Saturday 21 Mar, 2009
by The occupants
The new Patision Commune is here
The new Patision Commune is here. Strong, sober and uncrushable. (what follows is a translation of the occupation’s founding text)
* photo is from the squatters' blog
“The biggest expectations lie ahead of us and we find ourselves in the joyous position of seeking ways to drift along with them” From 8 a.m. this morning (19.03) tens of comrades occupied a building on the corner of Patision Ave and Skaramaga Str (right between the Athens Polytechnic and the Economics University in Athens– trans). Works inside have already started; a soundsystem has been set up and the subversive Carmen sang by Maria Kallas (who, many claim, was born in this building) is echoing across the buzzing Patision Ave. There are many people in the building right now, increasing by the hour. You can come to the beautiful building and gaze at the sea from its rooftop.
Carrying on… We are some people who met on the streets and in the occupations during the events of revolt of December -events that derive from historical, class, social and dispositional causes and of course, the assassination of Alexis by cop Korkoneas. A peak moment, a spark in the powder magazine hosting social consensus and peace, an accelerating factor leading to an unprecedented social explosion. An explosion shattering on multiple levels the suffocating normality of our lives.
The feast of December blew apart individualisation and the sealed-off private in our lives and a joyous, collective and wild “us” poured out on the streets. It attacked democracy, its guards and the imaginaries that accompany it; abstaining from any demand or petition, it self-organised everydayness within occupied buildings. It articulated the sharpest critique against the monologue of the product, destroying and looting its temples, redistributing social wealth, halting consumption in the very centre of the city. It disproved the ambitions of the leftist wanna-be intermediaries, letting them stammer sociological crap on the TV. It canceled out the convulsive muddle of the journalists, making it clear that whoever wanted to understand what was going on only needed to get out of their homes. It abolished, even if temporarily, gendered and spectacular roles since thousands of people managed to act as one body amidst events where what mattered was what was happening, not who was doing it. And on the other hand: the state, the bosses and all the mob that has a high interest for nothing to change no longer. From the moment when they managed to regroup they were anything but spectators.
They claimed the return to normality by usng all means in their disposal. From riot police and para-statal thugs to the sociologists and the sensitive artists. From the established talk about extremists, gangs, saboteurs, greek-haters, all the way to the peaceful citizens’ claim to the right to celebrate their christmas. From the hypocritical self-criticism of the adults to their kids, to the arrest of 265 revolted and the incarceration of 65. They did whatever they could do, in other words, in order for December to turn into a “sad bracket” where in the end the extremists were punished and those who followed were admonished. Carrying on, Reality continues to gain meaning from December’s revolt in an accelerating manner. The condition remains polarised and confrontational, producing events and conditions on both sides. Only within the context of the contents opened up by December can one fully understand events such as the attack with acid against syndicalist K. Kuneva; the mass-murder attempt at the Migrants’ place (with the failed hand-grenade attack by fascists – trans.) as well as the proclamations for the restructuring of the legal and military arsenal of the state, the most recent attempt to awaken the most reactionary social reflexes.
At the same time, widened social groupings are constantly developing actions, practices and a say, while holding December’s event as a clear starting and reference point. From the railway stations to the centres of bureaucratic syndicalism, from workplaces to the hospital receptions, from parks and neighbourhoods to the spectacle’s temples, self-organised incentives that are diffused, socialised and enriched emerge as tools, methods and ways of reshaping reality and attacking the capitalist relations and the democratic condition: as some elements of a wider process of radicalisation that seems to have time continuity and qualitative depth. Carrying on, To the extent that we comprise a product but also a component of this condition, we decided to reclaim the abandoned building of 61 Patision Ave and Skaramaga Str, with the aim of grounding in this space some of our intentions and desires; in order to turn it into a base for the life that we want. To turn it into an open social space were in a self-organised, comradely and collective way we will comprise a part of the conspiracy for the destruction of this world. Against all forms of hierarchy and authority, against all political and corporal intermediation, against all spectacle-given roles and gendered divisions. And in this attempt of ours we are looking for accomplices…
THE COMING REVOLT IS ALREADY EVERYWHERE
SOLIDARITY TO KONSTANTINA KUNEVA
IMMEDIATE RELEASE OF DECEMBER’S ARRESTEES
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