Greece: Urgent call for international solidarity!

from Eleftheriakoi (blog)

Comrades,

The purpose of this message is to inform you briefly about what is happening the last days in our country and to appeal an international call of solidarity to all anarchists worldwide.

Greece is at a critical turning point, and many critical changes are taking place in a societal as well as a political and economic level. The disintegration and dissolution of the dominant – until recently – model of power and exploitation is more than evident, so it defines what is commonly called ‘crisis.’ What we are experiencing now is the total failure of a system that is unable to secure any longer the social consensus, thereby is engaged in a frontal attack that is unconditional and with no pretext.

Initially, at the beginning of this condition which was called ‘crisis,’ the attack occurred in materialistic terms. With the devaluation of labour, the horizontal reduction of wages, the ‘flexible’ working conditions, the institutionalization of insecurity, the increase of the price of consuming goods and public utility bills, the increase of taxes and the cuts in welfare benefits. At the same time, the sale of public wealth to private individuals, the widespread police presence on the streets, the auctions, the rising of unemployment began…

In addition, the unprecedented attack by means of propaganda was unleashed. The mass media controlled by the State and Capital unleashed a staggering rate of catastrophology and publishing of disaster scenarios and production of calendar milestones of ‘disclosure’ such us… ‘If Troika does not approve the next installment of the loan, we will fall apart…’ With all these, the communicative mechanism of Power manages continually to blur the water and maintain a state of terror ensuring the paralysis of society via extortion.

However, the resistance has never stopped for a part of the Greek society and the proletariat. Occasionally, declarations for general strikes are surrounded in a different degree by people who actively resist and express their willingness to fight against the conditions imposed by the State and Capital.

At the general strike of May 11th in Athens, once again thousands of protesters marched and voiced their opposition to the Greek government’s new anti-social measures which effect the workers and the majority of people. During the demonstration, while a big part of the protesters had passed by the parliament and were heading to an end, the cops attacked without provocation and viciously the most radical demonstrator blocks – anarchists and anti-authoritarians, neighborhood assemblies, rank-and-file labour unions, extra-parliamentary left – beating them with unprecedented savagery and firing hundreds of tear gas against them, until these blocks were dispersed. More than 100 demonstrators were hospitalized, while others underwent surgery.

Comrade Yannis was the protester whose health right now is in the most critical situation. Having suffered a murderous attack by the cops which caused him severe head injuries, he was transferred to the hospital in an antemortem (pre-death) situation –according to the medical report issued later. After the doctors ascertain the breadth of internal head bleeding, he immediately underwent surgery; he has been intubated in the intensive care clinic since. His situation remains critical but stable, without having escaped the danger for his life or health.

It is obvious that these murderous attacks against demonstrator strikers on Wednesday, May 11th, had a single purpose: to intimidate people and all those who resist to the attacks of Power and capitalist State. It was an act for exemplification aiming at the subjugation of people that seemed to send the following message: stay home, quit and disciplined.

In the content of this very procedure the sovereignty recently enlists more and more the right-wing and/or its parastate offshoots. The outbreaks of racist violence recently multiplied across the country, and reached a climax last week. In the light of the cold-blooded murder of a resident in the centre of Athens with intent to robbery, for which many immigrants have become a target, an unprecedented pogrom against migrants has been unleashed. Groups from organized and/or autonomous fascists, racists and extreme rightists took the opportunity to gather every evening to attack immigrants, injuring several while the death of an economic migrant also seems to have resulted by them. At the same time, the neo-Nazis alongside with the police also attack squats in the city centre, leading comrades into a condition in which we have to defend ourselves at the risk of our lives against police and fascist brutality.

The gravity of the situation is obvious. Once society accepts an unprecedented attack in materialistic terms the most radical political parts – one of the main being the anarchist milieu – are under police and fascists attack (literally this time, if one considers the murderous rage).

This is the reason why we urgently call for international solidarity!

Solidarity has always been one of the value features of anarchists. We always count on solidarity to support our struggles and fight back the logic of isolation and retirement into private life promoted by the state power, and also the capitalist condition of individuation and dismantling of the collective notion.

Now that the Greek society and the proletariat suffer a strain with unprecedented deterioration of living conditions, now that anarchists are under such an oppression that takes dimensions of actual attempted murder, now that the anarchist political milieu is being at the sight of state violence and fascist threat, we need to see our comrades around the world to call actions and stand in solidarity to our struggle; by organizing events, demonstrations, marches, protests, by writing texts, via words and actions; anything that the comrades deem most appropriate; any expression of revolutionary solidarity that only anarchists know and want to demonstrate, will vitalize our spirit and strengthen our struggles.

With comradely greetings,