary to carry out the direct attack against the Technoindustrial System. We think that the struggle against this is not only a stance of wanting to abandon Civilization, regressing to Nature, or in refuting the system’s values, without also, attacking it.
Our immediate objectives are very clear: injure or kill scientists and researchers (by the means of whatever violent act) who ensure the Technoindustrial System continues its course. As we have declared on various occasions, our concrete objective is not the destruction of the Technoindustrial system, it is the attack with all the necessary resources, lashing out at this system which threatens to close off all paths to the reaching of our Individual Freedom, putting into practice our defensive instinct.
Our position does not stop at putting into question that which many do not question (like the risk of the utilization and expansion of the Technological complex), but what’s more, we use violence (as we are human, we distinguish ourselves from our more distant, primitive, and wild ancestors) to attack that which intimidates the development of wild human Freedom and tends towards the artificiality of all that is potentially free. In short, we are the contrary part to the Technological System, we are the reaction before the action, resulting from coincidence; while some dedicate themselves to manipulate, destroy, and artificialize the natural, we respond to their aggression.
2.- On the 8th of August 2011, ITS made headlines on the front pages of Mexican newspapers with the news of the explosive attack against the area of nanotech research at Monterrey Tech, State of Mexico campus, in which two of its scientists were injured: Armando Herrera Corral–who the “parcel-bomb” was addressed to–and his colleague, Alejandro Aceves López. The act provoked skepticism in sectors of the left which did not see the fight against new technologies as valid and therefore, do not include it in their accustomed catalog of “fronts.” We heard more than one accusatory discourse including this, classifying them as “terrorist” in the typical acceptance of Power’s lexicon. We would like to know what your opinion of these acts is, as well as your comments around the different positionings that have motivated your anti-technological action.
The attack on Monterey Tech and its claim caused a big commotion nationally and internationally, we as ITS know that the aforementioned act struck hard in the police, political, social, and of course scientific spheres. The act was such, and as we had hoped, with a great magnitude of consequences. With this we knew that we wouldn’t only have months of making these acts a reality, but it would also lift the curtain, proving the existence of a radical tendency which speaks to the root of the problems we are faced with in this epoch, which is the most refined expression of domination: the entirety of Technology.
Continuing with the question, we also knew that our acts would not be well received by society nor the leftist sectors (left, center, and right politics). But all of these campaigns and designations don’t bother us, we don’t waste our energy in trying to make ourselves look like “good activists” to these people, as they are accustomed to seeing, because we are not.
They label us as a terrorists, because in fact, this treatment is always given to those individuals or groups, who hurt people for some incentive (whatever it is). This is also why, before we mentioned our motivations, we took the word and ITS was named as a terrorist group.
We are focused on attacking the scientists who perfect nanotechnology (this is a fact), since now science has advanced significantly in Mexico (apart from biotechnology and transgenetic genetic engineering) and this is perhaps why many have not put thought into what nanotechnology entails for the future (or more concretely, the Technological complex as well), in any case ITS has already addressed this previously and don’t have reason to revisit it: if you want to read more about this theme, we suggest reading the 1st-4th communiques (in which the theme of nanotechnology, notably, is focused on).
3.- What is the objective of ITS? Is it the destruction of the technoindustrial system?
We would like to emphasize that ITS has never proposed the destruction of the technoindustrial system as a concrete objective, although we would want to and would declare that our objective is to completely destroy this rotten system, we would be lying to ourselves, and would be moving towards something that can not happen quickly, this is why we DO NOT claim this adventurous objective. ITS wants to see this entire system destroyed and collapsed, wants this to be the “slogan” that we defend, but it is not like that.
As we have said, ITS has from the beginning proposed the attack against the system as the objective, striving to make these kinds of ideas spread around the globe through extreme acts, in defense of Wild Nature, as we have done.
What we have done with these acts is put the proposal against Technology and Civilization on the table, creating tension, and we think that, with time, these attacks will be refined. We act through trial and error, learning from our mistakes, since we do not (as we have previously written) have the “secret formula.”
4.-Is it not very reductionist then, that your objective is only the attack and nothing more than that?
It can sound very simple to focus on the Technoindustrial System as your only attack, but that is what exists for now. If we propose to destroy it we fall into fantasy, into utopia.
We attack this system from our individuality, not only with attacks, but also by rejecting the Technoindustrial Society along with its values and attempting to abandon Civilization, it serves nothing to attack the system and continue having its own values rooted in you (or vice versa).
5.- The movement named 15M in the Spanish state and its replication in other cities around the world has generated hope in sectors of the left which have begun to label it the Spanish Revolution. How does ITS view the development of this movement? What do you hope to have come from it or what critiques come up?
The 15M movement is a movement that only proposes to reform the system, which it improves. The demands of the subjects who comprise this movement are based in political remands around austerity, the lack of employment, and a “better” economic strategy (among others); what this type of movement does, is that the people who are demanding that the government be accountable for the way in which they administer their economics, financial management, etc., it is erroneous, that if they do not want a strong state crisis (or in an extreme case civil war), they should apply some reforms in order for the system to continue its course, in short, the system digests these types of protest as proposals to strengthen itself; these types of people are called leftists (the term we have already used in different ITS communiques and is also explained as well in Industrial Society and its Future by the Freedom Club), leftism becomes one of the many more ingenious functions of the Techno-industrial System. Thousands of people (or even a few) say they are going to rebel against it, when in reality they are only helping it realize its faults, to make them better, it regenerates, and self perpetuates.
6.- Continuing with the theme of leftism, in the public critique made by the editorial group “Anonymous with Caution” they said that your attacks only serve to make the system stronger, that many universities and institutions have redoubled security around nanotechnology engineers as well as the researchers that develop them- What is your position in light of this criticism?
Look, the critique of this editorial group falls short of what we are now, you can read more about this in our last communique published on January 28th of this year (2012).
Responding to your question, we do not think the system is made stronger with the type of actions we have carried out, and we have seen evidence of this.
Since what happened at the Tec, institutions, businesses, and universities that develop nanoscience, declared an immediate alert, principally as to what arrives in courier mail, well, of this there is no doubt.
Now, is the system made stronger when an explosive detonates in the hands of a professor and leaves his colleague wounded (as well)? Only in these moments does the system intensify security, but does not reinforce it in its totality, we remember that the system is not only nanotechnology, that it is comprised of other things, roots equally or perhaps more important than nanoscale science. So, you can’t say that the system has made itself immune to the attacks of our actions because, whats more than this, we have checked these boasts and they say it is strengthened when in reality it isn’t; this became very clear during the attack on the Polytechnic University in Pachuca en Hidalgo (December 8, 2011), our device (which arrived by mail courier in fact) left a professor wounded (we will say here as we said in the communique in which we claimed they attack, there was a mistake in the name of the researcher of nanotechnology that was our fault, his name was Villanueva not Villafaña), this act was evidence that the system had not fortified because even with the security protocols, another person was left newly wounded by ITS.
This is not only confirmed now by the ITS, but also as well in the past, Freedom Club equally proved this, 23 people wounded and 3 killed over 20 years, this is not a sign that the system became resistant to these types of acts.
In any regard, to say what this editorial group said is to exaggerate that which for now we have done, the attacks of ITS, yes, have not had destructive results stronger than material damages, paranoia, a few wounded, and a death, besides the fact that for some months we were the only public group who carried these kinds of ideas out in practice. For the system this is not sufficient for them to consider us a real threat, because we are merely beginning, its safe to say that individuals or groups in the future, taking into account our errors, will carry out more destructive acts against the Techno-industrial System; with this, we are not saying that we have faith in this happening, but only that it is logical that we will not be the only ones.
7. On November 8, 2011, only three months after the parcel bomb was sent to the nanotechnology researchers at Monterrey Tech, in which Herrera Corral and Aceves López were wounded, a researcher of the Institute of Biotechnology at UNAM (National Autonomous University of México), Ernesto Méndez Salinas was assassinated by a bullet to the head in the middle of Teopanzaolco avenue, in the city of Cuernavaca. This action provoked various new speculations as to the author of this action, putting the spotlight on ITS once again. Does ITS claim this attack? And–in the hypothetical case of being its perpetrators–why did you not claim responsibility through a public communique as has been your custom? Perhaps you decided (as other groups of anti-system action) to renounce these types of pronouncements and focus on propaganda of the deed?
Concerning this action, we want to publicly declare that the group ITS takes responsibility for the attack.
The “prominent” investigator, Méndez Salinas, received a shot to the head which ended his life, from this extremist group, this is a fact.
The Federal District (D.F.) police very well know that ITS was responsible for this act. Around the middle of February 2011, we sent a letter with a claim of responsibility inside addressed to the director of the Institute of Physics of UNAM, to Dr. Manuel Torres Labansat. Inside there was a .380 caliber bullet, in addition to a note which practically said the researchers of aforementioned campus would end up the same as Salinas. The sending of the package with the bullet and the note we claimed in our last communique (January 28, 2012), only we did not mention this, for practical reasons.
We want to make it clear that the actions we carry out in practice, we claim in a prudent manner, if the situation is favorable, the claim will follow (as has been done with past attacks), but if there are things that are not so favorable or that we can “get more juice” from, we wait, and this is what we have done.
Practically, looking at the situation this year (2011), everything is in tension in respect to what we have begun to do, we knew beforehand that the police would not tell the media that we were responsible for the aforementioned attack. This is why we were saving it for a precise moment.
Honestly we do not know when this interview will be published, but supposing that it is delayed in its publication, we are thinking of claiming this act in a more detailed way, when we have executed some other attack in the not-so-distant future, well, it is also clear that this small part of the claiming of Méndez Salinas’s assassination will also be made very public when this book is released.
8. Want to say anything else?
We hope that with this interview (dated April 28, 2012) our position has been made a little more clear to readers. And we are grateful to the editorial for this interview and to the portal War on Society for serving as the intermediary to make this exchange possible. That is all for now.
Individualists tending toward the wild (ITS).