#mistral reporting

Here on Sanjak, we do not have police. We maintain order among ourselves, and maintain a militia for our defense, but we have no orgs or order that would put a gun in your hand to bear against your comrade. We understand the need for community justice, yes, and we understand that people also do wrong, but we have seen the betrayal of revolutions in the decision to form organizations to punish lawbreakers in their wake.

When we put a gun in our comrades hand and ask them to enforce order upon their neighbors, they begin to see their job as the correction of their neighbors. They come to identify with the gun, and the filth of the world as a stain they must clean.

They may fix problems with their gun, but they learn to see their neighbors first as rule breakers and then as comrades. In their minds, what echoes is only the knowledge of those who have done wrong and not the connections that draw them together. They begin to see the world as a thing they must order and the gun as the thing to do the ordering. They no longer see their comrades as people, just potential threats.

The problem with the institution of policing is that it makes police. The problem with the violent enforcement of laws is that it produces law enforcement agents. It is from law enforcement agents that violence and distrust springs.

When Ludra kept us beneath the ground, the ones enforcing the law were the ones who kept us down. They were recruited because they wanted to do violence to us. They did violence to us because their job was to do so.

Consider this when thinking upon your comrades who take up the enforcement of the laws of the state. Consider what it does to how they see the people around them. Justice is not the hand of the state wielding the gun or the prison. Justice is the community seeking redress and rehabilitation as one.

Do not cave to the blind appeal of the law. Remember that a New Era is possible.

Here the freed people of Khyradin's least favorite colony play fresh tunes and undiluted news free of the Sandstream of mainstream Karrakin broadcast space.

TO YOU WHO WOULD BURY US: Know that we have survived your guns, your goons, your grand terraforming project and we will survive the rest. You will build no parks on our graves, you will see no profits from our sweat and the sweat of our siblings and our children. We know you down planetside have been told to not look up, and to this we laugh and drink in the warm sunlight. Let all the Lords and Counts and Barons quake in the wake of our victory and know that when the wheel next turns, it will be you who falls bloody in its treads.

TO YOU WHO WOULD IGNORE US: Do not expect kind words because you were not the hand that struck us. The kind ones deny the boarder your government set, and bring food and aid and weapons so we may protect our homes. But chief among you are the impotent and uncaring, who profit off of our pain, and who hold the leash of the dogs that bite at our heels. We will not spare a thought for you, core worlders, when we fell the petit-tyrants that you rely so much on to play your games, for when your hounds have fallen we will not be so complacent as they in fueling the forges of your little Empire.

TO YOU WHO WOULD SUPPORT US, THE PROPAGANDISTS, AGITATORS, DEALERS OF LITURGICODE AND BLOCKADE RUNNERS: Tonight we play for you. Let the Harlequin and the Firebrand guide your way, for we have done much and much remains left to do. Should you ever find yourself on Free Sanjak you are free to sit at our table and share with us our moonshine and revel in the music of a people made free. While we fight for survival you fight for the promise of a galaxy made better, and together we stand against all the powers that still reign.

TONIGHT WE GREET THE STARS, the great twinkling things kept so long from us, and distribute the truth so all others beaten and broken can do the same.

Signing off, this is Mistral (they/them), from Radio Free Sanjak

I have watched over the past weeks as the old Union vanguard rehashes tales of wasted revolution and corruption. I find your talks funny, of how Union once tried to cut the rot from itself and failed, somehow, or lost its nerve, or was brought down by compromise. Those who claim to be there and those who not both hold the same ember of "if."

It'd be funny to tell you about tales of my revolution, also a violence that shook the body of Union with the dying heaves of SecComm. But we Sanjak have only been given the skies and not the stars. We do not have your ship-time or the great age that comes with. But I have records, and this ember of "if" has made me ponder our sister revolution.

The story goes that at first we celebrated because we had heard what the new government said they prized. Three rules, all broken for us: the tools of life withheld when we cared to speak back, the surface of dear Sanjak made a border we cannot cross, the forces of Stone tying our hands to the pickaxe and the drill, forcing our labor against our will. The people the stonematrons feared had become ones who would care for us, we said, surely if we make ourselves known they will come and make this right.

So we grew loud, and riotous, and drew the symbols of this Third Committee in hopes they would come calling. But they did not come. It was these days that Ludra called us "Ungrateful" and gave us our name.

Here is a truth they will not tell you about Union: they believe so firmly in those pillars they hold dear but believe even more in stability. They save those who require it, so long as it does not jeopardize the supply lines for their hallowed Core Worlds. This is of course a flawed premise: on Sanjak we rose up and denied the mines and Union is still fed, yet they still do not come directly to our aid. Here on the omninet I hear voices telling tales of the vaunted liberator teams and each one stings anew because I have never seen one, nor have any of my comrades. When faced with our annihilation I'm told they stepped in to instead force the blockade. So here I ask you this question, dear omninet, what is the blockade not annihilation by another name?

Once again Sanjak is imposed the violence of a border. Once again that border's maintenence would have us killed. Once again each crossing is one that would sustain us but only because we have broken the rules they write.

Time to put your money where your mouth is!

"But Mistral," they'll tell me, "we must take small steps to improve! Any amount of improvement is better than none!"

This is, of course, a call to quiet down in most cases. We will demand the people's control of the worlds we live in and will be met with cries of how it is impossible, how we are asking too much, and we must instead be fine with scraps.

Here is the trick to it: this is a defensive tactic for them. They do not intend to improve over time, and they say this because the combined forces of the people are a force they're terrified of. That slow action is better is often a lie, and this is a lie designed to quiet the movement. When we concede to these logics, we move our resources away from what good we could do here and now to instead focus on the slow, the support of the people already in power.

The movement from the people by the people has been able to win before. It has been able to win many times, because what it requires from those in power is their fear and not their respect, and while they will never respect those below them enough to grant them freedom, they often learn fear quite quickly.

Stick to your guns, comrades. Remember that a new world is possible.