The International Journal of INCLUSIVE DEMOCRACY, Vol. 6, No. 1 (Winter 2010)
In Memoriam: Rafael Spósito-Daniel Barret (1952-2009)
It was with deep sorrow that I heard of the untimely loss of a great comrade, Rafael Sposito. I was not lucky to have met him and I only knew him from our correspondence (he was a member of the International Advisory Board of the Journal) and his very powerful introduction for the Latin American edition of Towards An Inclusive Democracy (Hacia una Democracia Inclusiva).
http://www.inclusivedemocracy.org/journal/vol1/vol1_no2_sposito.htm
Rafael was a libertarian sociologist who worked as a university Professor until 1999. He was born in Villa del Cerro, one of the working-class districts of libertarian tradition of Montevideo, the capital of Uruguay. A dedicated militant anarchist since his adolescence, he had engaged in diverse organizational action as a member of the student movement and later as a trade unionist. Repression against leftist and anarchist groups forced him to leave Uruguay to live in Buenos Aires, Argentina. He returned to Uruguay in 1976 to take part in the struggle ousting the dictatorship, but left again for ideological differences back to Argentina. Among other experiences of communitarian social management, he took part in the administration of a university experiment on education and service in a popular district, as well as in representing the Union of Professors. He was also member of the International Advisory Board of The International Journal of Inclusive Democracy.
Farewell Compañero,
Takis Fotopoulos
On Behalf of the Editorial Committee
In his honour, we reprint below a text written by a comrade, who knew him better, at the time of his death.
Hasta siempre compañero.
El lunes 24 de agosto, al agonizar la tarde, se fue el querido compañero Rafael Spósito -Daniel Barret, para los que le acompañamos en la cotidianidad de la lucha contra el Estado-capital desde tiendas libertarias- víctima de un cáncer que a penas le otorgó el tiempo necesario para despedirse de compañeros, amigos y familiares y, de concluir alguno de los múltiples textos que acostumbrada elaborar de manera simultánea.
Hijo de El Cerro, tierra dispendiosa en ácratas y rebeldes, en Montevideo, Uruguay, desde su más tierna adolescencia, Rafa contribuyó con sus aportaciones y esfuerzos a la difusión de las ideas anarquistas, defendiendo siempre los ideales de libertad por los que luchó toda su vida y por los que sufrió persecución y exilio, mismos que jamás significaron sacrificio alguno para su integridad libertaria.
Sistemático y reflexivo, con su prosa aguda e inteligente, nos heredó un invaluable legado de reelaboración teórico-ideológica que sólo podremos concretar desde un ejercicio intransigente de reafirmación libertaria:
“una reafirmación que sigue fundándose no menos sino más que nunca en una crítica radical del poder y en una inconmovible ética de la libertad; sin mediatizaciones seductoras, transiciones edulcoradas y negociaciones de ocasión que la desvíen o distraigan de sus horizontes y de sus prácticas inmediatas.”
Visión que dejó plasmada en su libro Los Sediciosos despertares de la Anarquía.
Hoy, sólo nos queda despedirle con el más grande y afectuoso abrazo libertario y agradecerle por todos estos años de vida consecuente, por su solidaridad inagotable, por su compañerismo a ultranza, por su dedicación a la Anarquía, por su humor inteligente, por su entrañable calidez y por su grandiosa calidad humana.
¡Qué la tierra le sea leve a un Hombre libre!
¡Hasta siempre, Compañero Daniel!
¡Hasta siempre, Amigo Rafa!
¡Hasta siempre; Hermano del alma!
¡Salud y Anarquía!
Gustavo Rodríguez
Farewell Compañero,
On Monday, August 24 at the ebb of the evening, our beloved comrade Rafael Spósito-Daniel Barret, walked away from us, those of us, who accompanied him in the every day struggle against the Capital-state launched from libertarian tents. He fell victim of a cancer that barely conceded time for a last conversation to say so long to his partners, friends and family; or to allow him to finish some of the multiple texts that he accustomed to elaborate in a simultaneous manner.
The Son of the Mountain, a land which is a nest for rebels and free-thinkers, in Montevideo, Uruguay, since his most tender adolescence, Rafa contributed with his effort to the diffusion of the anarchist ideal, always defending freedom’s paradigm, for which, he struggled his whole life, and for which he suffered persecution and exile, the same that never supposed any sacrifice of his libertarian integrity:
Systematic and thoughtful with his acute intelligent prose we inherited a priceless legacy of theoretical and ideological processes which can only be obtained from an uncompromising libertarian exercise:
“An affirmation that keeps founding itself, now more then ever, in a radical critique of power, and in an unmovable ethic of freedom; without seductory mediatization that could derail it from its horizons, and from its most immediate praxis.”
He left this vision clearly exposed in his book Los Sediciosos, an awakening of anarchy.
Today, we can only greet him with an ample and an effusive libertarian hug, and show him our gratitude for those years of consequent life, unlimited solidarity, comradeship without hesitance, for his dedication to anarchy, for his intelligent sense of humor, for his incalescent attitude, and for his grandiose human condition.
May the tomb be slight for a free man!
Farewell, Compañero Daniel!
Farewell, Friend Rafa!
Farewell, Soul Brother!
Health and Anarchy!
Gustavo Rodríguez