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(No endorsement implied, but reading and commentary highly encouraged. - JC) ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: <a-infos...@ainfos.ca> Date: Sun, May 23, 2010 at 3:41 AM Subject: (en) Greece, anarchist take - NΟ FOSTERING AND TOLERANCE TO THE MURDERERS OF MAY 5th, THEIR ATTITUDE AND PRACTICES! To: en <a-infos...@ainfos.ca> In our announcement on 5th May 2010, entitled “THE FAIR UPRISING OF 120,000 DEMONSTRATORS, THE RAID AGAINST THE PARLIAMENT BY TENS OF THOUSANDS OF ENRAGED PEOPLE HAD NOTHING AND COULD HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH THE PARA-STATE GANG WHO MURDERED THREE PEOPLE IN A BANK IN STADIOU STR. AND TRIED UNSUCCESSFULLY TO DO THE SAME AT THE BOOKSTORE IANOS”, we synoptically proclaimed our opinion regarding the murder of three (actually four) people inside Marfin bank at Stadiou str. 23. ---- We have always considered that “internal” texts are not suitable for anarchist groups, for the simple reason that truths can be recorded without secrecy, half-words and manipulations, and everyone can have access to those texts, everyone who is interested in anarchist aspects regarding various issues. Especially when reality dictates so. It is assumed that every anarchist group and anarchist – who continues to struggle – writes history, in a positive or negative way, with its actions or omissions. Moreover, it is averred that the history of anarchist liberational struggles is not written with chit-chats in closed companionships, in café-bars, pubs and joints, not even in large assemblies and “incidentally”. Verba Volant, scripta manent, spoken words fly, while written words remain. History is written in deeds. Thus, the written public thesis is an important act; it is a component of the anarchist struggle and is necessary to record for today and for the future, which will, respectively, become yesterday and now. Through this kind of attitudes it is evident, whether and to what extent there are honest intentions – and, so, real perspectives – for the clarification of important matters. This is how it is found out to what extent covertness, guilty silence or political acrobatics and elusions are set to function. Publicly recorded opinions will, therefore, be discussed and potentialities of agreement and approach will be pursued. And then there will start procedures of composition or procedures of decomposition. We believe that today, the day that this text is published, the necessary time to think and have a documented thesis is over. Therefore, those who have recorded or not their opinion in written, have, in a way, adopted a certain stance regarding the murder of the four persons in Athens. And now we get to the point. We wrote about para-state gangs. Maybe this phrase sounded strange to many people, we usually avoided it, because it is charged with the left ideological and mainly political culture. We believe that there is not a state and para-state when we refer to built structures based on the statist ideology and politics. They are just expansions of statism. But what happens when certain structures are built, structures that while they present as antagonistic towards state and authority, they have rejected the liberational thesis and practice, and adopted ideological-political models of statism and are structured on the basis of assault battalions? Then the connection will happen and irrefutably they will be adopted by the state. The important is the logic that exists, is cultivated and, finally, comes to join the state’s aspirations. This has been affirmed many times so far. It was repeated on May 5th, when that murderous act but the demonstration indeed in half. When the wish of at least 120000 demonstrators to occupy the parliament’s courtyard was scorned, when there was a hostile adjacent move regarding the demonstration, which was not intended to be connected with the spirit of revolt and contribute to its strengthening. On the contrary, it is shown that a large part of this move intended to produce a destructive project, following the logic “seek and destroy”, a project which not only destroyed but actually devastated the spirit of revolt adopted by a big part of the demonstration. Let’s not ask much. There couldn’t be an intention of composition with the insurrectional attitude of the demonstrators. Because what in the last years is happening is the cultivation and organization of individuals and practices based on the attitude of scorning society. Because those who promote this attitude have clearly stated that have no connections to anarchist arguments, thesis and practices and fight against them. And this is not something that came out of nowhere. It’s part of an attitude of a king of “spreading” of the so-called “space” [the word “space” is used in Greece instead of movement], that made the co-existence with those attitudes a status. Those attitudes could not flourish under the circumstances of a non-movement. Because the presence of organized anarchist groups has always stood as an obstacle to those procedures. But, here, a large number of young people, instead of strengthening the anarchist organization, by creating anarchist groups, has been lead as prey to the hands of captains, chiefs, lieutenants and corporals who looked for an army to establish their position and expand the horrible acts, including chasing people who are addicted from drugs. Behaving like a gang, from both sides, has become a status. Attitudes like “whoever is not with me is not only an enemy, but has to be smashed” dominated. Bullyboys, threats and authoritative violence have become a daily phenomenon in places of “historical” Eksarhia, which was divided into feuds, which sometimes got the name “vital spaces” and sometimes “liberated zones” (which was soon proved that can, at any time, be occupied by the forces of state violence). Movement procedures unified a mix of left, anarchism, autonomy, liberationals and so on. In this procedure, the construction of a mix of stalinism, fascism, nihilism and huliganism was promoted, alien to the anarchist liberational perspective. An attitude of militarization proclaimed to take over the project of an assigned avantguarde, aimed to “cleanse”, in the form of militias or raid battalions. Situations like this are well known by those who “hang around”, as well as by those who accepted this abnormal situation, being accomplices, actively or passively. The saprophytes sucked the liberational vitality of anarchist thesis, “borrowing”, distorting, slandering, promoting attitudes and practices alien to social liberation. Anyone could see people with a frozen look in every demonstration (and not only in demonstrations), lips sealed with hate and a mania for catastrophe drawn in their face. Hate for anarchists, hate for the rest of the people, “death to the petit-bourgeoisie”, “death to those who don’t participate to strikes”. Hate, death, applying of savage violence, like the attack with a hammer against an old man outside “Venetis” bakery at Patision str. (during a recent demonstration). And the reason? Because he disagreed with the torching of the shop, which was full of people. After that there was an attack with a paralyzer spray and the lynching of another person, who stopped the guy with the hammer to complete his “work”. We won’t refer other dozens of examples so as not to create conditions of fanaticism. Some people wrote that Vgenopulos (the owner of Marfin bank) is responsible. He is responsible for many criminal acts and tortures of people, as well as every other authoritarian-exploiter, but not for this specific murder. This thesis, which considers him responsible, is born out of the guts of leftist politics. As the Anarchist Core of Chalkida stated: “We don’t demand from any Vgenopulos to provide safety measures in the bank and to his employess, at the moments of our social action. Besides, it is contradictory for someone who torches to seek for safety measures and fire-protection systems. Moreover, we are not redeemed by saying that …. The State… the capitalists… Vgenopulos is responsible for this tragic event”. The effort to promote criminal attitudes is indeed pathetic. Because it is indeed promotion to argue that some people didn’t know that there people inside the bank. It is only a shameful political exploitation of the dead, when you blame Vgenopulos in the frame of a totally convenient spirit of anti-capitalism. Generalizing arguments do not offer anything, because the substance is that they don’t want to touch the gangrene wound. The same goes for the opportunistic silence, it doesn’t offer anything positive. It has been affirmed that the promotion and hospitalization of certain attitudes, acting antagonistically towards the social insurrectional processes, is one of the crucial foundations of the Movement. It is an attitude found out in the moves of decomposition which happened during the big demonstration of 2.500 anarchists and anti-authoritarians against the nationalists’ attacks on May 2005, those that occurred right after the initiation of the demonstration of the 4th Social Forum on May 2006, or others expressed during the mobilizations against the insurance laws on December 2007, just to mention a few examples. It is an attitude and political practice followed for some years. So nobody can talk about an “unfortunate moment” or about “the policy of this bank regarding the strike and its function”, as some people argue. Many people rushed to exploit this event and point out against social violence, and violence generally, as a meaning, ignoring or forgetting that it is not possible to pull out what is in nature. We have always been and remain supporters of uncontrollable social violence. Meaning that violence which is not controlled by politicians, mechanisms and utilities. That violence which springs from the human instinct of seeking and establishing freedom, that liberates and does not impose. That violence that spreads love with the cleansing flames of freedom, just like that that the farmer ignites in order to get rid of the useless and harmful weeds, taking care not to harm those created by Mother Earth. That violence which liberates and is not based on hate, but on love for freedom. That’s why those flames are symbolic, not in the sense of being virtual, but contributive. We want to emphasize in the clearest manner that Molotov cocktail is a weapon in the hands of the exploited and its use requires responsibility. There are numerous cases that militants, endangering their personal safety and physical integrity, were standing in front of broken banks in order to help customers and employees evacuate the place. On May 5th, those responsible for the murderous attacks in Bazaar on Aiolou str., on Ianos bookstore at 24 Stadiou str. and, finally, for the murderous attack on Marfin bank on 23 Stadiou str., and, besides other things, committed attacks and injured anarchist comrades who tried to deter them, were not indulging in uncontrollable, nor social violence, but ANTI-SOCIAL VIOLENCE. If we truly wish to attribute a tribute to the unfairly lost human beings of Marfin, let’s not make memorial parades, but honor our anarchist existence by creating clear and meaningful perspectives and dimensions of the anarchist struggle. Let’s talk honestly, sincerely, without ideological and political masks. Let’s not forget that those who fought and continue to fight anarchist opinions and practices gave an excellent opportunity to the enemies of freedom by this specific murderous act at Marfin. In conclusion. Regarding the situation we referred to above, we had made arguments long before via our texts in ROUTE FOR FREEDOM newspaper and on the internet, as well as by our attitude in the last years. We foresaw where this confrontation with the Special Forces of the police in the area of Eksarhia and the gang-style behavior and practices would lead. The murder of A. Grigoropoulos and the murder of four people in Marfin was a matter of time. We are sorry to be confirmed, but we believe that this incident is neither relative to us, nor to anarchists generally, to the extent that the attitudes and practices which led to the murders are unrelated to anarchy. But, it is related to us, since human lives were lost, and in a way which points out against liberational fermentations, opinions and practices. There are, therefore, responsibilities that stem from the fact of harboring, cooperating and silence in front of all those long evolved. We share the need for clarifying and opening of some fermentations. We clear out from the beginning that gang-style attitude is not the solution, nor the conviction of arrest of those who committed this crime by the state’s gangs. The solution is the uprooting of those attitudes and practices. Neither is the solution to try to pull what cannot be pulled by criticizing epidermically, maintaining the background and the structure of irresponsibility intact. This is a camouflage of anti-social action by the para-state gangs, leaving the background intact, a background which will produce new coatings which will transform them into popular militias or suppressive forces like those of the KNAT (Communist Youth for the Re-instatement of Order) (groups of the Communist Party of Greece which acted during the 80’s attacking anarchist and uncontrollable demonstrators). We will continue to struggle against attitudes and practices that derive arguments, ideologies, political excuses and manipulating techniques stemming from the dark past. Let’s not create misunderstandings. Anarchists can move on the basis of an equitable effort of exchanging arguments and practices which are functional and in accordance with the spirit of anarchist liberation processes. We are not and do not intend to be part of any movement. The rallying call for the creation of anarchist groups, continuing to spread the anarchist spirit of liberation, remains active. May 11th, 2010 Anarchist’s Coil anarchy.gr anarchypress.gr _________________________________________ A - I N F O S N E W S S E R V I C E By, For, and About Anarchists Send news reports to A-infos-en mailing list a-infos...@ainfos.ca Subscribe/Unsubscribe http://ainfos.ca/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/a-infos-en Archive: http://ainfos.ca/en -- "Hige sceal þe heardra, heorte þe cenre, mod sceal þe mare, þe ure mægen lytlað." ________________________________________________ Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
