Thoughts on Greek Revolt

By Comm.Alexis
21 Dec, 2008

A few days ago the well known for his obscurantist-dark age-political ideas high priest Anthimos, from the politically conservative north Greece, stated that the riots in Greek cities are instructed from some sites on internet as well as foreign agents and encouraged the politicians to receive communion in church. It's obvious that the priest is adopting the Communist's Party (KKE) general point of view about agents provocateuts that use their hoods in the riots to cover their identity cause they are basically undercover policemen. KKE is also calling people to receive communion of their stalinist point of view of revolutionarism, in their army-like demonstartions, pent into their well guarded blocks. What is not obvious is that a word of the priest (''site'') was like the ricochet of the bullet that killed Alexis (police said), and hitted right on the target of the problem of contemporary information.

For some years now the Internet gains more and more influence as a means of information and this makes the statement of Liana Kanelli, (KKE member of parliament) paleolithic and naive when she said that the fact that the short amount of time that was needed, after the murder of Alexis, for people all over the country to gather and start rioting, is a proof that the agents have a network that brings them to contact and makes them dangerous. Concerning this aphorism, this specific collective paranoia of the Communist Party members is well known for decades. The word paranoia is important cause it is a construction that has a functional role for the preservation of the Party. As for the nework of the so called ''provocators'' it's well known also and it is called Internet and Mobile Telephones Network.

So, the use of the internet for the outspread of information, in the beginning used as a way of counter-information, gradually becomes more influential especially between young people. A source of more genuine and uncensored source of updating on crucial matters. This, by definition puts the people on a more active position towards the medium, in relation to the passive and boulimic relation with television. These days in Greece you could understand the panic of most of tv star-journalists. One of them, tearing his clothes against violence on the news windows, was throwing bottles to the referees in a basketball court few time ago, without receiving bullets back from police (one of the friends of the murdered boy threw a plastic bottle of water to the cops). They feel that if the system collapses, the domino effect will carry them down and they ll be the first on the line since their job is to perpetuate the dominant ideology.

On the present moment, during the days of the biggest riots in Greece in peaceful times, pacifists are shocked and the conditions cry out for a big opportunity for a change. The rioters having inherited nothing but a half dead planet and a big bet to save it from destruction, turn their heads away and choose not to hit it on the same wall that their fathers have hitted. They choose to express their anger hitting the walls, the glasses and the steel that their ancestors have raised above the value of human life. These days the riot is transformed to a lively situation of people in neighborhoods squatting governments buildings in the outskirts doing local people's political assemblies with hundrends of people expressing themselves away from the media and organizing big demonstrations and imaginative political activist events all over the country.

Agitation and social disorder are not uncommon fot this country. Greek history is full of divisions and splitting is one of its main characteristics..Athenians and Spartans, Communists and Nationalists, Karamanlis and Papandreou politicl dynasties for more than five decades now..In between the 1821 Greek revolution against Ottomans, there was a civil war for the lead of the struggle, leading important revolutionaries in prison. Moreover, the 1944-'49 civil war between Communists and Nationalists with so many dead people from both sides leading to 40 years of fascist right wing and dictatorial governing of the country. And of course the endless discissions of the Lefts that seem like they had been the source of inspiration for the Monty Python film 'Life of Bryan'..

Greeks, having lived difficult moments of political barbarism, being the only european country to which there was inflicted a Latin-American type of Junta (the 1967-1974 military dictatorship) usually assert a distinctiveness on their reactions against people or politics that they feel are oppressive. However, the so called progreesive political forces of the country are charaterised by a broad defeatism. The massive character of this rioting hasn't been met during the Junta. The gentlefolks were watching football at home, fearful but safe, and the communists chose to fill up the ships leading to exile islands and rocks of the Aegean sea. It hasn't been met even on the days of the students' revolt and the occupation of the Polytechnic and the Law School. Again then, there were widespread rumours about agents provocateurs in the occupied universities. Something similar to this unenthusiastic left reaction was met in 1944, when the pulled back nazis where succeeded by the English, but during the in-between time, the communists of the great guerilla fight, having the consent of the people, denied to grab the power that was falling into their hands. The civil war that followed was destructive and it kept greeks divided for decades.

So it seems like greeks have a communal gene that leads them to be disobedient because of these social experience of centuries, and also to have strong social reflexes. And maybe the ''apolitical'' students show the way and react to the things that the rest bend their heads and give theit votes to. This time it seems things have gone too far. Another murder from the state. This time cold blooded, in an unrepeatable way. After everyday murders of refugees that are assaulted systematically from the police, the Pakistans that were kidnapped from intelligence, the brutal beating of a student in front of a camera last year by under cover policemen, that blamed the iron jardiniere for the wounds of the student, the violence and shootings of police in the streets against citizens, the violence of poverty and unemployment that many are living, etc..

This violent reaction of people is rather a slap that warns for more massive reactions, with the economic crisis at hand, as they say. The crocodile tears of hypocrite journalists for the poor shop glasses that broke and the banks that burned are only deceitful. Especially when the president of the syndicalist union of merchands clearly stated that during the times after a boy's murder and a riot that outbroke, we cant speak about shops and glasses..It is clear that the critisicm on the destructions carries away the focus from the reasons of the riot to the sensitive reflexes of the Homo Consumer. Noted that all the shops were compensated for the loses, when for example someone that stays in prison for months or years for an unfair reason is compensated with sympathy and apologies. (by the way thousands of prisoners few days before the events were on hunger strike for days). But we cant hear with sympathy the young girl that lost her cabrio lux car in flames and the journalist tearing his clothes for the girl that works in three jobs so she buys this car, instead of saying her that her choice smells a bit of vanity.

And when all this happens that night of the 6th of December, the Minister of Education was in a night club of the worse kind (doghouses are called in greek). And the problem was the special character of that night and noone said that it should have been out of the question for the Minister of Education to go to a doghouse and showing by this way the lead to the road of garbage aesthetic of their dominant subculture. As for the rest, they are shocked with the attempt of setting fire to the library of law school and the museum. As if they have ever done anything else but using them in the only heavy industry of Greece, tourism, instead of raising them to a high position of social cultural values. The libraries are cobwebbed as our minds are from television and the museums are cold and uninspired for most. There goes the attributive adjective “museum-like” (μουσειακός) in greek, meaning conservative and old fashioned. So enough with the hypocricy.

As for the violence of these days, it is certain that the asylum regime of universities that has its roots in the dictatorship (a tank smashed the door of the Polytechnic in 17 November 1973 killing 23 students) is a regime that helps the riots diachronically. Near the street where Alexis Grigoropoulos was shot (in the heart of the autonomous district of Exarchia, where police cant go but only move on the borders of it, and actually a very safe area despite the absence of police) is the Polytechnic and the Law School and 200 meters away is the Economics University. Last year the government started a debate about the abolition of the asylum status, aiming to deprive the libertarian youth from their hiding place. On this moment the people fighting have put a political stamp on their fight. The labels 'hoodies' and 'known-unknown' (implying the agents scenario) seem rediculous now in front of the massive character of the events. Let s not forget the effort of the State to deprive the arrested members of the political terrorist organization 17 November from all ideological political background and make them appear like common criminals of the penal law. And i m not the only one that has heared people around saying chaffingly “17 November is what they need..”. This shows clearly that in the imaginative sphere of people's minds there is a strong counter violence common phantasy. The difference is that now, for some hypocrite journalists the reaction is justified..As if there hadnt been reasons for revolt in the past.

The core of the change that people ask is above all political, but it is also aesthetical and ethical. It is about the awakening of the people that will send to their homes or to prison the decadent repsesentatives of the post-dictatorial political hegemony that is drawning into a sea of scandals. The short period of the Stock Market felicity, when half greeks gave their money for buying luxury cars, was suceeded by the lowering of the greeks' purchase power, especially after the imposition of Euro, when prices were double in a night. In a country where financial speculation is the national sport and half population tries to take advantage of the other half, a country where hundrends of thousands of people are trapped in Bank Loan contracts, without having a way out. (There are banks that confiscated houses for 3000euro debts) In this situation youngsters come to symbolize with their counter-violence the so-desirable end of the society of provocative richness of the few and the false felicity and to offer to all with open hands a great chance for a consciousness awakening.

An ancient greek historian Herodotos said that violence is the midwife of history and people with their fight impregnate the change that must be backed, so the political system is moved ethically and politically or be destroyed and built from the beginning. In Europe two times the word revolution was heared after 1917. The one was velvet, the other was orange. It s early to speak about something like this, and maybe nothing will change, but maybe a seed is planted and hope comes through the smoking streets of Athens and other cities. One year ago the first Biennale of Athens was titled “Destroy Athens”. The rioters identified with the symbolism of the exhibition and took this symbolism further. As for the conservative dark age part of the country that will always be there, they should think these days that Jesus is born again that when Jesus grew up and saw the mess outside the temple, he took a stick and broke down the place claiming that he can smash the temple down and built it in 3 days. How Jesuits were shocked from the blasphemy..The symbolism of counter-violence act is more powerful than ever and as long as we dont have our own May 1968 to remember in a melancholic romantism after some years, someone must dare to break down the modern Babel tower and its constructions (Corrupted Governments, International Monetary Fund, World Trade System, World system of Distribution of Food, etc) in order to built from the beginning a new costruction having as basic materials Social Solidarity, Social Justice and a fair distribution of the planet's sources and commodities.

FREEDOM TO THE IMPRISONED RIOTERS OF DECEMBER

~ UK Indymedia ~