We are at a juncture where, in the space of just a few months, we have counted two mass state capitalist murders, in Tempe and Pylos, which demonstrate in the most deafening way the very essence of capitalism. We are under no illusions and we know very well that in the face of the deadlock and bankruptcy of the state-capitalist system, the only answer that the state and capital have to propose is, on the one hand, to create new hotbeds of imperialist conflict and intervention in the capitalist regions, thus creating new hundreds of dead, both on the battlefields and in the debris left behind by war and the overexploitation of resources, and on the heavily guarded border lines, which have resulted in the Mediterranean becoming a vast graveyard of refugees.
On the other hand, in the capitalist centres of the West, capital and the state are looking for new areas of profitability through further class devaluation, impoverishment and death politics, which in turn create modern metropolitan guarded sweatshops in which we are forced to survive in conditions of misery with meagre wages as a result of the overvaluation of our labour power, with one worker murder after another, with the coverage of our basic material needs becoming more and more difficult, and the deterioration of the structures that cover basic social needs of transportation, health, education, etc. and with a state that is further entrenching itself by militarising its metropolises and increasing military budgets.
So at the same time as the state is generously spreading death, oppression, exploitation and destruction, it is inviting us to participate in the carnival of elections to choose which party will “save” us and which party will provide the best opposition. It invites us to entrust the management of our lives to saviours great and small, and once we have chosen we can proudly return to normality, where people are murdered at the borders, in police stations, on the streets, in the workers’ sweatshops. We can return to the normalcy of “passports” and starvation wages, of snitch journalists and exhausted and unpaid overtime, of evictions and home foreclosures. The normalcy we legitimize by voting consent and submission. In the face of their normalcy there is disobedience, resistance and rebellion. Against the vote of delegation there is collectivity, self-organization, faith in our strengths and in the potential of all the oppressed and exploited. The belief that this world will be changed by us, through collective struggles we will stand on our feet and attack the state, capital and their praetorian guard.
And it is precisely all the above ideals that we believe find fertile ground and are grounded in the neighbourhood of Exarcheia, which has historically been the bastion and the cutting edge of class and social resistances and movements. And it is precisely for this reason that the state and capital, at a time when they are trying to impose a doctrine of zero tolerance and bend the whole of the resistances and struggles, have launched an all-out attack on the neighbourhood of Exarcheia.
More specifically, the state has turned the neighbourhood into a war zone, with an all-armed occupying army swooping in in an attempt to show force, intimidation and repression. At the same time, capital sees in Exarcheia an investment opportunity that will open up new fields of profitability. Therefore, a swarm of real estate, construction, tourism companies of all kinds, bosses of alternative entertainment outlets, up to minefields under the pretext of gentrification, redevelopment and all kinds of alternative consumerism have invaded the area.
All of the above processes are aimed at political sterilization, class restructuring and the uprooting of the neighborhood’s militancy and its very history, turning it into an entrenched, depoliticized island of alternative tourism and entertainment.
For all these reasons, we believe that the struggle against the attack of the state and capitalists on the Exarcheia neighborhood is a struggle that concerns us all. Exarcheia is a neighbourhood with a rich history of struggles, which we must defend and continue.
So on Thursday 15/6, we carried out a Molotov cocktail attack, ambushing a change of guard at Strefi. This particular procession consisted of a van accompanied by a Delta unit, which not only did not perform its role, but in our view had no problem leaving its colleagues to fend for themselves in their lamp-lit vehicle, firing flash-bang grenades from a really long distance. It is important to mention the warm support we received from the people who happened to be in the tarmac during the attack.
The event was completely “buried” by both the police and their loyal allies, journalists. Obviously this silencing is not surprising, as the propaganda mechanisms of the state and the repression could never publicly admit such a deafening defeat in the most militarized neighborhood of Athens, in the heart of their operational center, which is now the hill of Strefi. What they don’t understand is that our stratagem is not negotiable, nor does it take a holiday. We meet, we cooperate, we organize and we spread, with camaraderie, consistency and sincerity in mind and with the aim of a revolutionary perspective, the abolition of the exploitation of man by man and the plundering of nature.
We believe that when the level of violence and impoverishment is constantly being raised by our enemies, we in turn must organise our own targeted responses to violence in a coherent, persistent and committed manner. Which, in the first instance, put up a barrier to the attack of the state and capital, putting in practical question the monopoly of violence they want to impose. While they are also an organic and integral part of the broader diverse mosaic of our own unconstrained social and class struggles, which can ultimately be the only response to the capitalist storm.
Freedom to all political prisoners of the social and class war!
Anarchists
Source: athens.indymedia
Translated by Dark Nights
Note: photo not associated with action.