The Athens' Heat

The summer in Athens is in full-swing! The temperature rises, the days are longer, sweat paints your t-shirt to your body, and most Greek natives escape to one of the countries 227 islands. With the heat in the city reaching new heights, theres no harm in adding a few more degrees to the thermometer. With that being said, a tax office was bombed in the central district of Ambelokipi. The bomb that exploded at 1:30 am on Friday was placed under the office's disability ramp and the blast found its merry way to a McDonalds nearby. Before the 4.4 lbs dynamite bomb was denotated, police say an anonymous call was phoned into newspapers to warn about the coming attack.



To add more flames to the fire, a gas canister bomb was left in the car of newly appointed chairman of the Council of States, Judge Panagiotis Pikrammenos as a congratulations gift. The attack occurred yesterday afternoon in the parking lot of Greece's highest administrative court in the heavily trafficked city center. As Prodigy of Mobb Deep once said, "in broad day light get right." What a splendid welcoming for a new judge!

The journalist strike in solidarity with the closure of Eftheros Typos, which has been publishing since 1983, disrupted the production of newspapers, television, and radio transmissions but is now over. Journalist occupied newspaper offices and took shifts guarding the building from police eviction. Also, the electrical facilities of the fascist newspaper Stohos was sabotaged by anti-fa. This week Stohos was unable to print its anti-immigrant and anti-semetic garbage. In other labor news, Emporiki Bank workers are ready to strike after the bank announced that it is cutting the jobs of 1,500 workers. Emporiki bank, one of the 500 largest in the world, has 370 branches across Greece.

Four people were detained yesterday for the January kidnapping of magnate Pericles Panagopoulos, who was then released after his family paid a multi-million-euro ransom. Panagopoulos, one of Greece’s richest men and a key player in the country’s ferry business, was snatched in broad daylight on Jan. 12 by three men wielding assault rifles as he was being driven to work near Athens. Last week, the 73-year-old wife of shipowner Aris Theodorides was abducted after her car was ambushed by armed men in Paleo Faliro. The chauffeur was immediately released but Theodoride's wife was only released only after her family paid a ransom of 1.8 million.

As the Greek state continues to mass arrest immigrants in the city center, the police are complaining that their facilities are overcrowded with those captured. It is now an all too common site to see police stopping, beating, and arresting anyone with dark skin in the squares of the city center. It is estimated that over 1,551 immigrants were arrested in the last month. Huge demonstrations are scheduled for next week to protest the recent xenophobic State policies and fascist and police collaboration to terrorize immigrants. Let the street fights begin!

Instead of a Conclusion

The text below, "Instead of a Conclusion, appears as the last chapter in the first proper book (to my knowledge) about December's insurrection published in Greece. Although the translation from Greek to English, done by a wonderful comrade, has already set these words in a new motion, I can't help but feel a paternalistic urge to guide their further movement. Of course, words are like children, they'll go where they go despite anyone's futile wish, but this fact does nothing to quiet the reservations that come with posting "Instead of a Conclusion" to be read by the milieu in the States. More specifically, I worry as to whether its even worth presenting a text that celebrates barricades to readers that condemn their constructions in Chicago streets. In my eyes, what could only be worse is for "Instead of a Conclusion" to be looked at as an exotic applause to blockades, riots, and street fights only in places and lives far from our own. Gladly and on the other hand, there were those who neglected the banal criticism from the "anarcho-liberals" and erected barricades to for once impede the State's grip on their entire existence. Let be. For better or for worse, a split is inevitable. A split so that the tired discussion about whether or not to build barricades can be silenced like a drunk giving an inappropriate eulogy at a solemn funeral. A scission so that we get on with the important questions, refuse to consider the morality of barricades, and only correctly concern ourselves with how to make them taller, stronger, more terrible, so that metropolitan avenues can become as uncontrollable as an element of nature. So, while suppressing any false sense of guardianship, I send "Instead of a Conclusion" to only those who build barricades for the sake of barricades. Enjoy!

(the wonderful comrade reading the text in Greek)

Anarchist A. Kiriakopoulos To Be Released From Prison

Today, the good news came in that A. Kiriakopoulos along with three other insurgents held in state captivity since the December insurrection are scheduled to be released from Koridallos prison before the coming Monday. After a solidarity campaign that inspired dozens of attacks, the state relinquished the remand that held the prisoners for over six months without trial. The wave of actions over the past weeks shows that solidarity, concieved as the furtherance of the class clash with the state, can indeed free our imprisoned comrades without compromising our revolutionary principles.

In other news (I write this with the dryest of eyes: not a hint of saltwater to be found), an anti-terrorism police officer was shot around 20 times and killed last Wednesday in Athens. The police officer was attempting to protect a snitch who testified for the prosecution in the 2004 trial of a man the state claims was a member of the armed group ELA.

In what can be seen as nothing other than a thuggish act by a police gang with recently damaged egos, about 40 members of the newly formed police Delta Team attacked an occupied parking lot turned neighborhood park in the center of Athens. The swine arrested about 15 locals without warning or reason.

And so the struggle the continues...

Solidarity is the weapon of the people! (a greek anarchist protest slogan)

Katerina Gogou (1940-1993)

There is little information in English on poet Katerian Gogou. She is also known for her work as an actress, usually playing the roles of a servant in the houses of the rich, but from what I understand, her words were the words of the movement.

Katerina Gogou: "May 25th"

One morning I will open the door

and I will go out in the streets

as I did yesterday.

And I won't be thinking about anything other than

just one piece of the father

and one piece of the sea

-those two pieces they didn't deprive me of-

and the city. The city which they transformed into a rotting corpse.

And our friends that are no more.

One morning I will open the door

straight into the fire

and I will enter as I did yesterday

shouting "fascists!!"

constructing barricades and throwing rocks

with a red banner

held high, shining in the sunbeams.

I will open the door

and it's time to tell you

-not that I am afraid-

but, see, I want to tell you that I didn't make it in time

and that you have to learn

not to be going out in the streets without weapons as I did

-because I didn't make it in time-

because then you will disappear as I disappeared

"like that" "in the void"

cracked into little pieces made

of sea, childhood years

and red banners.

One morning I will open the door

and I will be gone carrying the dream of the revolution

within the infinite loneliness of the paper-made barricades

bearing the label -do not believe them!-

"Provocator".

Translated by G.Chalkiadakis

I want us to talk together in a coffee house
one where the doors are open
where there's no seaonly unemployed men
silence and dust lit by sunlight
- the sunlight in the brandy -
and the dust and cigarettes in our lungs
and let's not take precautions today, my friend,over our health
and don't give advice
about how I'm tossing it back
and how I'm wasting myself
and let the make-up, snot and tears
on my face
run.
Just look calmly
at my nails, my hair and the years
which are dirtyand me
I don't give a damn about all that
They only care about the Party, for Christsake!
why the Party hasn't been fixed all these years
and you a friend. A real friend
just like Kazantzidis sings it
and the brandy's shit
and the contractor hasn't shown
there's a room above the coffee house
for those on the run
I'll let it all spill out at some point
I do that when I'm drunk - just to throw you -
to see you without your underpants, to see what you'll do
but you, you're not like the others
you'll get up and dance a request
...your hands took a birch rod and thrashed me . . .
and in your cupped hands you'll hold my brain
with love and care
it's ready to explode into a thousand pieces. It hurts.
And when
they come to tell you
that this is not
the time
or place
for such things
draw your stiletto and slash.
The Koemtzis brothers were right.

Translated From Greek by G.Chalkiadakis.

Anarchists Disrupt Popular Jazz Festival

Yesterday, comrades took the stage at an outdoor jazz festival in Athens (you are right to assume they weren't invited.) Two banners were hung across the stage and, in between sets, two texts were read. One was about A. Kiriakopoulos and the other prisoners still held in jail after December's insurrection and the other was about state terrorism against immigrants. Jazz likely hasn't been this interesting since the musicians kicked heroin.

FIRE TO CLEANSE THE EARTH

FIRE TO CLEANSE THE EARTH

A movement that is not capable of looking after its comrades in prison is destined to die, and that at a high price under atrocious torture.’

- Daniela Carmignani, Revolutionary Solidarity

The insurrection in December was a visible and mass expression of the social war that rages at all times and will continue until the destruction of all domination.

Thousands fought in the re-appropriated streets of the necropolis. Hundreds were arrested and, with exceptionally swift procedures, several were thrown in prison. Six of them still remain imprisoned up to this day. Because for those in power someone has to pay the price for the negation in practice shown by all of us against this decaying world.

Within the first two weeks of June the remaining prisoners of December, amongst them the anarchist A.Kiriakopoulos, will be coming in front of a board of judges who will determine whether their imprisonment will be extended. Days of action will take place between the 12-15 of June in solidarity across Greece.

Prison is a direct and violent tool that power has at its disposal to use against those that are not able or refuse to follow its rules. Especially in moments of intensified struggle or revolt, prison plays the role of isolating the “troublemakers” to weaken our collective attack and instill fear in those who may be willing to join the fight. In this way, prison and the justice system are structures that aim to inhibit the generalization of social conflict. Therefore, solidarity with all those imprisoned for the insurrection in December is necessary for the furtherance of the revolutionary project.

Solidarity should not be viewed through the lens of duty, obligation or charity nor does it require a personal relationship or absolute political identification with those imprisoned but is a means to strengthen our ties as collaborators in a conspiracy against the existent. Solidarity is our weapon by which we attack not only the prison but all the structures of power in a continuation of the social struggle as a whole. At the same time, solidarity is a tool used to obtain the immediate practical result of freeing our comrades in prison.

This is a call to comrades wherever they may be to start a wave of solidarity that sends shudders down the spine of the bastards in power. Let’s prove to them that the Athens syndrome is indeed a contagious disease.

Inside and outside the prison bars, the insurrectionary perspective is a permanent condition which does not wait for a specific moment, does not accept charity but attacks directly, everywhere, always.

Until the destruction of all prisons

FREEDOM TO THE COMRADE A.KIRIAKOPOULOS AND TO ALL THE PRISONERS OF DECEMBER

SOLIDARITY WITH THOSE PROSECUTED

- For the generalization of the insurrectional clash

NOTHING IS OVER: EVERYTHING CONTINUES

Insurrection is permanent, everywhere, and inevitable. Insurrection does not wait for the masses, the vanguard or the moment.

Though December will come again every year, nothing will ever be the same. It is war; paths of ashes leave the past behind, towards the total dismantlement of this old dead world, against which the attack accelerated in the past months, that will never be over; there is no going back from it. This war knows no innocence, while living in this reality makes us all a hunter for life: the ones that cry; the ones that sleep, the ones that sigh; the ones that spit in its mouth, the ones that build; the ones that break out. Once ignited the revolt continues in a dynamic of tension, recuperation and attack, by many, by few, by dark, by light; for as long as our time, our bodies and our freedom remain stolen from us. There is no counting on where the revolt begun or where it will go to, the open unknown is in the hands of the ones with the eternal youth, the stones, the passion and the gasoline. It will all continue.

Smelling the fire, the state took hundreds of people off the streets in a fearful attempt to maintain its fragile power, to weaken the attack. But rebellion cannot be outnumbered, cannot be softened. As long as the prison society holds a grip on lives inside and outside, there is no desire to wait for a “second December”, because if waiting in the streets takes long; waiting in the prison takes eternally, while the state, the capital and their dominion find their space to root in the normality of apathy ever more. With an increasing amount of security and surveillance measures, they try to alienate reality more and more from its rebels in high speed and it speaks proudly of clean streets and sweet dreams, of law and order.

But nothing is over, Everything continues.

As long as the world of authority and exploitation builds roads of dialogue and content, there will be holes smashed in them. As long as they hand out candy of dependence and devotion, it will be poisoned. As long as they build their high walls of separation and punishment, they will be burnt down. As long as we are all prisoners; nothing is over, and will the insurrection continue.

6 People were taken out of the negation in practice during December, and now, 5 months later, the state is trying to use their freedom as an example for its revenge on all those revolted. Not one fitting key coming from the politicians, the judges, or the guards will be able to unlock the door of their confinement.

Only a sledgehammer will be able to liberate by tearing down the entire façade of the prison. Therefore we will not make any demands to those in power, nor will we put any pressure on them to do “the right thing”. We are simply digging holes in its fortress, undermining its vests, until we’ve reached our beloved rebels.

- anarchists