[R-G] a small analysis on the greece riots

[aaron doncaster]

"We are in Civil War: With the fascists, the bankers, the state, the media
wishing to see an obedient society"

The above statement is not a statement from radical anarchist group, this
ispart of a comunique from the association of employees of the suburb of
Agios Dimitrios in Athens. the city hall in the suburb of Dimitrios in
greece, has been occupied since last week and it has become a centre for
popular assemblies with young and old alike participating in open and
democratic discussions about the situation in greece.

It all started On Saturday 6th of December at around 10pm, two Greek
policemen were in patrol in a central street by Exarchia square, in the
center of Athens. They had a verbal argument with some young people who were
there. During the argument, one of the cops pulled his gun and shot a
16-year-old guy twice. The victim was moved to Evangelismos Hospital to be
found dead. According to eye-witnesses, the cop had been swearing against
the young man, showing his genitals, before shooting him.

As a result of this shooting, Greece has become a battle ground between the
people and the state with hundreds of demonstrations happening across the
country.Battles aganist the cops are happening on a daily basis with dozens
of police stations across the country being attack,some being totally
destroyed. There is no sign of these abaiting,if anything these protests are
spreading across europe

With  revolts like the one in greece, there are stages that the populace go
through, I have broken them down into 4 stages that I believe are the 4
stages of a radical left revolt/revolution. The initial revolt with rioting
and property destruction, the second stage of building popular assembilies
and horizontal stuctures of organising, the third stage of networking all
the existing assembilies and horizontally based organizing structures
together and finally the last stage of uses those networked organizations to
make the existing power structure/governing structures in society
irrelavent.Often these stages can overlap which is happening in greece as
assemblies are being started, assembilies are networking together and
rioting is still happening.

There are dozens of universities that have been occupied and some say as
many as 700 high schools. There have also been city halls that have been
occupied. Manny of the occupied buildings have become decentralized centers
to futher discuss and coordinate the revolt. Many of the popular assembilies
that have poped up around the country are not just discussing how to
continue street battles with the cops and fascists, who are more often then
not working together, but they are also discussing the problems that led to
this situation. Yes it was the shooting of alexandros that started it all
but that was just the last quantitative step that lead to a qualitative
break with the status quo.Facsit police, corrupt polititions, anti-imigrant
policies and an adherence to the washington consensus by the government
when  implementing right-wing reforms:these were all issues with the people
before the shooting of Alexandros

But there is more to it then that. To get to the ultimate core of the issue
in greece,we have to go back some 67 years to "operation marita" When nazi
Germany and facsist italy occupied greece during world war II.  The
occupation had a profound influence on the ruling class of Greece, In the
sense that they became willing collaborators whith the facsist occupiers. To
the ruling class of Greece at the time, it was better to colaorate with the
facsists then to join forces with the working class and defeat the facsists.
when given a choice of building a united front with workers or supporting
facsism,the ruling class in most societies will choose the latter then the
former. With the "liberation" of greece, the only change Greece saw was a
change of the facsist gaurd. Instead of the german and italian fascists they
now had cia facsists working with Greece facsists to "protect" against the
new threat, which was the soviets

After world war II ended, Greece decended into civil war which pit ulta
nationalists and facists against ther communist led resistence. when the
communist lost, the communist party was band and the conservatives ruled
with an irion fist until the military junta took power in 1967 and ruled
until 1974 when a popular uprising, much like the one we see today led to
the downfall of the junta.With the downfall of the Military junta, we saw
bourgeois democracy develop in greece. Although their was a bourgeois
democracy,the fact was that a large part of the ruling class was still
facsist and they were just waiting to implement fascism

So in conclusion, It is my belief that this current rebellion is a
continuation of the uprising in 72 which led to the defeat of the military
Junta.Even though the uprising put to death the military Junta in Greece, I
believe it failed to eradicate facsism from it's country and just like a
virus, Fascism began to infect more and more people in Greece,specifically
in the ruling class.over the past 5 - 10 years in greece you have seen a
massive groth in facsism and it came to a head when a known facsist cop shot
dead Alexandros.. It may have taken some 35 years or so for the
anti-facsists to re organize, but the fact is they have and lets hope That
this time they kill the ugly beast of facsism once and for all.

                                                               Some
anarchist in Halifax