Greece: Nothing will ever be the same anymore

On 6 December, at nine in the evening, a man of the special police force
stopped, took aim and shot dead a fifteen-year old kid in the
neighbourhood of Exarchia, Athens. This murder is not a singular event of
police violence. The morning of the same day, immigrants waiting to apply
for asylum at the police station of Petrou Ralli avenue were attacked by
riot police. A Pakistani man suffered traumatic brain injury and has been
struggling for life ever since in the intensive care unit of Evangelismos
hospital. These are just two of the dozens of similar cases over the past
years.

The bullet that pierced Alexis's heart was not a random bullet shot from a
cop's gun to the body of an 'indocile' kid. It was the choice of the state
to violently impose submission and order to the milieus and movements that
resist its decisions. A choice that meant to threaten everybody who wants
to resist the new arrangements made by the bosses in work, social
security, public health, education, etc: Whoever works must stretch
herself too thin for a mere 600 euros monthly wage. She must work herself
to exhaustion whenever the bosses need her, working overtime without pay,
getting laid off whenever businesses are 'in crisis'. And finally, she
must get herself killed whenever the intensification of production demands
it, just like those five dockers who died in the Perama shipyards five
months ago. If she is an immigrant, and dares to demand a few euros more,
she will be faced with a beating and a life of terror, just like the
agricultural workers of both sexes in the strawberry hothouses of Nea
Manolada in the western Peloponese.

Whoever is a pupil must spend her time in crummy school halls and
intensive tutoring to 'prepare' herself for protracted, annual exam
seasons. As a kid she has to forge about playing with others in the street
and feeling carefree, in order to befuddle herself with reality shows on
TV and electronic gaming, since free public spaces have become shopping
malls, or there is no free time for hanging out.

Later on, as a university student, because such is the natural 'evolution'
to success, she discovers that the alleged 'scientific knowledge' is in
fact geared towards the needs of bosses. A student has to continuously
adapt herself to new study curricula and gather as many 'certificates' as
possible in order to be awarded in the end with a degree of equal value to
loo-paper, but without its practical importance. A degree that ensures
nothing more than a 700 euro monthly wage, often without national
insurance or health cover. All this takes place in the midst of a crazy
dance of millions landing in priestly businesses and doped-up Olympic
athletes who are paid extravagantly to 'glorify the homeland'. Money that
ends up in the pockets of the moneyed and powerful. From bribes to
'compadres' and haggling of scandalous DVDs with corrupt journalists in
order to cover-up government 'scandals'. While dozens of lives are wasted
in forest-fires to allow big capital to turn forests into tourist
businesses and while worker deaths in construction sites and in the
streets are dubbed 'work accidents'. While the state gives money away to
banks to aid them sink us deeper in a sea of debts and loans and raises
direct tax for all workers. While the stupidity of heftily paid television
stars becomes the gospel for an increasing number of exploited people.

The bullet that pierces Alexis's heart was a bullet to the heart of
exploitation and repression for an important part of this society who
knows that it has nothing to lose apart from the illusion that things
might get better. The events following the murder proved that for a large
part of the exploited and oppressed have sank in this swamp up to their
neck, and this swamp has just overflowed and threatens to drown bosses and
politicians, parties and state institutions. It's running its course to
clean this dirty world that is based upon the exploitation of human by
human and the power of few over the many. It filled our hearts with
confidence and filled the hearts of bosses with fear.

The destruction of the temples of consumption, the reappropriation of
goods, the 'looting' that is, of all these things that are taken from us,
while they bombard us with advertisements, is the deep realisation that
all this wealth is ours, because we produce it. 'We' in this case means
all working people as a whole. This wealth does not belong to the
shop-owners, or the bankers, this wealth is our sweat and blood. It is the
time that bosses steal from us every day. It is our sickness when we start
our pension. It is the arguments inside the bedroom and the inability to
meet a couple of friends on a weekend night. It is the boredom and
loneliness of Sunday afternoon and the choking feeling every Monday
morning. As exploited and oppressed, immigrants or greek, as working
people, as jobless, students or pupils, we are called now to answer back
to the false dilemma posed by the media and the state: are we with the
'hoodies' or are we with the shop-owners.

This is dilemma is only a decoy.

Because the real dilemma that the media do not want you to ask is: are you
for the bosses or are you for the workers? Are you for the state or for
the revolt? And this is the one reason that journalists need to do their
best to defame the movement, talking about 'hoodies', 'looters' etc. The
reason they want to spread fear among the oppressed is simple: the revolt
makes their position – and that of their bosses – very precarious. Revolt
turns against the reality they create, against the feeling of 'all goes
well', against the separation between 'rightfully sentimental revolt' and
'extremist elements' nd finally against the distinction between 'outlaws'
and peaceful protesters.

In this dilemma we have one answer: we are for the 'hoodies'. We are the
'hoodies'. Not because we want to hide our face, but because we want to
make ourselves visible. We exist. We wear hoods not for the love of
destruction but for the desire to take our life in our hands. To build
upon the grave of commodities and powers a different society. A society
where everybody will decide collectively in general meetings of schools,
universities, workplaces and neighbourhoods, about everything that
concerns us, without the need of political representatives, leaders or
comissars. A society where we will all together guide our fortunes and
where our needs and desires will be in our hands, and not those of every
MP, mayor, boss, priest or cop.
The hope for this life was put back on the table by the barricades that
were set up everywhere in Greece and in solidarity abroad. It remains to
make this hope a reality. The possibility of such a life is now put to the
test by public assemblies in occupied municipal buildings, trade union
buildings and universities in Athens and elsewhere in Greece, where
everybody can freely express her opinions and shape her action
collectively, based on her desires and needs. The dream of this life has
started taking shape.

What remains to do to see this dream realised?

We should organise in our paces of study, work and habitation. In our
workplaces we discuss our everyday problems and we create nuclei of
resistance against the terror of the bosses. In our schools we contribute
and support their occupations, we create counterinformation groups, we
organise lectures and workshops, we question sovereign knowledge, we
produce new knowledge geared to our needs and not those of capital. In
neighbourhoods and housing blocks we talk to our neighbours, we create
gatherings and committees, we share knowledge and skills, we decide
collectively for actions. We take part in marches and protests, we stand
by each other, we break the fear that is spread by the state, we help the
pupils that are now bearing the brunt of the attack of the state. We stand
in solidarity to those arrested in the revolt, both greeks and immigrants,
in Greece and abroad, most of which are now prosecuted with every legal
trick in the arsenal of counter-terrorism laws because they opposed the
dictates of the state. Everything begins now. Everything is possible.

Movements for the generalisation of revolt