Marie Louise Berneri (2)

★Fight? For What?

Your country, who says you’ve a country?

You live in another man’s flat.
You haven’t even a backyard.
So why should you murder for that?
You haven’t a hut or a building.
No flower, no garden, it’s true;
The landlords have grabbed all the country;
Let them do the fighting — not you.

Militant anarchist, anti-war campaigner and writer. At the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War Marie Louise Berneri's father went to Spain, fought on the Aragon front, moved to Barcelona, and edited the prestigious Italian-language revolutionary anarchist paper Guerra di Classe. Marie went twice to Barcelona, the second time after her father's assassination by a Communist death squad in May, 1937. She subsequently moved to England and took an active part in the production of the English anarchist paper Freedom.