As every March 29, with greater or lesser intensity, a new Day of the Young Combatant is commemorated in different parts of the territory dominated by the Chilean state. This year the date fell on Saturday, causing that on Thursday 27 and Friday 28 high school students from Liceo de Aplicación, Liceo Manuel Barros Borgoño, INBA, Liceo 1, Instituto Nacional and Liceo Eduardo de la Barra (Valparaíso), university students at the Juan Gómez Millas campus, Universidad de la Frontera (Temuco) and Universidad de Playa Ancha (Valparaíso), and comrades in general, were rioting and confrontations with the police in high schools, universities and in the center of Santiago, also different gestures of agitation accompanied all these days.
On the night of Saturday 29th the streets of Cerro Navia, Estación Central, Quinta Normal, San Bernardo, Huechuraba, Peñalolén, among others, lit up. With Molotovs, stones and homemade or industrial weapons, comrades confronted the police in a new commemoration of the Day of the Young Combatant with combative memory for Eduardo and Rafael Vergara Toledo, Luisa Toledo, Mauricio Maigret, Claudia López, Mauricio Morales, Sebastián Oversluij, Luciano Pitronello, Belén Navarrete, among so many other dead comrades who still remain present through anarchic action absolutely far from any iconic, symbolic role or elements of admiration.
Finally, the day left a total of 42 detainees who went to detention control and were released in the course of the following day.
A violent clash broke out Monday in the Indonesian metropolis of Surabaya between police and demonstrators protesting against the country’s newly passed military law.
Around 1,000 students and activists dressed in black participated in the protest in front of an East Java government building.
Holding posters that said “Reject the Military Law”, and “The Military Should Return to the Barracks”, protesters hurled rocks, sticks, and Molotov cocktails towards the police guarding the demonstration.
The revision to the armed forces law, pushed mainly by President Prabowo Subianto’s coalition, was aimed at expanding the military’s role beyond defence in a country long influenced by its powerful armed forces especially under the brutal military dictatorship of Suharto called the “New Order” who were avowedly anti-communist and anti-anarchist. Large-scale killings and civil unrest primarily targeting members and supposed sympathizers of the Communist Party of Indonesia (PKI) were carried out in Indonesia from 1965 to 1966. Other affected groups included alleged communist sympathisers, Gerwani women, trade unionists, ethnic Javanese Abangan, ethnic Chinese, atheists, so-called “unbelievers”, and alleged leftists in general. The dictatorship eventually fell in the May 1998 Indonesia riots triggered by corruption, economic problems, including food shortages, mass unemployment, increasing repression, genocide in East Timor and following the 1997 Asian financial crisis.
“What is worrying is that the extreme polarisation that is being created is the best fertiliser to further develop the anti-establishment climate. And it certainly sends by itself the people to the squares of 28th February, reinforcing he conditions of destabilisation of the country. I suppose it’s hard to explain what that means in a world that’s becoming increasingly unstable after the rise of anti-establishment in the US…”
To Vima [mainstream Greek newspaper], G. Papachristos, 24-2-2025, The fertiliser of destabilisation
“In the age of global madness, we could easily leave the rails of logic and get into a phase of non-governance and chaos. The Greek society, however, knows to avoid disasters, perhaps because it brushed past one such disaster ten years ago. We have matured. […] Many of the citizens who went to the streets know well that they will have no choice other than Mr Mitsotakis when the ballot boxes are set up again.”
Kathimerini [mainstream Greek newspaper], A. Papachelas, The resounding message of anger
In the immediate period preceding the 28th of February for the 57 dead in Tempi, a number of publications described the “disturbing findings of the polls, which cause dark thoughts”, about the “danger of anti-establishment” as “Greece stands on the threshold of an era of new adventures”. Opponents of the rally, journalists, analysts, government deputies and ministers, tried in every way to discourage people from participating, because then the participants would turn into an object of exploitation by the “populists”, with the result that “the new division” would have disastrous consequences for “democracy and institutions”, “stability” and the “hard-won normalcy”, while also hiding “national dangers”.
Social media accounts modified the poster of the “Tempi 2023” association calling for non-participation in the rallies. In the original poster there is only one word: “justice”. In the modified one, it reads “I will not go, I trust justice”
Efforts to weaken the rallies of 28th of February and to consolidate the climate of terrorrism continued with prosecution orders for criminal investigation and persecutions against “online incitement to commit violent riots”, but also announcements about policing, preventive prosecutions, arrests and “zero tolerance” by the 6,000 police officers who will monitor the protesters.
And yet, all of these designs failed miserably.
As we were emphasising recently, the “return to normalcy” was set as a common ground for the political system, whether it was promoted as a project of anti-left orientation or as an anti-right political project, with the reconstruction of the “progressive faction”. But the vision of a “return to normalcy” has faded, and it is no longer persuasive, as it is no longer persuasive the kind of logic of “the glass is half-full, not half-empty” or “certainties” of an unbroken general opposition and aversion in the social sphere to new “adventures and instability”. As we wrote shortly before the elections in the summer of 2023, the “new normal”, however, symbolises further social inertia for its left- and right-wing creators and for the securing of social peace. They are counting their chickens before they are hatched. Neither the benefits, nor the micro-amenities, nor the “beautification” of the health and labour system, nor the family ministries and the digital “paradises” promised by Mitsotakis’ state can hide the reality.
For this very reason, the ivory tower of the current administrators of state affairs is proving to be very fragile, while at the same time the next most “suitable” administrator after Mitsotakis emerging is “Nobody”, according to a number of polls, reaching the same level of social denial and questioning of parties, institutions and politics as that recorded in the years of the crisis, especially in 2010-2012. We have to repeat here that the left, socially discredited and exhausted in its capacity of assimilation, is suffocating and is unable to mobilise even its few members and its bored followers, let alone to exploit a social anger that remains politically unsupervised.
According to Max Weber, the emergence of the “charismatic” leader presupposes the manifestation of “crisis”: “The charismatic leadership […] always appears in extraordinary, especially political or economic, circumstances, in unusual mental, especially religious, situations, or when the above coexist”. So, in times of “crisis”, the “charismatic leader” appears as the “called-for”, that is, the one who is “called” to help, the “comforter”, with “extraoridnary” duties, and with “extraordinary” mission. Let’s not forget that today’s political caricature, called Tsipras, wore exactly this mantle of the “unparalleled” and “charismatic” leader in monents of “crisis” and greate collective “over-agitation”, while also demanding blind obedience and loyalty of the subjects to the “mission” he embodied.
Mitsotakis emerged in 2019 again as a “called-for” leader, that is, as a technocratic politician, who dominated by stepping on the evolving political disintegration of the ruling left, appearing as the “only one”, and therefore as the “charismatic” one, who could wield the “new normalcy” and even through a global exposure.
On 16-5-2022, an article in the German newspaper Handlesbatt stressed that Mitsotakis will become the first Greek prime minister to address the US Congress and “will do everything to distinguish himself as a trusted partner of the alliance”. In early September 2024, Mitsotakis receives the Global Citizen Award from the Atlantic Council think tank (American think tank in the field of international affairs, favoring Atlanticism and founded in 1961 based in Washington). The Atlantic Council, it should be noted, has as its founding objective and mission to encourage the continuation of cooperation between North America and Europe, which began after World War II. The prize was awarded to Mr. Mr Mitsotakis by the chief executive of Pfizer Albert Bourla, who described the Greek prime minister as “a visionary champion of a new era of economic prosperity, a leader committed to his country, who has won the trust of the Greek people. A humble leader, whose re-election has shown that he keeps his political promises, while having the respect of the world’s leaders.”
Since then it seems as if a century has passed!
The change of administration in the US, the developments in Ukraine, the fragmentation of interests within the so-called collective West, and even the questioning of the usefulness of NATO by the American “friends”, seem to place the current managers of state affairs in the Greek space, rather, on the wrong side of international relations. Moreover, the “right side of history” in these terms has been judged in every historical period, and even more so in the current broader period, in which the post-war order of things is changing dramatically.
***
As we have already described, the crushing failure of the orchestrated campaign against the 28th of February demonstration proved to be more than monumental. All the methods used to slander the demonstration and its participants were not enough to prevent or even mitigate the earthquake, which was recorded by the largest Metapolitefsi gatherings in Greece, a total of 262, as well as 124 demonstrations in European cities, Turkey, the USA, Australia and even Mexico, Japan and South Korea.
In Athens, an unprecedented influx of protesters began at 9:15 a.m., with the area around Syntagma Square already flooded by 11 a.m. Hundreds of thousands of protesters continued to approach the city centre from many areas of Attica, flooding Patision, Vasilissis Sophias from the height of Ilision, Syngrou from the height of the Acropolis metro and then, the main avenues and streets, Vas. Amalisas, Vas. Sophias, Panepistimiou, Akadimias and Stadiou. For many hours almost all the central districts of Exarcheia, Kolonaki, Victoria, Clathmonos Square, Omonoia and of course Syntagma remained suffocatingly crowded.
Around 1:00 p.m. and while the speeches were over, hundreds of protesters launched a fierce attack on the Parliament and against the repressive forces in the courtyard area, with Molotov cocktails, stones, marbles, smoke grenades, as well as metallic and other objects. Protesters were also setting fire to a compartment of the Evzones regiment. Violent attacks against the forces of repression continued for hours, in scattered locations around Syntagma Square, along the entire length of Vas. Amalias Avenue, which resembled a quarry, on the Sygrou Avenue, through the columns of Olympian Zeus, in Kallirois, in Panepistimiou, in Stadiou, around Omonoia, up to Patisia.
In total, both in the prevention phase and during the attacks, the repressive forces detained 220 people, of which 73 turned into arrests with dozens of protesters being referred for criminal acts, while dozens of injuries were recorded among protesters and police officers.
Rallying of Anarchists
Posted in ΔΙΑΔΡΟΜΗ ΕΛΕΥΘΕΡΙΑΣ [ROUTE OF FREEDOM], issue 257, March 2025
December 2008: Footage from the clashes of the first night of an uprising that would follow, just hours after the murder of 15-year-old Alexandros Grigoropoulos by police in Exarcheia. [DN: Athens, Greece]
The first part is from the first night outside the Polytechnic on Saturday, December 6th, the second part is from the shop break-ins on Ermou Street, also the first night, and the third footage is from the first confrontational march the next morning towards GADA, on Sunday, December 7th.
On Sunday night [November 24, in Milan], Ramy Elgaml died after falling from the scooter he was riding on with a friend, pursued by the carabinieri for several kilometers.
Ramy was a 19-year-old boy who lived in Corvetto.
Since his death was announced, numerous boys and girls, his friends, have gathered on the street at the crash site, alongside his family.
Soon the pain of his death turned into anger and a thirst for truth regarding what had happened.
The night between Sunday and Monday there were moments of clashes with the police in the streets of the working-class neighborhood where he lived, where someone had started to set fire to trash bins and rubbish.
Even on Monday evening, for a few hours, normalcy came to a halt, and in its place appeared burning barricades and groups of people clashing with the police, who responded by launching numerous tear gas canisters in an attempt to disperse the crowd, which, however, did not let itself be intimidated.
Ramy’s death is probably the straw that broke the camel’s back. Those who come from the working-class neighborhoods deal with the police every day, for one reason or another. He knows the arrogance and violence of the cops and knows well what a police stop means.
And that’s how the anger grows.
At the end of Monday evening, a 21-year-old boy was arrested and taken to San Vittore while in Corvetto the anger and the melted plastic from the bins on the asphalt remain.
Ramy will live in the hearts of his family and friends, in the anger that will set the streets on fire.
Cops out of the neighborhoods.
Freedom for all.
Clashes took place in Santiago as part of the commemoration of Workers’ Day from 10 a. m. until the afternoon. Clashes were reported in the midst of the demonstration called by the Central Clasista de Trabajadores, on both lanes of the Alameda, particularly in the section between Brasil and Matucana streets.
Carabinieri arrived at the scene, using water and gas cannons. Hooded anarchist demonstrators confronted the police with blunt instruments, Molotov cocktails and destroyed commercial premises and erected barricades in various areas
Anarchists threw incendiary devices inside the Central Station. The Carabinieri reported at least 16 arrests, including 5 for carrying incendiary bombs.
Recordings from the university marches in Athens & Thessaloniki with the participation of thousands of students against the bill for private universities, on Thursday 18 January 2024.
