Hey everyone! The year of 2024 is coming to an end. During these 12 months, there's been as much bad as good. All that has happened needs to be thought about and analysed, as the one who doesn't understand the past won't have any future. That's why we decided in the year's last episode of "Trends" to collect the four most popular episodes from the year and freshen up our memories of what happened, how, and what we thought about it.

The podcast was released in Russian on December 30 and was translated by our volunteers.

Listen on SoundCloud (in Russian)

The episodes are rather equally distributed throughout the year: there's January, June, July and December. There's something about volunteering; something about the three faces of anarchism; something about collective decentralised production management; something about Russian propagandists; about on whose conscience the war victims are; and something about Assad's regime in Syria, which fell in a fortnight; and what we should do if Putin's regime would fall, too; and about the Kurdish libertarian alternative in Syria.

To recap...

It seems that New Year's Eve is a good time to reflect on world events and the role of anarchists and libertarian ideas in general. Autonomous Action worked all year to inform you about events organised by anarchists or important for anarchists. We've announced fund-risings for political prisoners, reading groups, meetings, protests and concerts, and published columns, interviews and translations. In the episodes of "Trends of chaos and order," the members of Autonomous Action and other authors have been given anarchist analyses of current events. You can listen to us on YouTube, SoundCloud and other platforms, visit our website avtonom.org and subscribe to our socials & newsletter.

We'd be grateful if you would support our work with donations, and even happier if you would choose to collaborate with us and join one of our working groups. We don't want to be alienating labourers for a wage – we want collective action where everyone moves together towards a final result.

Before diving into memories, it's important to speak about what's going on now: the last days' news from Russia looks as if the state is aiming to shoot itself in the foot.

Sometimes, it's shooting quite literally: on the morning of December 25th, an Azerbaijani airline passenger aeroplane was flying from Baku to Grozny with citizens from Azerbaijan, Russia and other countries on board. At the time of the flight, the air defence was working in the Caucasus due to an attack of Ukrainian drones. And so it seems that a Russian anti-aircraft missile flew at this aircraft and seriously damaged it (at the very least, the hull is covered in holes from airstrikes). The pilots attempted an emergency landing at Aktau aeroport in Kazakhstan but failed, and the plane pretty much exploded upon landing. As a result, several dozens of people from different countries died because Russian air defences turned out to be unable to distinguish between a civilian airline and a military drone.

This, of course, immediately brings to mind Malaysia Airlines Flight 17, which was shot down over the Donbas in 2014 by the very same Russian Buk SAM missile. That is, they pretended it was shot by ‘Donbas partisans’, though partisans don't usually have Buks buried in their cellars. In any case, this Boeing was also shot down by mistake, as it was mistaken for a Ukrainian military aircraft.

That is, the Russian authorities start their military adventures and inevitably find themselves in situations where everyone around them suffers – not only those against whom they seem to be fighting. In some ways, it reminds us of a village drunkard who in a frenzy destroys everything around him without necessarily wanting to. In the case of the Azerbaijani plane, the Chechen security forces' desire to show off to their superiors and “shoot down everything that flies” clearly worked as well. And, well, so they did. Those foreign airlines that continued to fly to Russia after the outbreak of full-scale war in 2022 are now suspending flights. It's understandable: nobody wants a missile to hit their plane. And the alkie wonders: what went wrong, why doesn't anyone want to be friends with me?

But shooting oneself in the foot can also be metaphorical. The international sanctions imposed on Russia after February 2022 have made it much harder to export oil and oil products: an extremely important source of currency for Putin's economy. Oil is therefore transported in all and any ways, ignoring all safety regulations. And so, at the end of December, two Russian oil tankers sank in a storm in the Kerch Strait. The tankers are old and not really designed for sea transport, let alone in a storm. But money’s needed, so whatever, let’s take the risk. The tankers wreck, the oil spills and pollutes the Russian Black Sea coast near Anapa, approaching the nature preserve of Utrish.

Since the Kremlin doesn't like to admit mistakes, the catastrophe is kept quiet. A federal emergency regime is declared only at the last moment – generally, the state pretends nothing special is happening. Self-organised volunteers are the ones to remove the fuel oil from the beaches with almost no help from the state; it's also these grassroots initiatives who end up washing off the fuel oil from the birds.

That's how the state shoots itself in the foot on the eve of the New Year, and that's the common everyday heroism of people who are not indifferent. So there is a spark of hope, and it shines even through a thick layer of state fuel oil.  Well, now let's remember what else happened in this cursed year. Re-read these issues:

1. We start with January: "War and peace," episode 141

2. Continuing with June: "The individual, the universal and that of the class," episode 160

3. And then July: "Ma, is this really Siberia?" episode 167

4. And finally, December: "Overthrowing the authorities," episode 187

Happy New Year: join the polemics!

Well, that's what was up in 2024 Russia and globally – and how anarchists reacted to or participated in what was happening. I'd like to finish with a (rather funny) piece of news. At the end of December, the Central Spiritual Administration of Muslims of Russia issued a fatwa (religious legal ruling) regulating Islamic polygamy. In other words, it somehow took polygamy for granted and it's just the details that now need to be corrected. We are not going to discuss polygamy and other patriarchal practices per se. What is important here is that under modern Russian law, polygamy is illegal. Accordingly, the Russian prosecutor's office responded to the fatwa by issuing a demand stating that all this is illegal and needs to stop immediately.

You think the Muslim patriarchs of Russia rose proudly to defend their religious traditions from the state? Of course not. They humbly rolled over and replied, literally: ‘Thus be God's will; the Ulema Council of the Spiritual Administration of Muslims of Russia sees no point in engaging in polemics’. And then they withdrew the fatwa. So you get it, apparently, the voice of the prosecutor's office is the voice of god himself. Or at least of Prophet Muhammad. It's pretty clear who's master of the house.

For the new year, we wish our listeners and readers not to be like these patriarchs but to follow their convictions, defend them by all means, and not confuse the state with 'God's will.' Human freedom is more important than both the state and 'God's will.' **Question everything, engage in polemics, unite with like-minded folks, and grow a new world in your hearts and in your surroundings. To freedom for you and for us!**

The podcast was prepared by Mani