Athens, Greece: Under the Concrete, Something’s Boiling – Building Squad in Exarcheia by Rasprava Occupation

After the end of the event “Revolutionary memory and the struggle perspective “ in Messolonggiou [pedestrian area of Exarcheia], a crowd of comrades descended on the corner of Koletti and Themistokleous streets to defend the liberation of the building in course.

The following is the self-presentation of the occupation:

The silence of the metropolis weighs on our backs like a stone. The streets are full of tired looks, bodies crawling out of habit, fear, submission. People move along prescribed paths without questioning, tempering their dreams. Everything is programmed to work exactly as they want: work, consumption, obedience. But, always, beneath the surface, something is boiling.

History is not written by the obedient. Some choose to bear the burden of disobedience. To crack the concrete of normality. To confront the invisible hand of power that suffocates every aspect of our lives. Refusing to submit is not a mere stance. It is a call to question, overthrow, take back what belongs to us.

We are comrades, anarchists who come from different political and ideological starting points, but we have found ourselves in the same fires of struggle. There, where common struggles and collective experiences united us, we recognized the vital need to create a space for meeting, political fermentation, exchange of views and organizational empowerment. At a time where isolation is imposed and communities of struggle are being dismantled by the repression, the formation of such spaces is not only necessary – it is crucial. The repressive blows of recent years did not come by chance. The authorities are attempting to eliminate every source of resistance, crush every form of self-organization and extinguish the flame of questioning. Great gains have been lost, the movement has been driven into a defensive position, the recession is now visible. But we know that history is written by those who do not retreat, by those who are not afraid to face reality. To remain on the defensive means to accept defeat. And that will not happen. The time has come to turn words into actions, to move from defence to offence. To make it clear that the enemy will not get its way with us so easily. To carve out our own field of struggle, to claim our space and time. To liberate territory from domination, to create a living centre of resistance, a radical hotbed of fermentation and action. We see the occupation as an integral part of the movement and the movement as an organic element of the occupation. The existence of territories of struggle is not just a practical issue, but a deeply political one. Occupations are not just hangouts, they are not just places of hospitality. They are bastions of resistance, laboratories of radical practices, cracks in the normality that they are trying to impose on us. And this reality is non-negotiable.

Each neighbourhood, each street, each square is not neutral ground. It is a living map of contradictions, conflicts and claims. Cities are built on discipline, policing, the sterilization of public space. The squares are filled with cameras, the walls are painted grey, the buildings become inaccessible fortresses for those who do not have the means to pay the cost of existence in a world where everything has a price. Dominion is implementing a strategic plan of universal control of the metropolises, crushing every centre of resistance. With the weapon of black propaganda and ideological war, it attempts to shape consciousnesses, while the deliberate degradation of neighbourhoods through the spread of organized crime and the violent expulsion of the local population is paving the way for complete absorption by capital. State repression acts as an armed guard for investors, real estates devour the land, houses become commodities, rents rocket sky-high, public spaces are transformed into sterile fields of surveillance and consumer uniformity. The scourge of gentrification and Civilization is swallowing up cities, functioning as a mechanism of subjugation and social control. Exarcheia, a neighborhood steeped in the history of struggles, is in the crosshairs of the state and capitalist onslaught. On the one hand, the state unleashes waves of repression: evictions of squats, reinforcement of the police presence, militarization of the space. On the other, capital plunders the collective memory, absorbing symbols of resistance and transforming them into a tourist commodity. Our subcultures are being forged and adapted into “alternative” commercial projects, while the neighborhood is being altered to serve the entertainment and lifestyle industry.

We will not let them turn the place of our struggles into yet another decorative attraction. For all these reasons, we are opening the squat in the historic neighborhood of Exarcheia. Because its streets are not for sale. Because memories are not commodities. Because living resistance will not become tourist attractions, but battlefields.

Squatted places can certainly be islands of resistance in the archipelago of struggle. They are also barricades. Spaces where sovereignty loses control, where the state ceases to be the absolute regulator of life. They are workshops of struggle, meeting points, centres of self-organization and action.

Insurgent and revolutionary culture does not appear by itself. It is cultivated. It develops in basements, squares, hangouts, in gazes that do not bow down, in bodies that do not accept being disciplined by the enemy. The occupation is not an isolated event. It has the ability to walk in the practice of denial, to constantly remind us that we are not numbers in the state’s registers, we are not cogs in the production machine, we are not pawns on the chessboard of power. We are here and are taking what belongs to us, creating the cracks from which new possibilities will spring.

The circumstances therefore leave us unscathed in terms of our anarchist consciousness and practice. We refuse to join the terror resulting from the ”repressively unfavourable times”. Against reformist rhetoric, the manifestation of which are choices of political conformism in the field of action, we are stubbornly for permanent and total rupture. Our anxiety is not the repression that has existed and will exist against us but the continuous wager with ourselves, in terms of avoiding political strategies that are threatening to pass a movement into oblivion through an increasingly deficient militant presence both at the level of events and structures.

We understand that the absence of a militant culture weakens us as a movement, makes us vulnerable and helpless in the face of the onslaught of power. Inaction is tantamount to defeat. We are therefore attempting through this project to build a solid base that will promote the revolutionary/insurgent perspective, intensify the threat against the oppressive mechanisms of the present and cultivate the rebellious consciousnesses of tomorrow. Because rebellion is not a theoretical scheme. It is action, it is fermentation, it is constant conflict.

WHY DO WE CHOOSE and PROMOTE REVOLUTIONARY and INEVITABLE (DIRECT ACTION) as a culture?

i.Because, it is the only means of direct confrontation with the enemy in the here and now. It is the practice that creates “ground zeros”, breaking the chains of normality, giving subjects the power to determine their own fate.

ii.Because, at its core, Anarchy is a constant war for freedom. It is not a slogan, it is not a theory, it is conflict, it is action.

iii. Because comradeship is not an abstract concept, but living and non-negotiable relationships among fighters. These are forged in the fire of battle, side by side in every crisis, every defeat, every difficulty. It is there that we rediscover our lost collective self.

iv.Because it pushes subjects to exceed their limits, to break the chains of fear, to question the impossible.

v.Because the aggression of direct action is not blind violence, but a strategic choice. The spread of revolutionary action, the generalization of violent confrontation with the powers of authority, is necessary for the deconstruction of the state and capitalist edifice and the crushing of the social relations of oppression.

The duty of every struggling person is to enrich their tools daily, both on a practical and theoretical level, which will bring them to the fulfillment of their ideals. Boldness, risk, imagination, organization, faith and consistency are required. Intention is not enough, decision is needed. For these reasons, for us the opening of this occupation is a part of this direction.

FOR ANARCHY

Together we can do anything we can chase away the vision of the end that seems so close.

We can live as proud and free people

We can tear down the wall and see a whole life of joy waiting for us!

Rasprava occupation

Koletti and Themistocleous str.

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athens.indymedia

Translated by Act for freedom now!

https://abolitionmedia.noblogs.org/?p=18152