For instance:
From The Times : Athens wracked by violence
...Greece has been plagued by daily bombings and arson attacks on banks and multinational businesses since the police shooting of a teenager in December, which sparked the worst riots the country has seen in decades...
From Easy Bourse : Youths Attack Stores In Greek City Of Thessaloniki
Unknown assailants attacked a car dealership in Athens using petrol bombs and gas cannisters today, causing serious damage but no injuries in the latest spree of violence to rock the Greek capital...
This may be part of the strategy of containment that is unfolding. When the police or places of business are attacked, the news reaches an international audience. When squatters defending a public park from the Athens mayor's bulldozers because they don't want to see it turned into a parking garage are viciously attacked by hoodlums and barely manage to survive, the issue is buried.
The truth is that politicians are so frightened by the prospect of people actually taking charge of their lives, their futures and the common property that is rightfully their inheritance, that they have imposed a media blackout on all the peaceful -- and effective -- actions taking place all over the country. The large passive majority who depend on mainstream media for their news have no clue that actions are unfolding all the time. Many think the uprising is something that ended in December.
Nothing could be further from the truth. New squats are being announced daily. Groups ranging from artists to the gay/lesbian community are presenting and outlining new models of behavior and tolerance, and are challenging the monolithic control of all life that seems to be the purpose and understanding of what we otherwise call the marketplace. New paradigms are being presented to the public psyche.
The system prefers a passive populace who lack the resources to actively protest the rape of all that is, by reason, their rightful legacy and just provenance: civil and human liberties, property, the right to determine and enjoy the fruits of their labor, the right to voice their opinions and to actively give shape to their future, etc. It would appear that the 'free world' is challenged by those who would deign to be free.
And so, while the Greek state is preparing for a possible state of siege -- besieged itself by its true master, the moneylenders who keep downrating its borrowing status until they are satisfied that compliance with their order of things is back on track -- and while police state tactics continue to unfold, and while there is an uncanny silence about the rising body count of unknowns since the uprising began -- fished from Piraeus harbor or found in deserted fields -- Greek lawmakers are busy studying the tactics of the rebels in order to legislate against them.
They have much to legislate against, and squatters appear to be first on their list. Squatting has become the latest vogue. People are squatting on public property. Entire communities are reclaiming the commons from municipal authorities for whom public lands are nothing more than cash cows. Not only is the Greek state entering another privatization frenzy in its effort to appease the moneylenders but memories are raw from the forest lands that were ravaged by fire in recent years and turned into plots for sale. People are squatting in their workplaces to protest labor conditions. People are occupying union buildings, university campuses and even the national music hall in Athens was 'liberated' for nine days.
The latest squat, 'inaugurated' yesterday in the Alsos of Pangrati, was a beautiful display of community solidarity. The community is trying to prevent the mayor's plan to resurrect an old theater with a new concession stand. The community responded by bringing their children to the park's playground, where they played and painted and were entertained by music and even a radical version of the classic shadow puppet theater. Squatters of public lands in the Athens area will be marching en masse to City Hall in a couple of days.
The truth is the state apparatus has its work cut out for it. Its greatest fear is that its irrelevance, and perhaps even the danger it poses, to the population it theoretically serves, will become evident. And that the people will discover they are more capable of defending all the things that the politicians have been pilfering and selling by stealth to the money people for so long that they now consider this to be the natural order of the universe.
Arson attacks and bombing of banks and corporate buildings is a part of the uprising, just like the squating, the neighbourhood assemblies, the planting of trees in parks that are projected to become parking areas, the blocking of national highways by fired workers. I understand that the foreign media buries all other actions (that are maybe even more important) in order to change the opinion of people about an insurrection and any kind of similar action there, but the public in greece does not seem to condemn arson attacks either... If i was to explain what is really happening here, i would say that all actions are part of what the movement in greece is doing and all should be known equally, including the arson attacks that are almost an everyday condition...
ReplyDeleteA proof of what i mean is that local media does not focus at all on arson attacks against the police, or political parties, or corporate property. This happens because this would be a positive presentation of what's going on. They only do that if the attack is massive and thay can't ignore it...
ReplyDeleteYour logic is reminiscent of the argument of Malcolm X, who said he was scaring white folks so that they would prefer MLK.
ReplyDeleteHowever,
On Dec 20 the flash mob art group 'freeze time' closed Amalias Ave. for 3 minutes, in front of cameras. Yet the only mention in the press was of the garbage throwing at the Xmas tree in Syntagma later that afternoon.
On New Year's Eve everyone expected protesters to attack the Xmas tree again. The photojournalists waited until late, in vain. One was overheard saying to another: 'What if I firebomb the tree so we can get our pictures and all go home?'
Many people are peacefully learning a great deal from the uprising, much of it on the fly as things are progressing. I can't imagine what lessons the violence is teaching anyone. Other than that they can become just like the state in its ability to inflict harm. So the 'the parting on the right becomes a parting on the left', to paraphrase the Who.
The British empire weakened itself with war and crumbled before a barefoot unarmed man. Today's empire is suffering the same symptoms and is susceptible to the same approach.