====================================================================== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. ======================================================================
Thanks Joseph for fowarding this statement by what we might call real anarchists on the Greek events, an excellent statement. It is true that since the black-block/provokatsia murdered 3 bank workers on May 5, a number of anarchist sites have had anarchists showing "a change of heart" etc, seeing the light and so on, but all of that was just so much duh! You engage in the same idiotic tactic for a quarter of a century, never with any useful result, and always and every time with the result that the people's movement is derailed into a bird-brain fighting match/street theatre between cops and black-hooded tough guys, with random shops smashed, random cars and buses burnt, and people alienated, and only after you kill three workers during an uprising for the workers, do you start having a few clear thoughts. Frankly, the idea that the "tactics" of the black-hooded thugs who call themselves "anarchists" are counterproductive, and have been for the last quarter century, is an idea on the same level as that which says that, if you open the window on a stormy day, the rain might come in. Ie, you don't need much of a brain; it should have been obvious before you started. The statement below, by contrast, appears to be by a group of anarchists who have long rejected this kind of garbage politics of thuggery, and they don't hold back calling it by its right name. They analyse this degeneration over a number of years, and, although I am no anarchist, they quite rightly in my view make clear that this ultra-vanguardist anti-social politics of gang-type violence can by definition have nothing to do with anarchist principles. Fom my own experience, I can say that they are completely correct when they describe this phenomenon in this manner: "... a large number of young people ... 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 ... the construction of a mix of stalinism, fascism, nihilism and huliganism was promoted, alien to the anarchist liberational perspective." Not understanding this context, which is well-known in Greece (witness the outright condemnations in every statement coming out of Greece and the tendency of most to associate these "anarchists" with provokatsia), can indeed lead to false conclusions, like that this was perhaps an inevitable part of revolutionary violence caused by the extreme anger among the the people etc. Nothing like it. They also do not hold back from calling murder by that name, again in my opinion an advance over the BS in the first days after the murder, when many were reluctant to use the same term the state was using, as if the capitalist state should have the right to sound more genuine in defense of workers than the left (reminder: it was workers who were murdered), or some even used the spurious argument that they "didn't mean to kill them," or the still more spurious argument that perhaps they didn't know there were workers inside the bank (yeh, like it was 4am), which this statement also criticises; the statement also refuses to hide behind the criminal actions of the bank management - they should certainly be condemned also as killers, and we should certainly use this in our anti-capitalist propaganda, but the statement rightly asserts that it is simply moral corruption to set a bank on fire with workers inside and then blame the criminal actions of management for not having fire escapes etc. A lot of discussion after these events wanted to hold back on all this, for understandable reasons sure, but it was based on not having a proper appreciation of the context, of what the specifically Greek black-block actually is (I can't speak for that block elsewhere) and its history. This statement below sets the record straight. Finally, in analysing the apparent decline of the movement in Greece (at least temporarily), while major blame goes to the Pasok-linked trade union bureaucracy, I think the effects of this murder were greatly underestimated at the time, and I think the statement gets it right where it says that this "murderous act" was "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." Michael Karadjis ----- Original Message ----- From: "Joseph Catron" <jncat...@gmail.com> To: "Michael Karadjis" <mkarad...@theplanet.net.au> Sent: Sunday, May 23, 2010 4:15 PM Subject: [Marxism] One anarchist statement concerning the May 5 murders > ---------- 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. > ________________________________________________ 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
