Brief article in defense of the anti-authoritarians

Published in the daily newspaper AVGI
Sunday, 14 December, 2008

by Thanasis Papakonstantinou

Every social group that possesses or desires power breeds and trains guard dogs. The state has the police and the para-state. Political parties have the so-called 'party-dogs'. Aggressive breeds are chosen and they are naturally trained to develop this tendency to the max.

On the other hand, various anti-authoritarian groups have no need of any such thing because they do not intend to seize power nor do they have a corral to guard. Thus they become more susceptible to provocation, but it is better to be free and vulnerable than enslaved and secure. Many hide their faces either for 'technical' reasons (protection from tear-gas as well as other paranoid implements of repression) or so that they will not be recognized when they commit illicit acts. It does not mean that whoever wears a hood is a coward. Is Subcomandante Marcos a coward, for instance?

I understand the violence of the weak who are rallying to defend human dignity - it has moral foundations. I fear, however, that whoever becomes infected by the virus of violence - even when the goal is a humanitarian one - shall ultimately fail. The means and the goal justify the result. Instead of violence I prefer the raising of consciousness and humanity as a means to a better life. Despite that, I consider the anti-authoritarians to be the most selfless and courageous segment of those engaged in social struggle, whether in our own recent incidents or in the remote past or in the future, locally or globally.

By way of an epilogue, perhaps capping off the above with something from my busking, I present the final two verses from my unreleased song 'San Michele had a rooster':

Tell me. Has the tub been found, where
I once bathed in sun and snow
or the lock of hair saved from my first haircut
by my mother who is still hanging up clothes?
Bakunin's cast iron spittoon,
comrades, has it been found
so I might spit in anger for the new ages
that make me look like a harlequin?

~ translated from the original Greek ~