Tag-Archiv für 'greece'

Meet Greece’s Golden Dawn

8. Mai 2012
in Social War und Antifa
1 Kommentar

As is by now well known, Golden Dawn has recently entered the Greek Parliament, obtaining almost 7% of the vote. They are commonly being referred to in the press as „far right“ or „nationalist,“ which is quite the understatement when it comes to this group, as they differ in every way, from content to strategy to demographic, from the „established“ reactionaries like Frances Front National. For those of us who have had the displeasure of „knowing“ these people for many years, it is almost unimagineable that this glorified group of boneheads, hooligans, and Nazi nostalgics will now be sending 21 representatives to Parliament. This is a group which makes the NPD look moderate by comparison.


Golden Dawns leader, with Sieg Heiling, Celtic cross carrying party militants

Any revolutionary (or pre-revolutionary) period is marked by a polarization of society, so it is not surprising that with the growth of antagonistic movements, be they anarchist or some which fall within the parliamentary spectrum, also comes a growth of the far right. But without falling into the mainstream media trap of constantly hyping the growth of the far right, while underplaying the equal or greater parallel growth of left-wing organizations, it is definitely something worth analyzing that what is basically a party of young Neo-Nazis, who Sieg Heil and are racial in their orientation as opposed to national, has been voted for by 7% of the population of a Western European country.


The decor at a Golden Dawn party office.

So on that note, because if a picture is worth a thousand words, then a few videos by way of presentation must be priceless. Meet Golden Dawn…

A short, and recent, piece from the New York Times, including short interviews and demonstration footage…

2011, Golden Dawn led anti-immigrant pogrom in downtown Athens. Notice the use of knives and screwdrivers, and the intimidation of a mother with a small child in arms.

Demonstration footage set to the organizations anthem. Notice the German Nazi flags, the celtic crosses, the paramilitary appearance, and even the masked demonstrators.

The quasi-Swastika, White Power lyrics, and Bonehead music…

On a brighter note, a few weeks ago, antifascists exposed a journalist who lent his show as a platform for the Nazis, by pelting him with yoghurt on live television…

March 10th 2010 – March 10th 2012: Lambros Foundas Unforgotten

10. März 2012
in Social War
0 Kommentare

Two years after his fall in battle, Lambros Foundas remains unforgotten! Tomorrow, a demonstration will be held, as a sign of rememberance but also of continuation of the struggle. Our thoughts are with him, with the approximately 40 anarchist prisoners in Greek prisons, and with all those on the frontlines of the war against capital and state.

„In the War Which is Raging, You Are Next to Us“

„… in the hard times you never abandon the city, in the good times you didn’t gain any interests, in the desperate times you didn’t fear anything…

…you gave your battles choosing every mean, you fought with rage and devotion, with self-knowledge and conscience, without fear of death and with faith in life, sometimes like a wolf and other times like a tree you searched the human inside you but also around you and you never aligned yourself but you followed you unique entropy…

… pre-defined for you to be in the orbit of the stars, why, star, do you care about the dark? roll happily beyond this time, may its unhappiness be for you foreign and far away! your shinning belongs to the furthest world, mercy should be for you a sin! only one order counts for you: that you are true…

for the comrade and revolutionary but above all the wonderful Human Lambros Foundas

ANARCHISTS“

The poster calling for todays demonstration…



„2 YEARS SINCE THE MURDER OF ANARCHIST COMRADE LAMBROS FOUNDAS, MEMBER OF THE ORGANIZATION REVOLUTIONARY STRUGGLE, WHO FELL IN BATTLE WITH COPS DURING A PREPARATORY ACTION OF THE ORGANIZATION. OUR DEBT TO THE MEMORY TO OF OUR COMRADE IS TO CONTINUE THE SUBVERSIVE STRUGGLE FOR FREEDOM,
EQUALITY, ANARCHY.

AGAINST THE JUNTA OF THE TROIKA AND THE MODERN TOTALITARIANISM, AGAINST STATE AND CAPITAL, FOR THE SUBVERSION OF THE REGIME AND THE SOCIAL REVOLUTION.

SOLIDARITY TO THE MEMBERS OF THE REVOLUTIONARY STRUGGLE AND TO THOSE WHO ARE BEING PROSECUTED FOR THE SAME CASE.

ANARCHISTS“

You can read more about Lambros Foundas by clicking here.

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

7. Februar 2012
in Social War
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.

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