ANNOUNCEMENT – CALL FOR A CAMPAIGN OF ACTION AGAINST THE UNIVERSITY POLICE
WHY WE BURNED THE OFFICIAL CAR USED BY THE RECTOR ANDREAS BOUDOUVIS FOR HIS INTERNAL MOVEMENTS WITHIN THE UNIVERSITY PREMISES
On May 12, the Council of State effectively upheld the law on the University Police since, as stated in its decision, neither academic freedom nor the autonomy of Higher Education Institutions is violated. The Council of State’s decision argues, inter alia, that there are important reasons of security and public order according to which it is deemed necessary to have the universities guarded by the police. Is the Council of State competent to admonish and defend values such as freedom and morality? Would the Council of State do well to resolve its internal issues first and foremost and leave aside the public security issues at a time when its former Vice-President and President of the Third Department, Panagiotis Efstratiou, is involved in a case of cocaine use and trafficking among minors? We do not expect anything different from the Council of State, the Supreme Court and their courts, which are rife with corruption and scandals, which wash away businessmen, politicians, big business and other scoundrels without a trace of shame at the same time as society is sinking into poverty and misery. The most recent and striking example, moreover, concerns the – beyond all provocation – cover-up of the rapists of Georgia Bika, where the scum of the well-known multinational rushed to cover up in the most blatant way the rape of the militant Georgia. Words are superfluous. An instrument of cynical execution of governmental dictates, the judiciary is humiliated in the courtrooms, the corrupt system rules them undisturbed and the fairy tales about separation of powers just make the big picture even more provocative.Surely the answer for the University Police Corps will not be given by the Council of State. The best and most targeted answer will be given by the student movement itself, the world of struggle, the anarchist and radical space, the parts of the militant left and the part of the progressive space that must finally put a brake on arbitrariness and authoritarianism. We are convinced that a mosaic of actions will unfold in the coming period, from symbolic actions to more dynamic actions that will cancel this bill in practice and why not put on the table the issue of self-organization and subversion not only within the universities but also in the whole society as a whole. Let all the schools be closed with occupations, let students and teachers with basic self-respect abstain from classes, let mass demonstrations take place all over Greece, let all the cops who will staff the new body be targeted.
In this context, let our action on the morning of Thursday 26/5 to hand over to the flames the official vehicle used by the rector Andreas Boudouvis for his internal movements in the National Technical University of Athens, an action that was concealed for obvious reasons by the media. Dean Boudouvis may be guarded in his home in Psychiko – on Dolasik Street – by police cars and he may take all the measures for where he parks himself inside the National Technical University, but he is certainly still a human being and a hole in his security measures is more than certain. By taking all necessary measures to ensure that no passerby – whether student or anyone else – was in danger, even if it worked to the detriment of our own safety we left a clear message and a simple warning. We make it clear to the cops roaming through the universities that vast expanses like Polytechnic City hold surprises and that the desire for an easy paycheck will only be uncomfortable. At the same time we also warn the Campus Guards that from now on they are a target, acting as an accessory to the work of the police. Wanting to forestall hysterical cries of provocative action inside the University Sanctuary, we make it clear that provocative will be the very presence of the police inside the Universities. More provocative is Kerameos herself and the far-right government of the New Democracy who will fill the universities with special guards, cameras, railings and controlled entrances, not an action a few days before the arrival of the newly formed body of cops. Even if some once harbored illusions that this bill would not take shape, that strong actions by comrades inside the universities paved and are paving the way for such a bill , let us remind them that in a few days the police sheriffs will be slathering as if nothing is wrong. The image of the MAT (riot police) beating up militants inside the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki is the best provocation for the freedom of the higher education institutions they preach.Let this action be the trigger for a multifarious treatment of the cops in the universities.
THE RECTOR ANDREAS BOUDOUVIS
Andreas Boudouvis is the rector of the National Technical University of Athens since 2019. Boudouvis is a conductor of balance. While his colleagues such as Nikos Papaioannou – rector of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki – or Panagiotis Bourantonis – rector of the University of Athens – or even the irascible vice-rector of the National Technical University of Athens Ioannis Hadjigeorgiou may have been ‘exposed’ in the public sphere more than him, this fact does not mean that Boudouvis’ actions are not remarkable. Having found both himself and some members of the senate in the past in the crosshairs, he has been careful to keep the bar low by trying and seeking obscurity. As he himself has stated in a message of support to his colleague Papaioannou (after the police call during the occupation of the rectorate of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki by students) ‘ when the going gets tough the tough get going’. And indeed, Boudouvis is for the tough stuff, as his whole academic career proves. But no matter how much he tries to keep himself in obscurity, that is not the case.Our own memory of him is unfortunately not short and Boudouvis’ CV is full of dirt, choices against the world of struggle, tacit adherence to government planning. We do not forget the repeated lockouts at the Lower Polytechnic and the ambitious plans for the redevelopment of the building. In nearby May 2020 (senate decision of May 29) the senate of the NTUA took the decision to restore and reopen the Gini building ostensibly for reasons of cultural and research excellence. Obviously, this decision is in line with the government’s planning that wants Exarchia to be a zone sterile and cut off from its political history (redevelopment, metro, etc.), a zone that has always been a space of ferment and the heart of the struggle of the movement.We do not forget the evacuation of the rectorate in November 2020 and the arrests of dozens of militants, some of whom are even targeted afterwards and called to be forcibly taken for genetic material. This is an attempt to terrorize the struggling students through a vague link with criminal charges in order to curb the students’ fighting spirit.We cannot forget the immigrants – among them underage children – who were badly expelled from the Lower Polytechnic as they were ‘spoiling the image’ (March 2020). And so on; the list is long for the arbitrary actions of the new rector. Also rich is the work through contracts and agreements that flourished under Boudouvis for the work of the NTUA as a whole. Memorandum of cooperation between NTUA and the Energy Regulatory Authority (October 2021), Memorandum of cooperation with the Hellenic Aviation Industry (April 2022), Memorandum of cooperation between NTUA and Athens University of Economics and Business and the Municipality of Athens (March 2022), Memorandum of cooperation between NTUA and Democritus and Hellenic Federation of Enterprises (December 2021). And the list goes on and many research projects are added that the NTUA participates in either in the field of military armaments or more broadly in technological projects with applications that are not even known (Prevision, CitySCAPE, ANDROMEDA etc.). In 2020 Boudouvis, rushing to declare his support for Bourantonis who was symbolically attacked by a group of comrades inside the Athens University of Economics building, had stated that the sign was as if it was hanging from his own neck and that within Greek universities there is a huge effort with the Rectors ‘toiling in extremely adverse conditions’. We, for our part, in the midst of even more adverse conditions arising , call on Boudouvis to resign HERE AND NOW.
By undertaking a macroscopic analysis, going beyond the narrow framework of this rectorial administration and management, we cannot help but notice that institutions like the NTUA function as nurseries for budding technocrats. Technocrats who, with their knowledge and, by extension, the power of their scientific knowledge, staff a scientific-techno-industrial system that is voracious, inhuman and destructive. Of course, we are not talking about the entire student community who, either out of love and interest in science or purely for reasons of livelihood, choose to secure a degree. We are talking about that portion that staffs key positions and service posts in the system and blindly serves anti-social strategies. A system that is responsible for the massive and irreversible natural destruction of the planet, the genocide of animal populations, the extermination of peoples in the name of wars of expansion. Political administrators capitalize and exploit the power of the latest advances in science. A science sanctified as a postmodern absolute religion. And it is behind the curtains of name recognition that these bastards are making a ‘pass’ on their achievements in political management by ensuring both anonymity and fat salaries. The system’s Boudubias’ are clearly targets and the forces of resistance must punish them in a commensurate manner. State-of-the-art street cameras, modern mobile phone surveillance systems, the ultimate digital switchover are examples of projects that scientists with names and names are working to promote and sell. This is why it is necessary to broaden the targets of resistance groups to include key areas where the system is being structured.
A SMALL COMMENTARY ON THE CURRENT SITUATION
The world we live in is being reshaped and rearranged at a rapid pace, literally passing over human societies. The war in Ukraine has no geographical distance but an immediate qualitative connection with the whole planet. At the moment when the world system is becoming multipolar, the balance is a balance of terror. Leaving aside for the moment geopolitical analyses, the narrative of the times is centred on the dark climate we see taking shape, in a transition to a future out of a dystopian horror film. In the wake of the successive lurches towards the crowning moment, the war in Ukraine and the energy crisis that is growing, making basic goods increasingly inaccessible. Expert forecasts speak of large parts of the population who in the coming months will not be able to meet basic needs. This is not cheap fawning but hard realism. This is where the food crisis comes in, with increases in basic commodities reaching unmanageable heights. A landscape with electricity constantly rising in price, with basic products (cereals, sunflower oil, pulses) very expensive, an environment of constant danger and billions of national GDP in military spending, of course, deducted from public goods such as health or education. We wonder what form a human society can take in this morass. We shudder at the idea of an extreme cannibalism, a form of self-immune social reaction, but under the cover of panoptic technological control. We as a human society must have the composure to perceive, to feel, to discern enemies and ideals. Otherwise we are lost in utter misery. Because what is coming is not our own ominous predictions but the natural consequences of a rotten world, we must give life to words such as solidarity, self-organisation and collectivity. We need to build self-organised structures in the fields of health care, food supply. To make refusals to pay bills a focus of struggle. To leave no inch of ground to emerging Nazi offshoots that will rush to exploit the chaotic situation. To build structures of self-education by cultivating a logic of subversive struggle seen not as a ludicrous reaction but as a project with a beginning, middle and end; after all, it will be a one-way street for survival. There is no middle way. In order not to turn into social cannibals who, stepping on corpses, will no longer fight for advancement but for survival. We must read the signs of the times and organise ourselves for what is to come.
IN CONCLUSION
We dream of a movement with all its components in a fighting position… Let’s stop being self-referential, let’s escape the pathogenesis of introversion. Let us build and put all our efforts into a movement capable of embracing more and more people with different political and ideological references. A movement that is radical, anti-capitalist, anti-patriarchal, anti-war, a movement that supports its imprisoned militants, a movement for the protection of the environment and animal species. A movement capable of standing up to the times and fighting alongside workers and students.There is no room for luxury. Either all united together OR nothing.
At the time of writing, imprisoned militant Giannis Michailidis is on his fourth day of a hunger strike demanding his release in the face of a vindictive and punitive system of ‘justice’. We cannot but stand by the side of the hunger-striking comrade, calling on all the militant forces of the movement to escalate the dynamic actions in the coming period by exerting pressure in every way. We unite our voice with the voice of the comrade against the modern Junta. Solidarity as it has been written so many times is not an identification of opinions or choices in relation to the means of struggle. Solidarity with a jailed militant today or a fellow human being tomorrow acquires meaning and substance as a model of the world we are struggling to build. Not bureaucratically or falsely. But real, honest, ethical.
IMMEDIATE RELEASE OF THE MILITANT GIANNIS MICHAILIDIS
Community of Subversive Expression
Source: athens.indymedia