On 27/04 we placed incendiary devices in the offices of the Nea Dimokratia (New Democracy) Pefkis-Lykovrisi, burning them completely outside and a large part inside, essentially closing the office.
We hold this party accountable for a series of actions that form the backbone of the Greek state’s agenda.
Redevelopment-Regeneration-Repatriation-Suppression
From the beginning of its term of office, ND as a government has shown its intentions on the issue of the city. The Athenian centre is constantly being shaped as a luxury showcase for global and European tourism. This process started and accelerated already in the years of the covid-19 boom when hundreds of thousands of euros were given for the construction of the Grand Walk (pet gentrification project of Athens mayor Kostas Bakoyannis). Public space is increasingly occupied by goods and consumers. Universities and spaces that once seemed to be meeting points for movements and collective processes are now being cleared, controlled and mapped with cameras and cops (ΟΠΠΙ, university cops). The state’s attempt to turn the Gini polytechnic into a monument in a move of gentrification is also characteristic. At the same time, student movements are subjected to extreme repression, with typical examples being the pressure in other universities such as the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, as well as the case of the 14 students who are being persecuted under the umbrella of manipulating DNA files. In continuation of the pressure on the anarchist movement with reference to meeting places is the continuous repression of the occupations in the centre of Athens and Thessaloniki.
Of course, along with all the above comes the redevelopment of squares, parks and hills. The criminal collaboration of the state with capital leads to the appearance of construction sites and dust in the squares, security barriers, blocking of work sites, extra security with security and cops and as expected: displacement of the poor, the marginalized, migrant women. Even the few places that the poor, the people from below, the people of our class had to catch their breath, are being forcibly taken away from them. This plan is being carried out all over the centre, from Galatsi and Pagrati to the most migrant neighbourhoods, Kypseli Square, Protomaya Square and soon Exarcheia Square.
Sole responsibility for the looting of public space lies with the Municipality of Athens, the political agenda of ND and a number of companies. Some of them are Unison, Prodea, ERETVO as the metro construction company, Attiko Metro itself and Anaplasi Athens SA, with the latter claiming a share of the gentrification that the state is preparing towards the Occupied Refugee Community. And precisely because the state has continuity, we do not forget that this gentrification is also being watched with appetite by the leftist predators of Syriza, as well as by one of its most stinking garbage, Dourou, during her recent visit to the liberated territory of the Occupied Refugees. It is, after all, a historical reality the continuity and role of the state (left-right) as a mechanism to guarantee the interests of the bourgeoisie and to impose genocide on those from below.
So far we have referred to state-capital violence against the social base. Control, uprooting of populations, repression of movements, attack on collective bodies. Yet another issue is the plundering of the very natural life and environment in the urban fabric. Redevelopment leads to ravaged hills, hundreds of trees cut down to open up roads or cement over land, pollution of the local ecosystem, restriction of even the minimum oxygen and destruction of any shelter for urban animals. Not only humans but everything non-human is expendable in order to expand commodity and profit. What is happening in the centre of Athens is happening on a more expanded scale in the natural landscape of the entire country with the onslaught of green capitalism and the voracious building of renewable energy sources with the guarantees of ND. It is also no coincidence that after the big fires in Evia in the summer of 2021 there were even more studies and attempts to license wind farms throughout the region. A very serious point of this cement and concrete intervention is that it takes decades for the wild ecosystem to return to its original state and in some circumstances this does not even happen. The fragile biodiversity is dying year after year. We believe that the moral and practical perpetrator of the fires in the country is the ND and the construction companies it backs, such as ΓΕΚ ΤΕΡΝΑ.
Gentrification, like the assault on nature, will not be solved by temporary regulatory or justificatory struggles. It is a wild process that is happening at lightning speed. Besides, the examples of Europe, the most striking being that of Berlin from the 1980s and 1990s to the present day, show that what is being planned is an attack on the culture of neighbourhoods and radicalisation, with a logic of everything serving as a profit field for chain stores, construction companies, real estate, etc. It is a show of the transformation of territories into a domain by the state in which the only barrier is the diffusion of our aggressive actions: sabotage, vehicle torching, arson of companies, offices, violent confrontational marches, occupations of liberated territories and buildings. Gentrification is the graveyard of the poor and of real life in the densely populated urban desert. Death will not be stopped except by the fire that burns within every rebellious heart and mind. The time for the strangling of gentrification and beyond was, and is NOW, but we are too late and an enemy is moving on the chessboard. No more postponements and conventions. Onward, then, to kinetic-frontal violence and direct conflict, as soon as possible, as much as possible.
Poverty-Accuracy-War-Propaganda
At the same time as the intensity of the war in Eastern Europe is increasing, states and energy lobbies are driving populations into poverty. Capitalism, driven to historical deadlocks according to its nature and rules, is defusing its crisis into war. As a result of this situation, there is diplomatic and economic chaos, leading to inflation and rising prices for all basic goods (electricity, supermarkets, fuel, etc.). This was of course the case before the outbreak of the war with the bosses and their representatives reproducing a constant state of shock and emergency for the subjects in a narrative of acceptance of “necessary measures” and discipline. This phenomenon, combined with the already strained economic situation of the population, will lead to an unprecedented violent impoverishment of more and more people in the coming months. Besides, the cost of living brought about by redevelopment (e.g. high rents and rising prices with airbnb – real estate) is already unbearable for many of us.
The state is studying and preparing to manage this condition. The exorbitant amounts of the public budget invested in the military and cops have a dual role. On the one hand, the military participation of the Greek state and its constant readiness for the external gaze and on the other hand, the prevention and silencing of any internal “problem”, movement and enemy. It may seem inconceivable that so much money has been given for the purchase of equipment and military exercises, while for so long nothing has been done for the notorious public health care. For our part, we judge that the actions of the Greek state from the period of covid19 to the present day are perfectly relevant.
The Greek state in the conjuncture of the war not only prepared itself but also played a leading role. For years now and under the Syriza government, the Greek state has been NATO’s placeholder, along with Turkey’s, in the Eastern Mediterranean region. At the moment when the viewers are being flummoxed with a bunch of communication games about airspace violations in the Aegean, the fascist states of Greece and Turkey are doing dirty work for the local and international elite. Some moments of the Greek state and its role in the region are: The agreement with Egypt, the Prespes agreement (which strengthens Greece’s role as a watchdog in the Balkans), military exercises with Israel, NATO bases in Souda, Larissa, Araxos, etc.
Currently this role has been confirmed by the war in Ukraine. Apart from the military fair with Rafals in demonstrations flying over our heads, Greece was actively involved in a vicious war by sending C-130 planes to Ukraine carrying weapons and equipment to continue the massacre. This massacre is of course fuelled by the Russian state and Russian imperialism which is pitted against Western expansionism in the region. So against every state (Russian, Ukrainian, Soviet) and every murderous alliance of states (NATO, EU, Eurasian), our role as the internal enemy of the Greek state is in the streets, anti-militarist, to stop the massacre of our class populations and not to become meat in the cannons of any state or coalition of states. At this point we separate that part of the working class which in this condition either remains silent or makes rotten choices such as turning to conservative and fascist formations. They are all those who have been behind the rise of nationalism both in Greece, Ukraine and Europe. We find hostile the movements that create neo-Nazi paramilitary groups (such as the Azov battalion) that support man-eating and the march of domination. The discourse of the dominant narrative of democracy that supports the so-called peace missions or “denazification” missions (Russian state rhetoric) also rests on them. Those from below who are really beside us are those who are struggling and taking a position of essential conscious rupture against oppression and totalitarianism. They are the ones who contribute substantially to the social war without turning against the anarchist project of liberation. The Mitsotakis government participated in war crimes with the military involvement of the Greek state and the social genocide inside the country. Stop them, flatten them to the ground.
Beyond and outside the bipolises made by domination in this war we are against all states. At a time when lies are everywhere on TV, computer and mobile screens, it is important to restore collective self-formation, self-protection and self-defense. We must fortify our structures and our people intellectually and practically. The fact is that in the West we hear only one narrative of events, the media is controlled as never before, while journalists and venues are monitored by the NSA. At the same time, a large part of the left and the domestic anti-authoritarian movement is quick to view Russian imperialism sympathetically, fed by anti-NATO sentiments exclusively. For us, anyone who takes a state position and adopts bipolar positions in this war as well has consciously died in the mire of the decay of today.
At every similar moment in history the clear aims of the movements have saved the situation. Continuous presence on the street, organisation and unity, clear anti-militarist discourse, attacks from below, building structures and relations is the only way to rise to the occasion and put a stone in the movement for social liberation and revolutionary struggle. Besides, as we have said before in taking responsibility for the attacks on the banks in Galatsi and Pefki, the survival of the incendiary tradition is something that cannot be taken for granted, but it is in our own hands to give it life and ensure it through the uninterrupted attack towards the diffusion of revolutionary violence. We also quote at this point the text that has a set of propositions that we consider to be alive today: https://athens.indymedia.org/post/1608250/
At a time when the system is constantly shocking the ordinary people, the movements must be taken care of. From gender violence and the plundering of the Earth to opposition to war and solidarity with migrant women to show that another world is possible outside of nuclear warheads, fires, misery, destruction, pain, survival anxiety amidst capitalist failure and despair. It is the world of free minds, the world of Anarchy and self-organization. To make in the here and now our desires a reality by coordinating in many horizontal networks of structures, communities, organizing and attacks that converse with each other under a single platform of contents and propositions. In this context we propose aggressive sabotage against corporations and actors that feed the beast of gentrification and environmental destruction.
At this point we put a bounty on the head of a set of companies that we consider hostile and that we ought to reduce to rubble.
-PRODEA INVESTMENTS – 9 Chrysosospiliotisis 9, Athens
-ERETVO – 15 T. Filimonos, Athens
-UNISON FACILITY – 194 Syngrou Avenue
-ATTIKO METRO S.A. – 191-193 Messogeion Avenue
-Anapolis Athinas S.A. – 5 Pyrri Avenue, Athens
-GEK TERNA – GEK SERVICES S.A. and T.E. – 85 Messogeion Avenue
-AKTOR S.A. – 25 Ermou Street, Kifissia
-AKTOR S.A. -ERGAS S.A. – 26 Bouboulinas & Hatzigiannis Mexis
10, 100, 1000S OF INCENDIARY DIRECT ACTION GROUPS
10, 100, 100 SQUATS – OCCUPIED PLACES OF STRUGGLE
SOLIDARITY AND LIGHTSHIP TO COMRADE GIANNIS MICHAILIDIS (hunger striker since 23/05) AND TO ALL COMRADE ANARCHISTS PRISONERS
SIGNAL OF INFLAMMATORY SOLIDARITY TO THE COMRADES PERSECUTED FOR THE CASE OF ANARCHIST ACTION
Thousands of Suns of the Night
Source: athens.indymedia