[olympiaworkers] Greece: In critical and suffocating times - TPTG

Libcom.org May 10 2010

The Ta Paida Tis Galarias (The Children of The Gallery) group report on
the recent demonstrations in Athens against austerity measures, including
the events leading to the tragic deaths of three bank workers and its
implications for the movement of opposition.

What follows is a report on the demo of the 5th of May and the one that
followed the day after and some general thoughts on the critical situation
the movement in Greece is in at the time being.

Although in a period of acute fiscal terrorism escalating day after day
with constant threats of an imminent state bankruptcy and "sacrifices to
be made", the proletariat's response on the eve of the voting of the new
austerity measures in Greek parliament was impressive. It was probably the
biggest workers' demonstration since the fall of the dictatorship, even
bigger than the 2001 demo which had led to the withdrawal of a planned
pension reform. We estimate that there were more than two hundred thousand
demonstrators in the centre of Athens and about fifty thousands in the
rest of the country.

There were strikes in almost all sectors of the (re)production process. A
proletarian crowd similar to the one which had taken to the streets in
December 2008 (also called derogatorily "hooded youth" by mainstream media
propaganda) was also there equipped with axes, sledges, hammers, molotov
cocktails, stones, gas masks, goggles and sticks. Although there were
instances that hooded rioters were booed when they attempted or actually
made violent attacks on buildings, in general they fitted well within this
motley, colourful, angered river of demonstrators. The slogans ranged from
those that rejected the political system as a whole, like "Let's burn the
Parliament brothel" to patriotic ones, like "IMF go away", and to populist
ones like "Thieves!" and "People demand crooks to be sent to prison".
Aggressive slogans referring to politicians in general are becoming more
and more dominant nowadays.

At the GSEE-ADEDY demo (general and public sector worker unions) people
started swarming the place in thousands and the GSEE president was hooted
when he started speaking. When the GSEE leadership repeated their detour
they had first done on the 11th of March in order to avoid the bulk of the
demo and come to the front, just few followed this time…

The demo by the PAME (the Communist Party's - CP's - "Workers' Front") was
also big (well over 20,000) and reached Syntagma Square first. Their plan
was to stay there for a while and leave just before the main, bigger demo
was about to approach. However, their members would not leave but remained
there angered chanting slogans against the politicians. According to the
leader of the CP there were fascist provocateurs (she actually accused the
LAOS party, this mish-mash of far-right thugs and junta nostalgic scum)
carrying PAME placards inciting CP members to storm the Parliament and
thus discredit the party's loyalty to the constitution!

Although this accusation bears some validity because fascists were
actually seen there, the truth is –according to witnesses– that the CP
leaders had some difficulty with their members in leading them quickly
away from the square and preventing them from shouting angry slogans
against the Parliament. It's maybe too bold to regard it as a sign of a
gradual disobedience to this monolithic party's iron rule, but in such
fluid times no one really knows…

The 70 or more fascists stationed opposite the riot police were cursing
the politicians ("Sons of a bitch, politicians"), chanting the national
anthem and even throwing some stones against the parliament and probably
had the vain intention to prevent any escalation of the violence but were
soon swallowed into huge waves of demonstrators approaching the square.

Soon, crowds of workers (electricians, postal workers, municipal workers
etc.) tried to enter the building from any access available but there was
none as hundreds of riot cops were strung out all along the forecourt and
the entrances. Another crowd of workers of both sexes and all ages stood
against the cops who were in front of the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier
cursing and threatening them.

Despite the fact that the riot police made a massive counter-attack with
tear gas and fire grenades and managed to disperse the crowd, there were
constantly new blocks of demonstrators arriving in front of the Parliament
while the first blocks which had been pushed back were reorganizing
themselves in Panepistimiou St. and Syngrou Ave. They started smashing
whatever they could and attacked the riot police squads who were strung
out in the nearby streets.

Although most of the big buildings in the centre of the town were closed
with rolling shutters, they managed to attack some banks and state
buildings. There was extensive destruction of property especially in
Syngrou Ave. because the cops were not enough to react immediately against
that part of the rioters as the police had been ordered to give priority
to the protection of the Parliament and the evacuation of Panepistimiou
St. and Stadiou St., the two main avenues through which the crowd was
constantly returning to it. Luxury cars, a Tax Office building and the
Prefecture of Athens were set on fire and even hours later the area looked
like a war-zone.

The fights lasted for almost three hours. It is impossible to record
everything that happened in the streets. Just one incident: some teachers
and other workers managed to encircle a few riot cops belonging to Group D
–a new body of riot police on motorcycles– and thrash them while the cops
were screaming "Please no, we are workers, too"!

Demonstrators pushed into Panepistimiou St. kept returning in blocs to the
Parliament and there were constant clashes with the police. The crowd was
mixed again and would not go. A middle-aged municipal worker with stones
in his hands was telling us, moved, how much the situation there reminded
him of the first years after the fall of the dictatorship when he was
present at the 1980 demo in commemoration of the Polytechnic uprising when
the police murdered a woman, the 20-year old worker Kanellopoulou.

Soon the terrible news from foreign news agencies came on mobile phones:
Three or four people dead in a burnt down bank!

There were some attempts to burn down banks in various places but in most
cases the crowd didn't go forward because there were scabs locked in them.
It was only the building of Marfin Bank in Stadiou St. that was finally
set on fire. Just a few minutes before the tragedy started, however, it
was not "hooded hooligans" who shouted "scabs" at the bank employees but
organized blocks of strikers who yelled and swore at them and called on
them to abandon the building.

Given the bulk of the demo and its density, the turmoil and the noise of
the chants, it's obvious that a certain degree of confusion –common in
such situations– makes it difficult to provide the accurate facts
concerning this tragic incident. What seems to be closer to the truth
(from fragments of information by eye-witnesses put together) is that at
this particular bank, right in the heart of Athens on a general strike
day, about 20 bank clerks were made to work by their boss, got locked "for
their protection" and finally three of them died of suffocation.

Initially a molotov cocktail was thrown through a hole made on the window
panes into the ground floor, however, when some bank clerks were seen on
the balconies again, some demonstrators called them to leave and then they
tried to put the fire out. What actually happened then and how in no time
at all the building was ablaze, remains unknown.

The macabre series of events that followed with demonstrators trying to
help those trapped inside, the fire brigade taking too long to take some
of them out, the smiling billionaire banker being chased away by the angry
crowd have been probably well reported. After some time the prime minister
would announce the news in the Parliament condemning the "political
irresponsibility" of those who resist the measures taken and "lead people
to death" while the government's "salvation measures" on the contrary
"promote life".

The reversal was successful. Soon a huge operation by the riot police
followed: the crowds were dispersed and chased away, the whole centre was
cordoned until late in night. The libertarian enclave of Exarchia was
placed under siege, an anarchist squat was invaded and many were arrested,
the Immigrants' Haunt was invaded and trashed and a persistent smoke over
the city as well as a sense of bitterness and numbness would not go away…

The consequences were visible the very next day: the media vultures
capitalised on the tragic death representing it as a "personal tragedy"
dissociated from its general context (mere human bodies cut off from their
social relations) and some went so far as to criminalize resistance and
protest. The government gained some time changing the subject of
discussion and conflict and the unions felt released from any obligation
to call for a strike the very day when the new measures were passed.

Nonetheless, in such a general climate of fear, disappointment and freeze
a few thousands gathered outside the parliament at an evening rally called
by the unions and left organisations. Anger was still there, fists were
raised, bottles of water and some fire crackers were thrown at the riot
cops and slogans both against the parliament and the cops were chanted. An
old woman was begging people to chant to "make them [the politicians]
leave", a guy pissed in a bottle and threw it to the cops, few
anti-authoritarians were to be seen and when it got dark and the unions
and most organizations left, people, quite ordinary, everyday people with
bare hands would not go.

Attacked with ferocity by the riot police, chased away, trampled down
Syntagma square steps, panicked but angered young and old people got
dispersed in nearby streets. Everything was back in order. However, not
only fear was in their eyes; hatred was visible as well. It is certain
they will be back.

Now some more general reflections:
1. Cracking down on anarchists and anti-authoritarians has already
started and it will get more acute. Criminalizing a whole
social-political milieu reaching out to the far left organizations has
always been used as a diversion by the state and it will be used even
more so now that the murderous attack creates such favourable
conditions. However, framing anarchists will not make those hundreds
of thousands who demonstrated and even those a lot more who stayed
passive but worried forget the IMF and the "salvation package" offered
to them by the government. Harassing our milieu will not pay people's
bills nor guarantee their future which remains bleak. The government
will soon have to incriminate resistance in general and has already
started doing so as the incidents on the 6th of May clearly indicated.

2. There will be some modest effort from the state to "put the blame"
on certain politicians in order to appease the "popular feeling" which
may well turn into a "thirst for blood". Some blatant cases of
"corruption" may get punished and some politicians may be sacrificed
just to pour oil into troubled waters.

3. There is a constant reference to a "constitutional deviation"
coming both from the LAOS or the CP in a recrimination spectacle,
revealing though of the ruling class increasing fears of a deepening
political crisis, a deepening of the legitimization crisis. Various
scenarios (a businessmen's party, a proper junta-like regime) get
recycled reflecting deeper fears of a proletarian uprising but in
effect are used as a re-orientation of the debt crisis issue from the
streets to the central political stage and to the banal question "who
will be the solution?" instead of "what is the 'solution'?"

4. Having said all that, it is time to get to the more crucial
matters. It is more than clear that the sickening game of turning the
dominant fear/guilt for the debt into a fear/guilt for the resistance
and the (violent) uprising against the terrorism of debt has already
started. If class struggle escalates, the conditions may look more and
more like the ones in a proper civil war. The question of violence has
already become central. In the same way we assess the state's
management of violence, we are obliged to assess proletarian violence,
too: the movement has to deal with the legitimation of rebellious
violence and its content in practical terms. As for the
anarchist-antiauthoritarian milieu itself and its dominant
insurrectional tendency the tradition of a fetishized, macho
glorification of violence has been too long and consistent to remain
indifferent now. Violence as an end in itself in all its variations
(including armed struggle proper) has been propagated constantly for
years now and especially after the December rebellion a certain degree
of nihilistic decomposition has become evident (there were some
references to it in our text The Rebellious Passage), extending over
the milieu itself. In the periphery of this milieu, in its margins, a
growing number of very young people has become visible promoting
nihilistic limitless violence (dressed up as "December's nihilism")
and "destruction" even if this also includes variable capital (in the
form of scabs, "petit-bourgeois elements", "law-abiding citizens").
Such a degeneration coming out of the rebellion and its limits as well
as out of the crisis itself is clearly evident. Certain condemnations
of these behaviours and a self-critique to some extent have already
started in the milieu (some anarchist groups have even called the
perpetrators "parastatal thugs") and it is quite possible that
organized anarchists and anti-authoritarians (groups or squats) will
try to isolate both politically and operationally such tendencies.
However, the situation is more complicated and it is surpassing the
theoretical and practical (self)critical abilities of this milieu. In
hindsight, such tragic incidents with all their consequences might
have happened in the December rebellion itself: what prevented them
was not only chance (a petrol station that did not explode next to
buildings set on fire on Sunday the 7th of December, the fact that the
most violent riots took place at night with most buildings empty), but
also the creation of a (though limited) proletarian public sphere and
of communities of struggle which found their way not only through
violence but also through their own content, discourse and other means
of communication. It was these pre-existing communities (of students,
football hooligans, immigrants, anarchists) that turned into
communities of struggle by the subjects of the rebellion themselves
that gave to violence a meaningful place. Will there be such
communities again now that not only a proletarian minority is
involved? Will there be a practical way of self-organization in the
workplaces, in the neighborhoods or in the streets to determine the
form and the content of the struggle and thus place violence in a
liberating perspective?

Uneasy questions in pressing times but we will have to find the
answers struggling.

TPTG
9th of May