The ates hirsizi editorial collective has included an english comment concerning the Unabomber for their international readers:

"Many Western comrades have confessed us that they had difficulty at understanding why we translated Unabomber manifesto into Turkish. Did we not have other priorities? They question may seem quite logical but the intention behind it was something else; western comrades were not expecting us to be aware of the focal point of up date anarchist agenda. This impression is false and we hope to change it throughout our future communications.

Translating the manifesto to Turkish is something to do with our general tendency that is to question the classical anarchism which to some extent is far from answering the necessities of the day. We especially focus on the anarchist approach to technology. It is not a secret that the classical pro-enlightenment anarchism, apart from few exceptions, in general has failed to analyse the enslaving nature of the industrialisation. On the contrary, the comrades of past century had placed a good deal of hope on the technological development, which in their view, would serve for the emancipation of labour. Yet the consequences of the technological improvements have been extremely different and thus disappointed the class-based expectations.

After this historic lesson, according to us, anarchism now faces a sharp dilemma; either continue to count on the never-ending technological developments which aim to build ever more complex civilisations at the cost of complete destruction of our planet; or else to cut out all the ties with the technological madness and attribute a brand-new character to struggle of the social revolution which will lead to the blossoming of an unconditional liberty for all the living beings inhabiting our planet. In this regard, the struggle and the thoughts of Unabomber turn out to be of a great significance.

Nobody claims that the Manifesto is a kind of anarchist bible. It has got important weaknesses. Furthermore, some parts of the manifesto constitute major mistakes. The approach to the women and sexual minorities, justification of family, proposal of supporting imperialist treaties like NAFTA and most importantly the pro-US theme of the manifesto constitute major mistakes. Yet even the author of the manifesto accepts the fact that manifesto could possibly contain important weaknesses. But on the other hand, the very essence of the manifesto is full of significant thoughts which put perfect weapons in the hands of anarchist revolutionaries. The detailed description of modernism and the call to destruct the technological and economical basis of the current world-wide enslavement point out the new path which the social revolution should take. The terms of manifesto regarding the leftists and all other power- hungry currents are not of less importance; Unabomber rightly focuses on the relationship between anarchists and leftists which has always resulted in the suppressing of anarchists as soon as the leftists took over the power. That the manifesto is an important work is beyond dispute.

Now let us turn the other side of the coin. As far as we know, certain anarchist circles especially reject Unabomber for it has adopted violent methods which resulted in the killing of innocent people. The term of "innocent people" itself is quite disputable. It is hard to believe the innocence of genetic engineers and computer scientists who are above all at the service of global capitalism. It does not mean that we approve the killing of those people, what we mean is that all these experts are not as clean as their white uniforms. One would wish to cause minimum pain, but unfortunately there is not a soft way of social struggle which would not hurt anybody.

Some anarcho-syndicalist comrades claim that Unabomber is remote from the class struggle. We must mention that we recognise a great importance to anarcho-syndicalist struggle; above all it is the fascinating history of anarchism and it carries among itself the beautiful memories of our beloved past comrades. The current existance of anarcho-syndicalism in many countries is a great hope for all of us. But at such a time of the history, while the space and other planets are invaded, while mega-machine openly discusses when to start human cloning, while peoples of the world are about to fall in the cybernetic trap of so-called information age and while principal social values are running out of meaning; is it not a kind of simple-mindedness to keep counting on general strike or boycott campaigns?

Another rejection to Unabomber is that the sort of society advocated in the manifesto is a return to primitive eras. Well, actually it is leftists who come up with this pretext in Turkey. The famous question is as follows: "How will I be able to go to America when there is not an airplane?" Our answer is always very simple: "You will have to find a slave who would spend the best 30-40 years of a lifetime in a damned airplane factory"!

Consequently, Unabomber manifesto advocates a revolution that would bring about small-scale societies living in harmony with the nature. Such a society may require a better detailed description and say that it would have certain gaps. But it is sure that the alternative should not be the existing plastic-iron-cement civilisation which carries the planet to the edges of a total extermination."

(If anyone wants to get in contact with ates hirsizi, their address is: Ates Hirsizi, Piyerloti Cad. Dostlukyurdu Sok. No: 8 Cemberlitas - Istanbul / Turkey)