Tag-Archiv für 'general-strike'

Greece: Anarchist Demonstration, Attack on Presidents House, and General Strike

7. Februar 2012

0 Kommentare

Today, an emergency general strike is being held in Greece, as Occupied London writes:

„As the troika ‘negotiates’ (read: reads out already agreed measures with the government ‘representatives’), people are taking to the streets for an emergency General Strike against new measures that will allegedly include a 20% decrease in the national minimum wage and a subsequent cut in the unemployment benefit, among many others.“

You can follow the days events directly on Occupied London.

A few days ago, most of the different anarchist currents joined in a massive, 5,000 person strong explicitly anarchist/libertarian demonstration through the streets of Athens…

You can read more about the demonstration here.

On the evening of the same day, the following happened…

„On Saturday, February 4th, at 20.00 in the evening, 60 solidaritarians attacked the personal guard, the guard booth and official vehicles outside the residence of the president of democracy Karolos Papoulias. Papoulias’ personal guard fled, and flyers were thrown at the spot in solidarity with the anarchists Stella Antoniou, Kostas Sakkas, Giorgos Karagiannidis and Alexandros Mitroussias.

The solidaritarians withdrew in coordinated pace from the place, which is located at short distance from the police headquarters. A few minutes later, a DELTA police motorcycle unit appeared, that used flash-bang grenades in an effort to reach the solidaritarians, but with no success.

Yesterday’s action was held in solidarity with Stella Antoniou and the other comrades accused for the same case, as a first response to the denial of her application for release on bail.

These actions will continue until Stella Antoniou is released from prison.

IMMEDIATE RELEASE OF ANARCHIST STELLA ANTONIOU
FREEDOM TO ANARCHISTS SAKKAS, KARAGIANNIDIS, MITROUSSIAS“

Greece: „What Does the State Need the Cops For, When it Has the Stalinist Youth?!“

25. Oktober 2011

in Social War

7 Kommentare

My dislike for the KKE (Communist Party of Greece) and its youth wing KNE/“KNAT“, I already made clear when the SDAJ Göttingen invited them last year to talk about „Crisis and Struggle in Greece,“ which is akin to having a snail give a speech about life in the fast lane.

Facing away from the Cops, towards other demonstrators

Despite all the previous negative experiences with them (quite a few of them first hand, living in Greece and during the uprising of December 2008), I have to admit to still holding a bit of naive hope that, in this time of generalized discontent and resistance, they would finally throw their considerable weight on the side of revolution (or at the very least on the side of „the people“), and maybe not act as the States Fifth Column inside the resistance movement.

The KNAT protects the parliament, the Cops watch their backs…

How wrong this hope was could not have been demonstrated any more clearly than on the second day of last weeks General Strike. Faced with demonstrations of an unprecedented size, a huge wave of anger that threatened to roll out of control, and masses of people ready to attack the police protecting Parliament and the politicians inside… the KKE, and more particularly the KNAT, mounted a human barrier around parliament and armed with helmets and batons attacked anybody who tried to attack the Parliament. They did this in co-ordination with the cops, even mounting joint attacks against anarchists and anti-authoritarians together with the cops.
(It should also be noted that, for somewhat over 10 years, the KKE/KNAT/PAME have almost always organized their own demonstrations, away from all other sectors of the left-wing or anarchist movement. We can only imagine why they chose to break with that line at this particular moment in history).

Bad enough, and the sight of people waving red flags behaving in such a manner is already disgraceful and painful enough, but they even went a step further. One of their own died that day, and his death has been undeniably shown through the official medical report to be the result of the polices massive use of chemical weapons against demonstrators. But since the truth needs to be subservient to their interests…they released a press release claiming this death resulted at the hands of anarchists, who they referred to as „anarcho-fascists.“

For further reading, here is a text from the Peoples Assembly of Syntagma on the subject.

Again, this is not about anti-communism or „red baiting,“ or sectarianism, or what have you. But the facts, pictures, videos, and acts speak for themselves. Whatever side these people are on, is definitely not ours.

The KNAT and the Cops, old friends…

Some Thoughts on the „Occupy…“ Phenomenon

18. Oktober 2011

in Social War

1 Kommentar

Not necessarily our own, but here are some thoughts from some people who have had the time and peace of mind to articulate some of what one might want to say.

Very briefly summarized though: It needs to step away from the very damaging anti-political stance (explained very well in the WSM article) and develop at least a minimal coherence. They also should do well to examine the socioeconomic makeup of their participants and think about if a group of overwhelmingly white middle/upper class white people should be calling themselves „99%“ of society. And of course, as long as it remains basically a prolonged campout, it will never be nearly as interesting as what is happening in Greece, where the state faces resistance from a broad spectrum of social groups and organizing forms, from the „indignants/occupy“ to labor action, to marginalized sectors of society. Not to mention of course the very important and in the occupy „movement“ completely absent industrial and workplace action in the form of strikes. In that regard, you can see that again very interesting things have been happening the last few days in Greece by way of strikes and occupations. Tomorrow begins the next general strike…it should be a very interesting week.

This should of course not at all mean that the „Occupy“ phenomenon is to be written off. Anytime people organize and take to the streets to express their discontent with the status quo is at the very least positive in that it represents an opportunity to engage with people and hopefully move the „movement“ in a more radical direction.

Some interesting suggested reading…

-Politics averted: thoughts on the ‚Occupy X‘ movement: Written by the anarcho-communist Workers Solidarity Movement (Ireland). Highly suggested!

-Dear Occupiers: A Letter from Anarchists: Short, concise, and to the point letter from the Crimethinc collective to the „Occupy“ movement.

Fire and Flames