The Red Army
No I'm not dead in case any of you were wondering. Just hibernating, or I was. Unfortunately the new term has started and it's back to work again. Here's a piece that I cooked up over the Christmas holidays about the German Red Army Faction, a now defunct left wing extremist group.
Erike sighed as she stared at the typewriter in front of her. She knew what she had to do, but she wasn’t sure if she could do it. Could she dissolve the organisation, the ideology that she and so many others had sacrificed their lives to? Erike grimaced as she remembered the moment that she realised that the Red Army Faction would not win the fight against its enemies. She had been caught up in a shootout against the police and as she had watched her comrades be gunned down all around her she realised that no matter how hard they fought, how much support they had, which these days amounted to very little, RAF was never going to win the fight against the establishment. And so, she had sunk into the deep dark pit of depression very nearly never to return.
‘Which is why I have to do this! If I don’t, if I fail to save my friends then what was the point of my epiphany? Everything in this universe happens for a reason therefore there must be a reason behind my epiphany, something I’m meant to do with it. Well if it’s not this then I don’t know what it is’ Erike growled to herself, pulling the typewriter towards her.
To the pigs, she typed. ‘No, don’t call them that’ Erike chided herself, yanking the paper out of the typewriter. She slid a fresh piece in and began again. To the Reuters news agency. Almost 28 years ago, on 14th of May 1970, the RAF arose in a campaign of liberation. Today we end this project. The urban guerrilla in the shape of the RAF is now history. Erike paused in her feverish typing, the words on the paper rattling around her head. ‘I’m doing it. Oh God I’m really doing this. I’m ending RAF. Oh God’. The room around her began to spin as a river of sweat trickled down her face. ‘I’m having a panic attack’ Erike thought dimly through the sound of her own frantic breathing. ‘I’m ending RAF and I’m having a panic attack about it. Jesus Christ I’m a mess. RAF and I have become bloody symbiotic. Oh, oh, that’s why’!
A smile spread across Erike’s face as a realisation hit her. She understood now why she was the one sounding RAF’s death knell. It wasn’t because she had the most authority, nor was it because of her unfailing tendency to be candid. It was because she was already broken. She was not the only member of RAF caught in a symbiotic relationship with the organisation but she was the only one yet to realise and grieve for the fact that RAF was as good as dead. No other member could have made themselves write the letter without having a breakdown. But she’d already had hers. She may still be reeling from her depression, but she had fought it and won. Her anxiety attack? That was just a reminder that she wasn’t fully healed, wasn’t fully free of RAF’s devastating clutches. It was a phantom pain, that was all.
Taking a deep, calming breath Erike turned back to the typewriter. In total, sixty one people have died due to RAF’s actions. Thirty four people were directly killed by RAF members and in retaliation twenty seven of our own were killed. It is time for the spilling of blood to end once and for all. As a result we now renounce all of RAF’s laws and creed, and condemn those who killed in the organisation’s name. We will not demand that you release RAF members from prison, nor will we expect you to treat us as equals while we have not yet atoned for our crimes. However we must ask that we are treated with dignity. Despite our crimes and violent history as individuals and as a collective, we are still human beings and have the right to be treated as such. ‘A fact that German police appear to have forgotten’ Erike thought snidely. She hadn’t been a part of the organisation when the first generation of RAF had been imprisoned but she still remembered the horror she had felt when she had heard about the terrible conditions they were forced to endure. How could anyone support, or even justify solitary confinement and force feeding? It was enough to make her feel sick to her stomach.
If you attempt to imprison us unjustly, then we, as individuals independent of the now defunct organisation known as RAF, will resist. If you imprison us on just charges but force us to endure solitary confinement and force feeding then we will have no choice but to fight back by any means possible. Take this as a plea, not a threat. We do not want to hurt any more people, we are done with that part of our lives and wish to be able to live in peace and safety. Erike paused again as a thought flickered to life in her mind. Once she had completed and posted this letter, what did she want to do with her life? She couldn’t go back home, back to the little village filled with childhood delights. She had grown too cynical and world weary to appreciate them and her family would not be pleased to see her. She had a degree in the arts, but what was a degree when you had once been part of a criminal organisation?
‘Perhaps I’ll move away. Head for somewhere sunny. Australia sounds nice. Maybe I could set up a little shop or gallery somewhere and make a living out of art’ Erike mused. But first she had to make sure that RAF ended. Writing a letter and sending it off to Germany’s most prominent news network was all well and good but there would be more than a few people on both sides who would be unwilling to admit that the war between RAF and Germany was finally, after far too long, over. ‘Urgh. I’m rather jealous of democratic world leaders. As long as they don’t get assassinated, once their time in office is up, their time in office is up. Their work is done and it’s time to play. Not so for accidental leaders of rebel groups’.
Published 9th January 2018