Greece – Page 30 – Dark Nights

Greece: Thanos Chatziaggelou – ‘Don’t ask if we will win or if we will be defeated – Just fight!’

Posted on 2022/05/16 - 2022/05/19 by darknights

Solidarity message of the imprisoned member of the Organization Anarchist Action to the unrepentant anarchist Claudio Lavazza, in response to the appeal of his 25-year-old sentence which is to be examined on the 17th of May.

While being imprisoned in the most dystopian Hall of tyranny a combination of a few words on a piece of paper could never vividly describe the ideal of revolutionary intransigence. How could anybody fit a moment a life of disobedience, complexly devoted to the relentless struggle without leaving out any important detail.

Until today, there are only few people who wholeheartedly attempted to build a bridge filling the gap between a life and survival. These people who devoted their whole existence to the bright direct actions of the revolutionary base against the fierce doctrine of tyranny for the “end of history”, laid down their lives in the wholehearted hostilities of the revolutionary base. They enlisted sternly and unyieldingly on the fractious front of subversion, bled while comrades were perishing in battle, but imprisoned in the face of the danger of repentance and legitimacy, they chose ironclad pride.

Comrade Claudio Lavazza belonged to the same mixture of figures of struggle that divided them by a very important “particularity”: injustice and exploitation, social decay and tyranny were not just statements but issues that concerned them individually and collectively. They did not adapt ideology and politics to their lives; they devoted the absoluteness of their existence to vital and militant resistances. Enlisted in the armed ranks of the Italian Autonomy, he chose very early on the path of illegal freedom in the face of repression and political degeneration from statements of repentance. Continue reading “Greece: Thanos Chatziaggelou – ‘Don’t ask if we will win or if we will be defeated – Just fight!’” →

Athens, Greece: Incendiary-explosive attack upon cop’s vehicle in solidarity with anarchist prisoners Vaggelis Stathopoulos & Dimitris Hatzivassiliadis

Posted on 2022/05/14 - 2022/05/18 by darknights

For 3 years now, the far-right government of the ND has intensified state repressive action against those who fight and stand against its brutal capitalist plans.

The repressive attacks and frame-ups and persecutions against militants are countless. In these 3 years we have witnessed demonstration bans, torture of protesters and prisoners, informal hostage-taking of anarchists under harsh restraints, mass arrests, intimidation with non-existent DNA and detention. The purpose of all these state practices is to completely cut off and isolate militants from social resistance and physically eliminate them.

The basic premise of this repressive policy is to put the management of everyday life in the hands of the police, which, with the chariot of the pandemic, has been largely conquered by placing uniformed men everywhere like an army of occupation to decide who goes out and who does not.

Police impunity and police state repression has so far resulted in hundreds of incidents of beatings, torture and arrests, even murders, as in the case of Nikos Sampanis who was gassed for not stopping at a checkpoint.

One of the first state frame-ups is the prosecution and imprisonment of the anarchist comrade Vaggelis Stathopoulos, who has been locked up in state cells for two and a half years for showing his practical solidarity with the wounded anarchist comrade Dimitris Hatzivassiliadis.

In a mock trial with a tailor-made indictment by the anti-terrorist police, held in March-April 2021, Vaggelis Stathopoulos was sentenced to 19 years in prison.

On the night of 21 April we placed an incendiary-explosive device in a cop’s vehicle in the area of Ampelokipoi, destroying it completely, in solidarity with the anarchist prisoner Vaggelis Stathopoulos, whose appeal trial begins on 18 May.

It is our belief that state framing and trumped up charges are overturned through diverse solidarity actions.

IMMEDIATE RELEASE OF ANARCHIST VAGGELIS STATHOPOULOS

FREEDOM TO THE ANARCHIST DIMITRIS HATZIVASSILIADIS WHO IS BEING PROSECUTED FOR THE SAME CASE AND TO ALL POLITICAL PRISONERS

FOR FEAR TO CHANGE SIDES

THE ANSWERS ARE GIVEN IN THE STREETS OF FIRE

Anti-State Saboteurs

Source: athens.indymedia

Thessaloniki, Greece: Communique for an arson attack upon mayor Dimitris Demourtzidis’ car by ‘Nightriders of the Flame’

Posted on 2022/05/14 - 2022/05/14 by darknights

Life in the metropolises is suffocating. In recent years, we have seen the urban beast growing larger and sucking life into its path. Cops and snitches lurk around every corner, poverty and deprivation are reflected in every aspect of daily life, oppression (labour, sexual, racial) is a brutal reality, while the circle of ‘freedoms’ and ‘breaths of life’ are getting narrower and narrower. In this suffocating grip, capitalism comes to remind us that we are expendable materials for its machines, which produce endlessly and thirst for profit.

The gentrification projects are the blunt admission by the state that we exist simply to produce for them. Squares, parks, neighborhoods that were once appropriable by their inhabitants are being gentrified by labor and handed over to tourists and urban bourgeois. Expensive cafes, airbnb, surveillance cameras, increasing tourist population, overall increase in the cost of living are some of the consequences of redevelopment. Consequences that result in the displacement of people who once lived in these neighborhoods as they can no longer cope with the new existing situation. So the so-called ‘gentrification’ thus creates ‘fortress’ (urban) areas with increased social control and repression while other urban areas are ghettoised and impoverished. The segregation of neighbourhoods within cities and their so pronounced differentiations, clearly facilitates the work of the cops in terms of mapping and surveillance.

We see such a project unfolding before us in the Pavlos Mela military camp. A huge space within the confined metropolitan prison, freely appropriable by all and sundry, has been included in the redevelopment plans of Mayor Dimitris Demourtzidis. Continue reading “Thessaloniki, Greece: Communique for an arson attack upon mayor Dimitris Demourtzidis’ car by ‘Nightriders of the Flame’” →

Athens, Greece: Responsibility claim for attack on ‘airbnb StrefiHomm’ in Exarcheia

Posted on 2022/05/14 - 2022/05/14 by darknights

Last week we chose to disrupt for a while the now dystopian normality of the neighbourhood of the Exarcheia. The tourist industry is stepping on our bodies, displacing the local population, the poorer classes, the immigrant(s), grabbing more space from the hands of the antagonistic movement. A very important example of the ruthless march of capital into the neighborhood is the real estate firm, Homm.

This Greek company manages, buys, sells, rents apartments, villas and all kinds of properties in Athens, Mykonos, Evia and other areas. By browsing their site, one can see the luxury apartments they manage in “run-down” areas such as Patissia, but also in classic neighborhoods where gentrification has been completed such as Koukaki. Exarcheia seems to be their preferred neighborhood as they operate many properties such as luxury apartments and airbnb. Many of these are being targeted in protests in Exarchia. In fact, one can distinguish them by the paint people throw on their facades and the slogans they write.

The company has 135 properties on booking.gr and its offices are located at 83 Poseidonos Street in Glyfada. It is neither the first nor the last company that camps and does business in Exarcheia, but it is a main agent of gentrification that, despite the hostile climate it receives, insists on expanding more and more, opening more properties. We will not tolerate another one of them making fun of us right in our faces, investing at our expense, selling alternativeism, head-butting the struggles and the history of the movements in the region. Continue reading “Athens, Greece: Responsibility claim for attack on ‘airbnb StrefiHomm’ in Exarcheia” →

Athens, Greece: Demonstration at the French Embassy in solidarity with the anarchist prisoner Claudio Lavazza (17/05)

Posted on 2022/05/14 - 2022/05/14 by darknights

The open assembly convened after the call of the Anarchists’ Initiative against State Killings decided to convene a demostration at the French Embassy (7 Vassilissis Sofias Avenue) on Tuesday 17 May at 18.30, the day when the appeal of comrade Claudio Lavazza is being considered, through which he is demanding his release from prison. Below is the text of the appeal.

FREEDOM FOR CLAUDIO LAVAZZA

THE FRENCH STATE TAKES REVENGE ON POLITICAL PRISONERS

Our anarchist comrade Claudio Lavazza has been in prison since 1996, having already completed 25 years of continuous detention. He is one of the longest serving political prisoners in Europe. Claudio was one of the militants who took up arms to oppose capitalist rule politically and militantly.

An insurgent proletarian who participated in conflicts and expropriations in the early years of joining the movement in the dynamic 1970s in Italy. Armed fighter of the revolutionary movement of the 70’s-80’s afterwards. Member of the Armed Proletarians for Communism, a horizontal guerrilla group with strong ideological influences from workers’ autonomy. Participant in the coalition of groups under the name ‘Organised Communists for Proletarian Liberation’, an armed project to support fugitives and free comrades and comrades-in-arms from prison. Accomplice to the 1981 attack on the prison in Frosinone where imprisoned militants were released.

At a time when the meaning and content of words had not been surrendered to museification, revisionism, and limited activism. But it found meaning through the practical cultivation of hope in those imprisoned and “exiled” from the legal order by the relentless repression of the state and the parastate. That words like freedom and solidarity would be put into practice with guns in their hands. Continue reading “Athens, Greece: Demonstration at the French Embassy in solidarity with the anarchist prisoner Claudio Lavazza (17/05)” →

‘III) Class war is outdated’ – Conspiracy of Cells of Fire

Posted on 2022/05/10 - 2022/05/10 by darknights

We republish an excerpt from the CCF’s (Conspiracy of Cells of Fire) book New Urban Guerrilla on the occasion of “World Workers’ Day”, one of the few days when leftists remember to take to the streets, hold their ritual marches and speak their faded slogans. The left has never been able to fully recover from the consequences of the rise of neoliberalism and the fall of the USSR, and it never will as long as it clings to outdated and anachronistic theories and practices that struggle to cope with the rapid developments of the last few decades. The concept of ‘worker’ and ‘class struggle’ that they so glorify no longer have the same clarity and meaning that they had a century ago. The third industrial revolution, the automation it brought about and globalisation have led to the expansion of the tertiary sector at the expense of the primary and secondary sectors. For the average young worker who works in hotels and cafes, the ‘occupation of the means of production’ does not make as much sense as it would to a bachelor worker, especially when the rusty leftist rhetoric has not even managed to prevail against neoliberal standards, the doctrine of ‘there is no alternative’ and the false promises of social advancement and enrichment. The so-called class consciousness is now almost non-existent. We cannot even imagine how much more fossilized the left will look like with the arrival of the fourth industrial revolution, which is already just around the corner, and which will bring even more radical socio-economic transformations, changing and blurring even more the class dynamics and the meaning of ‘worker’.
With all that has been said about the left, it is therefore not surprising either why a ‘movement’ such as that of the a/a space, which tends to become increasingly leftist, is so alienated from population groups it is supposed to support, such as workers and minorities.
Or May Day is not the worker’s right.
May Day is sabotage, memory and consistency in the workers’ hellhole
Action and attack on the mechanisms of oppression
For anarchy and nihilism
– IO EIF

So here it is necessary to talk about society and the individual. We declare ourselves anti-socialists and have referred extensively to our conception of society. However, because we find that confusion remains in many mouths and ears producing distorted ideologies of revolutionary elitism, we for our part persist in striking down this misunderstanding.

First of all, by the term society we do not in any way exclusively define the numerical population of people. We characterize as a whole the majority framework of attitudes, traditions, morals and customs within which the processes of power are accepted. For example, the concepts of property, patriotism, religion, are pervasive social values deeply rooted in <> without the need for law enforcement and state surveillance.

Of course, the majority of society, beyond the common belief shared in the necessity of power, is at the same time divided into classes. Social classes that are not entrenched from one another, as in past centuries when natural exclusion from the upper echelons of power prevailed (pyramidal morphology based on descent and hereditary rights), but constitute categories of people based on their fluid position in production and their economic surface. Today, therefore, people are in constant class mobility due to the structure of the modern system. The participatory form of capitalism and the real or fictitious opportunities for professional development form a fluctuating scale on which petty bourgeoisie can become bosses (self-made professionals and careerists) and bosses can fall into petty bourgeoisie (company bankruptcies, failed investments). Continue reading “‘III) Class war is outdated’ – Conspiracy of Cells of Fire” →

Athens, Greece: Responsibility claim for the attack on the MAT (riot squad) at Ch.Trikoupis

Posted on 2022/05/05 - 2022/05/05 by darknights

RESPONSIBILITY CLAIM FOR THE ATTACK ON THE MAT SQUAD IN CH.TRIKOPI

On Saturday 2/4 we chose to attack the MAT squad in front of the PASOK offices in Charilaou Trikoupis. The attack turned out exactly as we had planned where, with great ease and comfort, we arrived in front of the frightened eyes of the cops who started with quick steps backwards throwing tear gas from a distance, not having the possibility to do more.

The plan had two stages, with the first being to attack the cops at the PASOK offices with 30 Molotov cocktails and the second being to create fires in the surrounding streets simply as a demonstration and reminder of how easily we can be next to you.

While the second part of the plan was being implemented the DELTA/DRASI group made their appearance. Of course from our side there was no concern from their presence as their appearance was part of our planning and those comrades who had the role of attacking them attacked them. The reaction of DELTA/DRASI was to be expected, they stayed pinned to their motorbikes, sent from afar what they could send and did not take a single step to approach us. The mere sight of a few Molotov cocktails and the ready crowd, terrified them and awakened memories of old times. As a consequence of this fear, we were given the comfort of entering the Exarchia neighbourhood with the crowd of people without any problem. We then remained for some time in the surrounding alleys observing their movements for future attacks.

The choice of the Exarcheia neighborhood to carry out the attack was not accidental. The rebellious Exarcheia is a reference point for the antagonistic movement, a neighbourhood of politicisation, fermentation and insurgency. From the anti-dictatorial struggles and clashes of the Polytechnic uprising of ’73, the murder of comrade Michalis Kaltezas* and the Chemistry revolt of ’85**, the murder of the student Alexandros Grigoropoulos and the December 2008 uprising to the defence of our neighbourhood by groups of fascists and parastatals in the ridiculous Macedonia rallies of 18-19, Exarcheia has always been a place of freedom, comradeship and struggle for those who fight to overthrow the rotten reality of the state. Continue reading “Athens, Greece: Responsibility claim for the attack on the MAT (riot squad) at Ch.Trikoupis” →

Athens, Greece: 4-11 June Week of Reconstruction of the Alexandros Grigoropoulos Monument

Posted on 2022/05/05 by darknights

Revolutionary memory is not an empty letter. It is not a museum affair. It is not a dry ritual that is exhausted in anniversary recurrences. Revolutionary memory is the thread that binds the past to the present and that lays the foundations for a future that will do justice to those who sacrificed for a different world. A world where no one will see the sky through barbed wire, where no one will have their bodies broken in the sweatshops of class exploitation, where no one will be murdered on land and sea borders, in police stations, in the urban ghettos of metropolises. Revolutionary memory brings together those who are missing from our side, making them complicit in our subversive projects and dreams. Revolutionary memory, if we give it the value it deserves, becomes a subversive project, a springboard for struggle, a source of inspiration and disposition in the beautiful cause of freedom. For the words that will form a conceptual framework different from the one spoken today by politicians, economists, military analysts, industrialists, the golden boys of the stock exchange, journalists. Or they will be words armed ready to become an impulsive energy. Or they will be nothing.

The metropolises are the modern steam engines, they are the universal factories of capitalism. The transparent sweatshops where capital’s domination, control and repression of the explosive contradictions it produces are absolutely institutionalized.

The crimes of the state and capitalism within the metropolises become isolated incidents. They are recorded in fragmentary narratives by the bourgeois ideology that imposes its hegemony. Our own memory, which should highlight them and transform them into social consciousness, into a perception of our role and position, is constantly absent. When it is not, it is blurred, colourless, non-existent, empty of content. Fascist censorship here has for the moment been replaced by a new form of active censorship. The production of incessant distorted knowledge, the methodical reversal of facts, their insidious substitution. It is revisionism that attacks consciences, memories, the very history of the struggles. Continue reading “Athens, Greece: 4-11 June Week of Reconstruction of the Alexandros Grigoropoulos Monument” →

Athens, Greece: Update and contribution from the event on the case of anarchist Claudio Lavazza on 14 April at ASOEE

Posted on 2022/05/04 - 2022/05/04 by darknights

On Thursday, April 14th, the event of the Anarchist Initiative against State Killings, concerning the case of the anarchist comrade Claudio Lavazza, took place at the ASOEE with a relatively massive presence of comrades. The presentation was read as well as the transcript of an interview Claudio has given about his case and a video was shown concerning the expropriation of a bank in Cordoba and the subsequent confrontation with the police forces where he was arrested. Finally, comments and statements were made by comrades about the connection between Claudio’s experience of struggle, especially the years he participated in the Italian movement, and the present day, and it was decided to call an open assembly to organize a meeting at the French embassy on May 17, the day when the comrade’s appeal against the decision of the bourgeois justice system that forces him to serve another 5 years in prison until he is released will be heard. Below is the text of the submission where you can also find a Pdf file.

We will begin our submission by answering the simple question. Why do we consider solidarity with the comrade Claudio Lavazza important today? We answer by saying that in Claudio’s person we see a part of the revolutionary memory of contemporary revolutionary history.

Claudio from an early age was an insurgent proletarian who was actively involved in the mass movement and proletarian struggles of that period in Italy. But what was the historical context that fuelled the great struggles of that period?

“The post-war environment and the Cold War”

On a macro-level, the end of the Second World War and the new balances of terror that took shape in the international environment after the use of nuclear weapons of mass destruction in 1945 in Japan by the US and the subsequent nuclear arms race from 1949 onwards (when the USSR acquired the corresponding technology), influenced the intensity of the historical period of the Cold War, the milestones of which were the Greek civil war (1946-1949), the Chinese revolution in 1949, the Korean civil war (1950-1953), the lifting of the Berlin Wall in 1961 and the Cuban missile crisis a year later in 1962. These developments were decisive for the so-called transition to the so-called ‘peaceful coexistence’ process, which largely involved the establishment of strict non-intervention zones. These zones were in the perceived centre of the western and eastern world, i.e. almost the entire northern hemisphere of the planet, which of course did not prevent any of the main Cold War competitors from intervening even militarily in their own immediate zones of influence and even more so on the periphery of the perceived undeveloped world, moving the hot fronts of warfare to Latin America, Africa and Asia. Continue reading “Athens, Greece: Update and contribution from the event on the case of anarchist Claudio Lavazza on 14 April at ASOEE” →

International Zine of Social War – ‘War is the supreme drama of a completely mechanized society’, Dark Nights #51

Posted on 2022/05/02 - 2022/06/01 by darknights

PDF: Dark Nights #51 ‘War is the supreme drama of a completely mechanized society’

International zine of social war against militarism, against nationalist and imperialist wars, for the insurrection, revolution and internationalism.

Another expanded 16 page edition with articles on the continuing hunger for war by nations, capitalism and civilization. Articles from Italian comrades, of a much needed anti-militarism and calling for the international in response to the war we fight all our lives under the existent. Direct actions and communiques of an anti-militarist nature and examples of past attacks, including Direct Action Cells, attacks from Germany and UK attacks against military targets.

Print it out, distribute it, leave it in a random place!

‘We sabotage the war, Triggering the International!’

‘War is the supreme drama of a completely mechanized society’
‘We sabotage the war, Triggering the International’ – Beztomivny
‘We do not enlist’ – Anarchists from Spoleto
‘Anti – Militarism & Social Insurrection’ – Wolfi Landstreicher
‘Another war is possible’ – Responsibility Claim for arson & incendiary attacks by Cells of Anti-Militarist Action
‘Heretics’ – Gabriel Pomba da Silva

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