At dawn on 17/02 we placed an incendiary device at the entrance of an apartment building in Lykofronos Street in Pangrati, where 5 cops live, among them some in high-ranking positions, as well as the communication technocrat for New Democracy, Eftychis Vardoulakis. The result was the destruction of part of the entrance.
The election of New Democracy in 2019 brought at the same time the imposition of a new political agenda. A new one in comparison to the period of the SYRIZA-ANEL government. Of course, this agenda is none other than the doctrine of “order and security”. Thus, investing in non-stop propaganda against the SYRIZA-ANEL government, ND has communicatively identified SYRIZA with that part of society that over time has chosen to attack the capitalist system. SYRIZA’s alleged tolerance of “lawlessness”, in combination with the Prespes agreement (“SYRIZA’s treasonous attitude” etc.) was the communication weapon of ND in order to rally this far-right audience that has fled in the past years to X.A.
Of course, the communication management of the oppositional New Democracy was a coordinated and well thought out plan by a group of communicators and various experts in the field of the dumbing down of society. One of them was Eftychis Vardoulakis, a prominent blue member and speech writer for Kyriakos Mitsotakis during the 2019 election period. One of the founders of the Stratego company that, among others, has shaped the communication policy of ministries, EFKA, PPC, etc. The role of this man and his company is the constant misinformation, the crude falsehoods and the manipulation of part of society. If governments are the ‘body’ of the repressive apparatus, communicators are the ‘brain’. Moreover, it is clear that at every moment of indignation of society as a whole, they once again mobilise their propaganda tools to legitimise once again the blatant oppression and exploitation produced by the system. A characteristic statement by Vardoulakis, regarding the doctrine of “order and security”, which the government constantly invests in, is that it is not a turn towards conservatism but a necessary condition for the existence of freedom. The identification of freedom with security is a well-known and entrenched doctrine of neoliberal politics, so entrenched that a large part of society is willing to lose the former for the latter.
So the result of this policy is the treaty today. It is a fact that in our time, terror and constant shock are a basic tool of socio-political shaping from above. This is betrayed by the ever-increasing number of repressive forces in combination with the doctrine of zero tolerance. Bans on marches, armed cops all over the city, evictions of squats/centres of struggle, surveillance of comrades and militants, new security forces, cameras on cops, cops in universities, drones and all of this followed by a tightening of the penal code, upgrading DNA as evidence (DNA-driven frame-ups), biometric surveillance, constant checking of certificates even for the simplest everyday things, changing urban architecture with Grand Walks and gentrification in areas inaccessible to capital, and the list goes on and on.
The city becomes a vast desert specially designed to serve only the movement of goods. The poor, the lower classes and people on the margins of capitalism are displaced to be replaced by businesses and consumers ready to spend on the ever-increasing commodity. Houses are being emptied due to the defiantly high rents, resulting in a constant change in the human geography of the urban fabric. The outsiders have to go, the surplus human resources since they do not consume, have nothing to offer and must be wiped out.
Placers could be no other than the cops. They are the ones who place themselves on the front line of the social war so as to ensure the integrity of the political and economic elite. They are the ones who safeguard the security of capital, the big bourgeoisie, the shipowners, the bankers, the industrialists and of course, the real mafiosos who manage unimaginable amounts of black money. The cops are also called upon to ensure social normality by protecting ministries, government buildings and the human resources of those who decide and order the violent impoverishment and extermination of the social base. They are therefore complicit and accountable for the ongoing crimes against our class and against the struggling society.
But beyond that, they are accountable for the crimes they themselves commit. We cannot and should not forget the torture and abuse that takes place in the police stations all over Greece. We cannot forget the countless incidents of arbitrary action by the forces of repression. We cannot forget the times when riot police forces attacked the bodies of demonstrators with murderous fury. We do not forget their unpunished crimes, the unfortunate Jason who was killed by the cops escorting Dora Bakoyannis, Nikos Sampanis who was murdered by the cops in Perama with 35 bullets. The so many poor devils who are murdered by “accidental” (or not) shootings like the Roma in Menidi who was shot for an air conditioner. The racist rage and anti-social attitudes of the security forces have been imprinted for decades on the bodies of people resisting state brutality. But we cannot fail to make a special mention of the sexist and deeply patriarchal role of the National Police. We will not forget the rapes inside the police stations, the rapist cops (and every rapist) systematically covered up by their colleagues. As in the case of Georgia Bika in Thessaloniki who did not receive the slightest help in the police station and had to stay 3 days without washing so that the forensic examiner could examine her. Similarly, we stand by all those invisible migrant women in the Petrou Ralli hellholes who are tortured and sexually harassed by the cops, but their voices are not enough to be heard and become #MeToo.
The culmination of the logic of covering up and silencing gender violence on the part of the police was the disgusting statement of the television personality Stavros Balaskas after the solving of the murder of Karolina in Sweet Waters. At that time, the trash who goes by the name Balaskas had given advice on legal ways out to every would-be woman killer, stressing that if the killer called the police and said that he had “lost it and gone crazy”, that it was an “unfortunate event” he would get away with four years in prison, even calling Karolina’s killer a “fool” for not doing the same. This statement is further proof that the role of the police, like that of bourgeois justice, is nothing more than to perpetuate inequalities of oppression and segregation.
This is why, although there may be no money for public health and education (sic), the state is constantly investing in repressive forces. It is more than obvious that in times of economic and social crises, the state apparatus tends to fortify itself against a potential threat. This fortification takes place in two main strands: one is that of repression and the other is that of propaganda. The direct expression of repression concerns the internal enemy, whether it is defined as a specific political subject or, more generally, as a vague set of potential enemies (immigrants, homeless, unemployed, etc.) who are targeted by the state mechanisms through social automatism. Of course, alongside the internal enemy, the state also ‘invests’ in the external enemy. This implies corresponding alliances and support for the war industry. Thus the Greek state, part of the NATO-EU war machine, is actively participating in the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war, sending war material to the Ukrainian state. Thus reinforcing the chaos brought about by the belligerent treaty and intensifying, together with all the Western states, the inter-state rivalries. Something that is costing human lives on the battlefields and beyond. The consequence of war is also the deepening of economic crises which in turn bring further impoverishment of societies. All this while the Mitsotakis government is spending over 10 billion euros on Rafal and Belhara.
The cover for these policies comes from non-stop propaganda. A propaganda of lies that disorientates the whole of society by creating docile subjects. From state management of covid to fires, floods, snowfalls and wars, propaganda invests in the protector state that imposes “solutions” by perpetuating a state of emergency, so as to keep society under guided fear.
We live in a time of change and transition to a world of total digitalisation of relationships and the prevalence of social media in all daily life. The volume of information and its constant flow is a tool of enforcement in the hands of the masters. Everything is done quickly, commented on quickly and superficially and forgotten quickly.
In conclusion, we will agree with our comrades from the Direct Action Cells that we have to become a shield to protect the anarchist and communist prisoners in prisons, making it clear that every single cog in this repressive mechanism is a target for us. From the last cop to the prison directors and every legal adviser of law-making committees to the ministries and their executives.
SOLIDARITY AND FREEDOM TO ALL POLITICAL PRISONERS
PS: Honor and memory for the anarchist revolutionary guerrilla Lambros Fountas
Anarchists Against Banditry