After the Greek Riots

Sure, there is lies, damn lies and statistics. But some times opinion poll findings can be interesting. A mainstream Athens Sunday paper published a poll today: 86.9% of participants predict social unrest in the near future (very likely: 48,7%, quite likely: 38,2%). 85.2% estimate that the gap between rich and poor will widen.  The Greek society is deeply divided in lines of class as much as political affiliations and this gets reflected even in this poll: 45.6% are positive toward the mobilisations of the country’s two main trade unions (GSEE and ADEDY) while 54.8% say they will not be participating. 50.3% think the decrease in their income gives birth to new class divides.

Meanwhile, last night saw a very odd torching alight of four cars in Exarcheia, Athens (only one was a luxurious one). Police reacted in their usual manner, detaining 45 people in total – all of which were released late into the night as there was no evidence found against them.

Finally, some more photos from Friday’s strike. A general strike has been called for Thursday, March 11.

Manolis Glezos, 88, is a historical figure of the greek Left, being one of the two people who dragged down the Nazi flag from the Acropolis during Athens’ Nazi occupation. Today, the 88-year old was tear-gassed by police (pic, below) and is in hospital in a critical but non-life threatening condition.

Also today, the head of the reformist trade-union GSEE, Panagopoulos, was attacked by demonstrators.

More info from today’s demonstrations and pics, as they come.

(Translated communique by the anarchist group Resalto in Athens)

“At your draws
the galley slave was always the one to lose
and to be savaged.
But the time of happy shipwrecks is over.
When the admirals fall into the sea
don’t count on us to throw a life-jacket
unless it’s one made of stone”

Crisis, deficit, debt, spreads, probation, austerity plan, emergency measures, necessary measures, additional measures…

A campaign of social terrorisation has been launched in the past few months that is spinning around the capitalist crisis and the state deficit, especially after the staged elections of October for the handing over of the government position to the social-neoliberal political management. The pre-planned, full-scale class attack from the side of Capital, aiming at further shrinking of labour costs and pensioner rights, as well as the continuation of the “necessary” capitalist restructuring, were both showing signs of delay and incapacity to be introduced by the previous political leadership – whose social status after December’s revolt had been shredded apart. A “fresh governance” with an equally fresh “mandate from the people” was needed and was achieved with ample pre-electoral selling of hope to the gullible.

Of course, the promises and fake words disappeared overnight. Suddenly they “discovered” the “lies of the previous ones regarding the size of the state deficit”; they were “perplexed” and “enraged” by the “country’s tragic finances” and they imposed a “state of emergency” calling for “national conscription” to face the situation – promoting for themselves the image of an “honest government, negotiating and fighting hard for the country’s good”.

“We must all contribute to the rescuing of the national economy”, howl the political and financial bosses and their journalist-lackeys. All who eat with golden spoons, exploit human labour, pocket bribes, sort out their own people and loot social wealth. The bosses, the financiers and the managers, the bank/ stock market capital and its golden boys, the governors, the party headquarters and their electoral clientèle, TV station owners, salaried hack writers and the journalistic mouthpieces, the managers of public administration, of state organisations and insurance funds… This raffle asks us once again to “tighten the belt”, to accept the new plans of austerity, the cutting-down of wages, pension freezes, additional tax exactions; “restructuring” in the insurance plans, “flexible” and insecure labour, and so on.

How boring and lousy a repetition of the same defrauding tactics. For twenty-five years now it’s been always the same, always with a different disguise. And of course it is anything but a coincidence that the guarantors of this global-scale experiment of social and class discipline and further pillage are the watchers of the EU, the howling dogs of the EU Commission, with a parallel observation of the IMF.

And so pensions must stay put and salaries must be cut, with a 30% cut of the Easter and Christmas bonuses; apart from the further 12% cuts to the rest of the bonuses of the public sector employees (for now, this is “limited” to the public sector, but how long will it really take for the discussion for its extension to the private one too?). New taxes must be applied to petrol, cigarettes, drinks, together with the increase of the VAT across all categories (from 4,5 to 5%, from 9 to 10%, from 19 to 21%) and new tax scales have to be constructed at the expense, once again, of the waged and the pensioners – now to include the so-called “middle incomes”. At the same time the number of the officially registered unemployed has sky-rocketed to 800.000 as of early March, making the estimate of minister of employment, Loverdos, of 1.000.000 during 2010 looking rather mild.

The domestic and supra-national sovereignty, the local and globalised elites of political and financial power, which have amassed and privatised incomprehensibly huge wealth during the past 30 years of (neoliberal) development and looting, are now attempting to spread across society their damage and to continue apace with their attack and their looting. “We have gained everything and it’s time for you to pick the bill” is their cynical statement. With some determination that fills our city centres with cops of all kinds: check-points, pedestrian and motorcycle patrols, neighbourhood police, undercovers and units of crowd repression (the well-known MAT). A very real occupation army for the dealing with of any possible social reaction, unrest or uprisings. After all, the memory of “December” is still fresh, in society as much as in the government boards.

The new round of the social-class war has started and goes under the names of “Crisis”, “Probation”, “Austerity and Development Plans”… and more is to come. Intensification of exploitation in the workplace; new measures for further flexibility of the job market” (read: further labour insecurity), laws for the complete deconstruction of the system of social security, increase of the reserve labour army of the unemployed. The ruffians are brutal: “work more for less”, that’s the only way for costs to go down, for investments to come back, for capital to move, for new work positions to open up, for us to exit the crisis. And who knows what comes next…

And so questions immediately open up: is it ever possible for someone, after all these years of exploitation and mocking, to still believe in or trust the political and business establishment together with its supranational coalitions (EU, IMF and so on?) Is it possible for us to take in stoically the looting of our lives, to consent with our crushing? Illusions of “rights” – “vested” or else, are over. Any further time credit to this deteriorating world of alienation, of exploitation and obedience must end the soonest. The state-capitalist system no longer has  anything to promise other than more poverty (material, emotional, mental), environmental destruction, human wrecks, fear and repression.

Let’s organise and strengthen our fronts and our trenches in the social-class war that is storming ahead. Promoting the logic of the community, of mutual aid, real solidarity in-between the lines of the exploited and the suppressed, away from fictional dichotomies and constructed divisions (workers-unemployed, new-old insured persons, locals-migrants and so on). Promoting the logic of conflict with the political and financial authority and its advocates. Against fatalism, individualisation, individual and social defeat. Promoting the logic of direct, collective action; without hierarchies, without any experts or mediators , away from all party, syndicalist or media conduct. Not only for our defense and our survival, not for the little and the immediate, but for the self-determination of our own lives. For the prospect of a free, self-organised society with no authority, no class divides, no social discrimination, alienation or existential dead-ends.

Fight back against the pillage of the state and the bosses

http://anarxiko-resalto.blogspot.com/

Yesterday (27.2) a demonstration was called in the Athens suburb of Vyronas by anarchists and far-left groups to protest the police killing of 25-year old migrant worker Nikollas Todi. At the end of the demo, cops (riot police and delta force) brutally attacked, injuring many – and arresting 11 demonstrators in total. In what is typical police practice, the demonstrator who was most heavily beaten is also facing the heaviest charges, so as to make future legal action from his part against the police most difficult. The arrested will be appearing in court on Tuesday, March 2nd – they are being detained until then.

At the point of Nikollas’ assassination: “N. Todi, 25 years old. Cops-pigs-murderers. Revenge.”

“The word ’security’ smells of human flesh. Autonomous Assembly of Zografou, Athens”

More photos on Athens IMC

What follows is a video from the demonstration and a report as this went up on IMC. More info as it comes.

A protest march against the police killing of the 25 year old plumber Nikolas Toddi a few weeks ago in Vyronas, Athens, was subject of brutal police repression with 11 people arrested and many badly wounded, with one of the arrested hospitalised.

The protest march against the police killing of Nikollas Todi, the 25 year old plumber who fell dead by nine police bullets on the back and the head two weeks ago has been met by brutal police repression.

The 500-strong protest march started in Tapitourgeiou square in Vyronas, the eastern Athens suburb on the slopes of Mt Imitus where cops killed Nikollas during a shootout with alleged bank robbers. The majority of the protesters were anarchists but also some Coalition of Radical Left and Communist Party of Greece M-L (Maoists) members attended. The march took to the streets of the old guerrilla stronghold chanting slogans against the police murder enjoying wide popular support with the cops even receiving eggs on their heads from the balconies. At the spot of the murder, the protesters sprayed a memorial message, while on the way two officers of the ruling party PASOK were smashed. At the moment that the protest march reached its end destination at Deliyannis square, and after most flags had been gathered and removed from the scene, it came under unprovoked attack by riot police and motorised Delta forces. The motorised cops hit the crowd in full speed while riot cops sprayed the densely residential area with tear gas. During the brutal police attack dozens of people were injured and 11 protesters were arrested, one of them hospitalised with heavy cranial injuries. The police has issued a false announcement talking about it being attacked with molotov cocktails although not a single petrol bomb fell during the march. It is expected that the announcement is used in order to incriminate people arrested. Most comrades estimate that today’s brutal attack is a response to the public humiliation of the police during the march of the general strike.

At the time of writing it is not certain what what are people arrested charged with, but solidarity demos have already been called for tomorrow at the courthouses and on the streets of Athens as the following communique demonstrates:

THE STRUGGLE FOR DIGNITY AND FREEDOM CANNOT BE REPRESSED OR TERRORISED

Saturday 27/2 in the neighbourhood of Vyronas a march was realised against state terrorism on account of the assassination of the 25 year old worker Nikolas Toddi from Albania by cop bullets. N. Toddi was murdered in the neighbourhood where he works because the Greek Police set up a war operation of arrest of “notorious criminals”. The march walked the streets of Vyronas in a dynamic manner informing the residents about the even of the state murder and the wider repression plan of the Ministry “of Citizens Protection”. At the end of the march, in Deliolani square riot police squads and motorised cop forces that were following the march terrorising the bystanders attacked the protesters and chased them all the way to Pagrati. They beat up and waged chemical warfare in our neighbourhoods and realised 18 detentions out of which 11 have been transformed into arrests (as of Saturday afternoon). One of the arrested is hospitalised in Evangelismos hospital wounded on the head by the cops’ globs. The residents stood by the side of the protesters heckling the cops who had taken over the streets, or throwing eggs and other objects against them. The [state's] intention is clear. Whoever raise their heads and resist, breaking the veil of silence and consent are placed at the target of the repressive mechanisms. Their aim is the rule of fear, the smashing of every focus of resistance that reveals the terroristic and exploitative nature of the regime. At the time of economic crisis, the need to control social discontent becomes ever more urgent, since the ghost of the social-class uprising of December and of all those who are approaching continues to haunt the minds of the bosses and their state. Following the war operation of the police in Byronas which killed with 9 bullets on the back a bystander, now the police has made a comeback by repressing all those who have not consented and have not kept silent. We shall not allow them to roam the streets, not turn our neighbourhoods into camps. One way or another the security they “provide” us with is translated to bullets.

IMMEDIATE RELEASE OF THE ARRESTED OF THE PROTEST MARCH OF 27 FEBRUARY
COPS OUT OF OUR NEIGHBOURHOOD
NO TOLERANCE TO STATE TERRORISM

(Corporate media in the country are transmitting no news, as their staff are participating in the strike. News is only coming in from Athens IMC, international media outlets and of course, from the streets. All updates are in the local greek time, GMT+2)

17.45 The administration building of the University of Thessaloniki has been occupied in response to the earlier invasion and violation of the academic asylum by police.

15.18 Anarchists who attempted to march en mass to Amerikis square in Athens for the anti-racist anti-fascist gathering there have been blocked off by riot cops. The head of the unit told them “all gatherings” have been banned at the square. There are no fascists to be seen, apparently. The anarchists are now headed to the nearby autonomously run park of Patision and Kyprou streets.

14.35 In Athens, the main demonstration for the general strike seems to have had a good turn-out. Corporate media report 20-30,000. The anarchist blocks are strong; selected smashing of banks has been reported, along with the looting of a corporate bookshop (books were distributed en mass to demonstrators and passers-by). There is at least one confirmed arrest of a girl during the demonstration (not detention); she will appear at the prosecutor general tomorrow.

13.56 In Thessaloniki, cops have violated the academic asylum. At least two riot police units and 15 delta cops have entered the university premises (see photo below) apparently in response to demonstrators from today’s general strike attempting to tear down the security barriers installed by the university at the campus entrance.