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Title: ΧÏÏÎżÏ Author: M. Shimshon Date: 2019 Language: en Topics: communization, nihilism, Greece, CCF, fiction, Poetry, history, Exarchia
Is generally defined as space, an opening, a place of encounter and a
place where a crack has been cut or ignored, where resistance (friction)
occurs. It also refers more generally to the milieu, the movement, the
people engaged in radical actions, and often with conflicting people and
theories. So, the term xoros both refers to the people in anarchist and
other âopeningâ movements, the movements themselves, the general
atmosphere/aura they carry with them, and the space in which they
operate and build. It is an almost ecological term in its outlook, in
that it envelops the system/environment and its parts/functionaries.
Bachala is a slang word, that generally refers to mess, or the making of
a mess. In the political context (and on the streets of Exarchia) it has
become inextricably tied to riots, riot makers, and the space rioters
create with their actions. Its associations are lumpen: dirtiness,
chaos, uncontrollable energy, trash, hooliganism, poverty, theft,
revenge, raucous fun, cathartic release (almost sexual orgasmic
quality), and âindiscriminateâ destruction/attack. Things that we
associate here in America with racialized terms meant to invoke fear at
the class below the working class, the (badly) hidden and uncontrollable
(tightly monitored) people who do not work, and emerge in the narrative
and in the mainstage of images at the time of any crisis as an object of
fascination and distinction. Bachala has its own walk and timing. This
image is often the same one that is associated with the caricature of
âanarchyâ colloquially.
Literally it means: the hooded ones, the hoods, the hooded. An image
mostly drafted by the mainstream media of the people who make bachala.
It was meant to dissuade people from entering the streets and
investigating/meeting rioters, especially with the insurrection of 2008,
by creating a character that was dangerous, irrational, and not to be
interacted with, who thirsts for violence and destruction at all costs
(kinda a caricature of nihilism as well). It is also meant as a way to
discredit the political aims of anarchists, and to just paint them as
violence hungry hooligans. After the insurrections of 2008 and the
public disillusionment of the Syriza party of Greece, the koukoulofori
became almost a cult icon, a folk hero, associated with rebellion, all
things against capitalism and against the system. This character often
appears in a hood, with a t-shirt mask, and knock-off Adidas apparel
(the kind that you can buy off the streets from north African migrants).
Often equipped with a rock, or molotov, and weaponized words (curses).
Anarchists for the most part seem to distance themselves from the word,
partly because it was produced by the mainstream media, and partly
because it is associated with hooligan type behavior, others see the
word as an image of viral potential.
This was me. Anarchists in Greece generally divide this category into
two types. People who come to enjoy the autonomy and lifestyle the
anarchists have developed in Exarchia and Athens more generally
(collective kitchens, squats, liberated sexual practices, etc.), they
are usually painted as hippies, who do yoga in the square and smoke weed
all day. They sometimes participate in riots, but mostly come to live it
up. The other type is the more âseriousâ anarchists, people who came to
Athens to help, learn, participate, and spread the knowledge being
generated in Athens internationally. These types usually get into some
serious shit, but not too serious, just enough to whet their whistles
and to become addicted to action, and to the imagination that can be
fostered in the safety of a liberated space that has been created in the
cancerous body of a failed state (Iâm sure the politicians would say
that anarchy was that cancer and that Exarchia is the largest tumor). I
guess the other type of anarcho-tourist is the nark, but they can
generally fit into either of these two categories, and probably go after
the more serious outfit. At first I was accused of being an Interpol
agent, but was invited to participate in actions and assemblies anyways
as someone told me, âI have no problem with undercover cops, we are very
similar. We are both infiltrators.â
The word referring to squats. Literally it means under-taking, or
against-taking. In the neighborhood of Exarchia there are around 20
squats, they serve as fortresses, operations of attack and defense,
places where collective kitchens and assemblies are held, places where
parties can be put together, or movie screenings can happen, they serve
as both community centers / meeting places and as places where the
literal resources for survival and revolution can be built and kept
(weapons storage, their planning, beds for those who need them,
libraries, computers, etc.). They are also usually associated with a
certain clique, or coalition of cliques, with their own distinct flavor
of revolutionary theory, of actions that they would consider
undertaking, and of people they would extend solidarity to. When a
communique is created it is usually associated with a squat, or if the
action is too risky, with just a wink and a subtle reference to a squat,
project, or assembly.
It means the square. In Exarchia the square is a triangle, the most
structurally sound/strong shape, which can take the greatest load. The
square is the meeting place. Because the neighborhood is protected by
the police with the threat of attack, and because the plateia is a park
at the center of this neighborhood, it is the place of convergence for
everyone who wants to operate outside of the state. It is filled with
anarchists, migrants, refugees, hooligans, old people, young people,
punks, crazies, drunks, party-people, silent people. The air is filled
with the smell of cat piss (there are tons of cats who have no masters,
but are cared for communally), trash which hasnât gotten picked up in a
while because of a garbage workers strike and so has been cooking in the
110-degree heat, the smell of baphos (shit weed, usually Albanian moved
by the mafia), spilled stale Zythos (the 80-cent beer named after the
ancient Greek word for beer), pizza, souvlaki, and a hundred cigarettes.
If it is a Saturday or Friday night, this will also be accompanied by
the smell of tear gas and burning trash, as every weekend like clockwork
there is at least one riot, a little bachala: kagelakis (everyday
thing).
I want to resist portraying this as a coming-of-age story, but it
definitely is. A story of irony and naivety coming up against the cold
and boring â and later thrilling and confusing â immersion into âthe
real worldâ and what a fantastic and terrifying place it is.
I had been preparing for this journey for months, reading vigorously,
doing research, trying to teach myself Greek (mostly unsuccessfully),
and gathering any scraps of information I could that might help when my
feet hit Athenian concrete. It was an adventure in two distinct ways.
The first was that I was going to be dropped into a world where my
wildest political imaginings were possible. A place that my friends and
I had seen online in videos, trying to imagine with jealous admiration
what it would be like to live in that world, a world which seemed so
exciting and far away. The second piece is that I was journeying alone,
completely alone, for the first time ever. I was going to be plopped
into a place where I would have to find housing, find friends, try to
speak to people in a language I couldnât use, and where I literally knew
no one. I had one person, who a teacher had told me was working on a
similar project. So, I was going to this place with a friendly email and
practically nothing else.
I asked my mom whether I should get a gas mask. I did this while I was
showing her a recent video of the demonstrations outside the parliament
building in Athens, which had turned into unadulterated combat. She
asked in a way that commanded, whether I was going to be involved in
these things, and I told her that this was what I was interested in and
would be observing, researching. So, after a stern gaze and a couple
conversations, we made our way to a military surplus store and bought a
vintage army helmet, so that tear gas canisters wouldnât give me brain
damage if they landed high, and I bought a gas mask on Amazon. All my
preparations were in order. I said goodbye to my family, excitedly
thinking about how when I returned I would be changed, wiser, and would
have been through some shit. Imagining myself being trampled gloriously
by the policemanâs boots after taking a great photo and getting a good
rock to crack under his helmet.
I left with a bag full of anarchist books, some clothing, and a helmet
with a gas mask, like an idiot and a proud soldier for the cause. I
passed through airport security in Philadelphia, and everything was fine
for a while. But as I was waiting for my flight with my bag and leather
jacket, two police officers wandered to the terminal and upon seeing me
made a bee-line toward me. How did they spot me so quickly? Did they
read my emails? They moved me over to the chairs by an empty gate and
began to berate me and ask questions quick enough that I couldnât answer
to increase intimidation; these were punctuated by long macho
eye-contact accompanied by silence as a way of verifying my information.
They had me unpack my bag, and I became increasingly agitated as all the
people I was previously sitting next to looked in fear in my direction.
One of the cops noticed a YPG sticker on the back of my phone. âWhatâs
the meaning of this?â I tried to explain what the YPG was and he
replied, âI know who they are. Why do you have this?â After explaining
some more, he decided that he would interrogate me officially, all of
this talk has been coming from one cop, the other has just been standing
there watching. As they walked me over he asked me a question, and in a
moment of bravery I remember looking back at him angrily, wondering what
reason they could have for doing this, knowing they had nothing on me.
What could they have had? I stared back at him in defiant silence for a
couple long seconds, and then he blurted out, âYou trying to give me a
hard time?!â The silence was too much for him, and they dragged me and
my stuff through a door by the terminal I hadnât noticed before.
I remember asking for a lawyer at some point and getting no response. It
turns out you donât really have any legal protections in airports, or at
least thatâs what it said on the little TSA pamphlet they gave me,
titled something along the lines of So It Seems Youâve Been Detained.
I was put in a room where I waited for what felt like a day. In one room
near me I could see a man crying. It seems he was in the process of
being caught trying to get in or out of a country illegally. Next to me
was a woman who had brought a chicken in a suitcase and was arguing
loudly with the cops. For those hours all I had to entertain myself with
was the despair emanating throughout the room, which had been staining
this room for years as people had their hopes of mobility and life
crushed. All the while the cops are talking about a new sandwich place,
thatâs âpretty goodâ, for an hour, before departing, awkwardly. The
dynamics of a typical boring office workplace built on the bones and
fears of so many.
Eventually they went through my luggage, and most of their questions had
to do with the reading material that I had brought. Turns out the gas
mask and helmet just made them curious, but the book of poems by Amiri
Baraka really turned them on. They fingerprinted me, and one of them
went through my phone. As I watched I thought of what to say to him if
he asked what all of the strange photos of rats and dinosaur porn was, I
would explain that they were for my friendâs entertainment. They went
through my laptop, asked me a lot of questions about smoking weed. Why?
Because if I admitted to something illegal then something else would
happen? I donât honestly know. They went onto my Facebook, looking
through my photos, and found one cover photo of the twin towers burning
with a banner ad with two blonde women on it which was titled âVacation
Chasersâ. When they saw this, they looked at each other smugly and I
tried to explain that it was a joke, that didnât go over well. They
asked if I had a copy of the Anarchist Cookbook, I said no, they didnât
believe me, and it continued like this on and on.
It was simultaneously terrifying and boring, which seems to be the
stateâs favorite combination. A combination of threats and talk of how
the TSA guy actually likes the YPJ, and that he saw a good documentary
about Rojava on Vice. They thought I was going to join, and also
simultaneously join ISIS, and also go to Greece and riot, and be a naĂŻve
student and write.
When I finally got out I had gotten to know the copâs problems with his
wife, learned why I should never get married, learned that I should hide
in this country, learned that he was going to make a personal phone call
to Greece so that when I tried to get in they wouldnât let me, and
learned what an interrogation feels like. I was abandoned in
Philadelphia and had to find a place to sleep.
When I finally arrived in Greece the next day the security personal
looked at my passport for two seconds and let me in. Turns out he didnât
get the call.
My dumbass gear splayed on the table:
They checked my Facebook,
interested
in which feed, what news,
what graffiti & how much,
ancestors & occupation, lovers
& enemies all splayed all
interested, dead & dangerous.
People
say that a pressure has
a direction but itâs not in
our plane, it comes down
from the gallery of history
& fears presented over
& over again, trusting authority
& its obligations to specificity
& cruelty.
-the morning of June 2nd, 2 hours, 25,000 feet.
The invasion was announced for the 29th. It felt like a slap in the face
to all of us, that they would dare come in, to the center of the square,
and give a talk about making Exarchia like any other neighborhood. Some
local politician looking to gain some favor and respect from the public
for standing up and facing the anarchist menace, the mindless hooligans
and mastermind terrorists. We heard talk of it at a cafe, which is where
you always hear talk, or I wouldâve if my Greek wasnât limited to
âfreddo (iced) espressoâ and âti kanis malaka?â (whatsup asshole?). The
politician planned to come in, escorted by at least one squadron of MAT
(riot) police, and speechify in the middle of the plateia.
The plateia is the convergence point and the point of departure.
Everyone meets here for beers, coffeeâs, bummed cigarettes, music, and
molotovs. The old, young, smart, stupid, hipster, hooligan, refugee,
rioter, maoist, anarchist, punk, poser, and progressive all convene
here. Itâs extremely small and lively, smelling a bit like piss and a
lot like bophos (shitty weed). In the center there are a group of
hippies, eyes closed, in circle, chanting and holding hands while
someone strums an acoustic guitar. By the beer shop, a couple anarchists
sit, dressed in all black, asking, âwhy did they have to come to our
neighborhood?â. There is political talk, talk of sex, too many
cigarettes, and of homes, lots of talk of homes. The square is home to
some of the people, others came here for jobs that didnât exist or to
escape bombs, and found refuge in the bomb center. Exarchia is a bomb in
the middle of Athens. Not only are there plenty of molotovs hurtling
through the nights, but the area is gunpowder. Radical ideas, stories,
connections, safe houses, and a âfuck youâ attitude combine with a
complete disillusionment with the government and economic warfare being
enacted plainly, a spit in the face, have made Exarchia fertile. Add the
friction of contact, of meetings, of disputes and of passion, and you
have an explosion. The area is encased in metal, like the gunpowder in a
bomb. Riot police vans stationed on all the streets surrounding the
neighborhood have turned it into a veritable ghetto. The danger from a
bomb comes not just from the explosives but from the shrapnel of its
restraints. In Exarchia if the explosion is big enough the police
splinter and spread into âcivilâ life, instead of containing the blast
it helps it rip apart the fabric of âpeaceâ. Politicians and capitalists
treat Exarchia carefully and directly, with flak jackets on, feeling for
the wires. Exarchia could explode at any moment in the middle of the
capitol, and it has before.
This politician talked about making Exarchia into a neighborhood like
every other neighborhood: diffused. There have been plans for a metro
stop (a classic gentrification tool) in Exarchia (even though there are
two that are both around 10 mins away), but it was put on the back
burner after anarchists attacked several metro stations in response to
the plan, breaking cameras, tagging trains, and smashing windows and
ticket machines. This event, planned for the 29th, was a trap. No
politician in their right mind would host such an event in the very
center, at the beating heart of their enemy. It mustâve been a setup. I
was reading The Art of War at the time, and thought that if your enemy
expected you to attack, feign instead. But, even if it was a trap, if
they could get away with such an event, it would have signaled the end
of Exarchia, it wouldâve shown that the neighborhood had given up and
that its streets could be reclaimed: a blow to the jaw which exposed the
enemies swagger as a stagger. Opposing bodies, within and without.
As soon as the word spread from the square outwards, it reconvened in
the mouths of the squats. What to do? Thereâs only one thing to do,
prepare. In squats around the neighborhood, people were being taught and
teaching themselves once again how to make fire. They were entering the
fiction, the world only put in screens, that I admired, but never
touched, the world that we are told exists, but which is forbidden, the
world which flirts with us, but never comes to party. Every party needs
cocktails, no one wants to come unprepared, but when one does come, and
they do, they are welcomed with open arms, and a suspicious eye. These
actions of defense of the neighborhood are their own training grounds
and filtration system. A small bearded man might carefully instruct you
while smoking a cigarette, whose ash artfully lands an inch from an open
gasoline can as the bottles fill around you. Or perhaps you heard the
news and showed up on the street, with a mask in pocket like the YouTube
videos told you to or like you saw on a Friday night at thirteen years
old leaving the plateia for your first real night out. Either way, plans
were drafted, materials gathered, and the solutions of many connected
but separate groups reconvened in the square the morning of. The
solution involved concert, watchers, backup, and patience.
Waiting is most of a riot. In any piece of riot porn, or story of
revolution, there is never shown the waiting. People making small talk,
in a plaza, waiting for the invisible queue to sweep through the crowd
until someone shouts, âÎÏαÏÏÎżÎč, ÎłÎżÏ ÏÎżÏ ÎœÎčα, ΎολοÏÎżÎœÎżÎč!â (cops, pigs,
killers), at which point everyone moves, some stumbling behind, as
people towards the middle of the crowd duck down and mask up, then move
to the outer ring to provide cover for the rest in a cycle until
everyone is ready. The always present anxiety of boredom, the boredom
before participating in an event. A riot is an event, itâs something
that will become historicized, itâs a thing that exists outside the
normal life, transcending reality, but before it is boredom, itâs
tether. Boredom is excitement and anxiety. It is like existing in a
movie, with suspense music, waiting as something builds in an explosive
act, it is draped in idle chatter, the need for another energy drink or
pastry, the looking around, âIs my friend here?â, âI think thatâs
them.â, âThis is going to be incredible.â, âI wonder how many cops will
show and how quickly.â. What we are waiting for is the synchronization
of image and reality, for our lives to make their rendezvous with
spectacular energy. Everything normal becomes tense, suspenseful, and
weighty in the approach of an imminent future. This waiting is having
the future known to be unknown. You know the riot is coming, you wait
for it, you wait for the moment when you will no longer be waiting, for
the moment where the future is erased.
A riot is defined, when in its midst, with the erasure of planning. Once
it begins every second that comes next is undetermined. In a strange
way, we are waiting for real life, we are waiting for the feeling of
existing in the precarious present of mass improvisation, of course
inspired by history and fantasy, but full of peril and uncertainty.
There are many methods of waiting: sitting on benches, smoking
cigarettes, talking about weather and stomachs, imagining every person
who you donât and will never know to, once adorned in the riot, become
the thing which we know all too well, from dreams and dreams of our
dreams. Will it be like we saw? Will it still feel like this boredom,
when it starts? Will it transcend monotony like the text we read taught?
Will it be wild like an orchestra of solos? Or will it be coordinated
like techno which puts us all in the collective trance of a steady beat
which we make our improvisations upon? It is collectively coordinated,
the sound of glass breaking, the rhythm, the chorus the chant and its
returns, the footsteps, the shouts that warn of the police closing in
which signals a retreat and the sound of a thousand footsteps. Before it
begins, I imagined a helicopter shot of myself and the crowd, the
seething dangerous group, the view from outside and above. When inside,
it feels like endless possibilities and no time to think of them, it is
instinct and it is trust. I was inclined to make this memory an American
experience, like in some ways I have done with this essay, one where a
space and a change is recorded and empathized with (made a world
through) a protagonist and their change i.e. me. The only thought that
concerned myself specifically was, will I make it out of here, or will I
be one of the people swept up, in custom, will I be one of the unwilling
sacrifices. The protagonist in me faded into the event, the riot is a
school of communal chaos, and of collective excitement. The protagonist
was no longer myself, but the unknown possibilities waiting in each
passing second; when this happens the riot has begun. Waiting time and
riot time are parallel and also distinct. Waiting time is social
anxiety, it is expectation, but a shift from whatâs going to happen
today, and how it will look in a book or video, to whatâs going to
happen now, what do we do. It is the difference of being within and
without. Outside and inside of the six minutes that will determine the
next six months.
Waiting doesnât have revolutionary potential in itself, but all
revolutionaries play in it. In America we wait to be hit to make our
history, we wait for the first couple words to be placed on the page
before we make it our poem, we wait for the title to be completed by our
enemies before we make our claims on its conclusion. In Athens, it
seemed as though, the slaves (as those in power would like us to believe
of ourselves) knew their condition as a constant state of warfare, and
so need no particular provocation to make their move, they do not need
to be hit by the whip to make an attempt on their master, instead they
plan and break into the house while the master is asleep, burning the
place to the ground. Are victims just those who wait? Anarchists who end
up in prison do not see themselves as victims, they see themselves as
those who have made their decision and who were punished by the enemy
for it. A riot is a reclamation of agency I suppose, but itâs a
terrifying one, and one that doesnât feel like itâs guided by ideology
or history. Or from the outside it appears to be branded by ideology,
when it is viewed in video or read, but when on its inside, it appeals
to nothing but instincts: love, rage, courage, and one of the biggest
fears of the modern world, seeing where our limits exist, testing our
capacities for courage and consequence. There are of course those who
âkeep their headâ and warn not to smash that shop, because it is not
âbig capitalismâ, but those are the ones that have either been jaded (by
repetition or by bringing waiting time to the riot (seeing the riot as a
wait for the revolution)) or were always too rational to be trusted.
I remember reading one text that basically made an absolutist claim
about the spectacular, saying that it was an outgrowth of bourgeois
individualism and of fantasy transcending reality. Reality transcending
reality is reality Iâm afraid, even if it didnât use to be that way, it
is now. The word for guerrilla in Greek is ÎșλΔÏÏÎżÏÎżÎ»Î”ÎŒÎżÏ (kleftopolemos)
which translates roughly to thief-war. When in riot, we stole reality
and fantasy from its definers, I feel ashamed to say it, but riots do
live up to their reputation/hype/image, spectacularity brought into
action.
The action to attack the invasion was centered on subverting the square,
or re-asserting the character of the neighborhood against a foreign
claim. It was a hip-hop concert, started early in the day, before the
police and politicians could set up, which would occupy the space, and
make it impossible to gather. The concert, the music, brought people
into an occupation through party, it was a friendly occupation, an
occupation without its name. On the outskirts of this party, there were
watchers, people ready for the attack. The anarchists had placed a trap
inside the trap which they were supposed to walk into. If the police
tried to move this party so that this politician could have his event,
the watchers wouldâve moved to action, coordinated by walkie talkies,
and would take the molotovs which they had armed the neighborhood with
and strike at the convergence. The rule of guerrilla warfare, is to make
attacks on your terms, and never defend a singular space, which gives
the advantage to the larger better equipped group. While the party was
ensuing, the fire which existed in the minds of the neighborhood and in
the square were moved around it, and the anarchists made the fire which
is part of the landscape literal. They hid fire in electrical boxes,
sewage covers, potted plants, so that the environment was equipped and
the infrastructure which the state hoped to expand became the hiding
place of the weapons which would bring them down. When the environment
is armed, the entire terrain is mobile, and dangerous, every step
forward contains a thousand imagined attacks. Everything normally passed
with less than a glance becomes a hiding spot (the active use of sites
of inaction).
Nothing happened. The party went on, people moved in an out, refueling
on energy drinks and cigarettes, and sitting in the hot sun of the
square. After four hours of small talk and dancing, we realized that the
invasion was a hoax. We found out the politicians cancelled the event,
they said because they hadnât received the correct permits. Perhaps it
was a conflict between the politicos and the police, the police warning
them that they wouldnât protect such a dangerous and stupid adventure, a
political stunt that would undoubtedly result in a battle. Either way,
the night before, anarchists had been preparing themselves for war, had
been making their hugs, their goodbyes, their decisions as to whether or
not they actually cared about this struggle enough to go to prison for
it, âWhat is the risk of this action? Should I bring my girlfriend?â,
âThe risk is federal rioting and 15 years in prison, so make sure she
knows that.â I was told every anarchist must prepare for prison, like a
mafioso, that it is a rite of passage, one that teaches you what you are
fighting for, what the wrath of the state feels like at its mightiest,
and what it feels like to live truly communally.
The people, waiting for a riot that didnât happen, waiting for an event
to bring them to the transcendental state out of life and into life. But
riots are always on the riotersâ terms or in the riotersâ time, and if
the provocation/invitation from the politicos fell through, the
anarchists had been equipped with expectation and molotovs already, and
were not ready to give up on some fun (and finding a home on the street
for their fire). The night was filled with fire and gas. In an alley
somewhere people gathered, opening up a bag to reveal a hundred bottles,
which were clasped by gloved hands which hid the sweat. They moved
swiftly in the street, and as they did, the drinkers and sellers in the
street calmly (and excitedly) moved inside and toward the windows, the
bachala was to begin, their shouts to everyone not with them of, âGet
out of the way!â was metaphorically perfect. The police, seeing the
masked ones coming, lumbered down the streets, hopefully questioning
their job choice as they saw lighters being drawn to the gas soaked
rags. The first group would charge, screaming or silent, I canât
remember, close enough to see that each policeman was the same, their
faces obsolete, and tossed their fire, some miss hitting a parked car,
another lands in front of the police (as useful as hitting them, because
it impedes their advance), and one lucky one lands on a copâs helmet,
and a whoop moves through the crowd. The first group retreats so as not
to be hit by the next volley, the second group moves up, one novice
throws their fire too early and it lands next to the feet of a
retreating comrade, âWhat the fuck?! Watch where youâre throwing
malaka!â. These riots are training grounds of attack as much as they are
the attack themselves, they are pregnant with their own regeneration,
and with a transformation of their future. It is a lot to be thrown
into, but it is an introduction none will forget, and fear loses its
grip on you the moment you attack. The attack is also a personal test:
Is this me? Can I do this? Am I also one of the ones I see? The moment
decides for you, and this is the lesson of the riot. After it feels like
this specific instance is finished or the police are advancing too
quickly, a retreat is set in motion by running, random people on the
street âwatchersâ (perfect word, because they appear as impartial
observers, but like all watchers, in their seeing they participate in
the event) will pass by without saying a word, their only communication
a hand with a finger pointed to a particular street, the masked ones
listen. It is repeated this time with a barricade, a burning trash bin,
filled to the brim (they are on strike, remember?), pushed to the center
of the street, making a temporary zone of retreat, some without molotovs
lodge stones from the street turning them into weapons of courage and
machismo more than anything else. It is a machismo which I was taught to
despise in my anarchist ways, but which part of me had respect for, as
one hooded individual with a small stone in his hand, rushed screaming
straight towards the police battalion, tear gas and concussion grenades
ricocheting all around him, and tossed it right as they made their move
towards the crowd. Maybe this machismo is not machismo, but only
self-confidence, and a willingness to impart his feelings into the world
and share them (I wonder how masculinity has been made to demonize
rage). His courage frightened the police, because it was irrational, in
their salaried positions they could not understand such an impetuous and
stupid move, something that seemed ineffective, but in their
incomprehension was fear. What situation had they put themselves in?
Their stumbling fear was their mistake, and with the individuals scream
the entire crowd followed, and the police left that street for the
night. Afterwards, people de-masked in corners where the eyes of the
security cameras were blind, and made their way back to the plateia,
where it all began. They stopped by the souvlaki shop, got a wrap,
rolled their cigs, bought their beers, some pouring them on their faces
to cool off the burn from the tear gas. Lively chatter and good fun, a
night well spent, I felt alien in that moment. I walked back to my
apartment that night, face red, from the burning of tear gas and the
smoke in the air, and when I lay down in bed, I couldnât reconcile my
life with the day. A day with riot time, transcended a life of waiting,
with an irrefutable present. During world making sex, one is merged
incomprehensibly with the present, all thought of the outer world, of
anything out of the moment is disengaged with to the point of it not
even taking a foothold in the brain, once it is done there is the
ârude-awakeningâ of returning to the real world, leaving the world you
created with someone. This was that feeling, of returning to the âreal
worldâ with an experience I couldnât reconcile with how life felt when I
woke up every morning and all the mornings before.
The revolutionary project has been given many appearances and
characteristics: a day that breaks, a process, moments escalating, an
abolishment of strata, quick change, the peoples united effort in drama
(and maybe comedy), an accumulation of contradictions that moves small
conflicts to open conflict, the destruction of work and of capitalâs
mediation. Revolution is often seen as an event, one that transcends
normal life, but which can also be put on the calendar. An event that
during its process stands outside of time and history, but which once it
has been âcompletedâ (ended, consolidated) it can be made stationary and
explained. We only have âfailedâ revolutions to learn from, so our
definitions are made in relation to and in commemoration of failure.
Activity is at the crux of the debate. Does one make revolutionary
attacks now, does one spread the theory and wait until everyone can
participate before the revolutionary activity can start, does
revolutionary activity infect the minds who observe them causing them to
participate, does one lead by example, lead literally through party,
lead through instigation, or follow the âmassesâ?
Not only is there a question of activity here, but also its environment,
i.e. waiting. Do revolutionaries wait for a moment, when the break with
previous life makes itself evident? Do they make their attacks now and
keep waiting for ripe opportunities and not for the full break? Are
revolutionaries even separate from the environment, or are they
(supposedly) the most observant and active arm of the environment, the
readiest to destroy and create new landscapes, or are they the dust
storm that changes the conditions of the atmosphere so much that a
recalibration and balance must occur.
Do they build structures that can be used once revolution has begun?
Here we see waiting as an environment, and revolutionary activity as the
map making, the observation and analysis of the environment, and
alterations to and with that life. The occult projection of desires onto
the landscape, that once delineated can be enforced and manifested. So
the revolutionary is the connection between stasis and planning.
Revolutionary activity contains planning, but the problem of
revolutionaries is that their actions and dreams can only be realized in
a moment of uncertainty, and the greater the uncertainty the greater the
potential, to the point where âoneâ does not know what will happen in
the next second. When âoneâ is living in a nation-wide rebellion that
didnât exist the day before, the dreams and not yet dreamed fantasies
could be just around the corner and can be ârealizedâ. Uncertainty has
potential by its very definition, but there are certain characteristics
of uncertainty which make it especially dangerous. When a person doesnât
know what will happen tomorrow, all the rules of alienation and
engagement with the world at large become obsolete or silly, they seem
preposterous and even risky. What is happening is twofold, one comes to
realize oneâs situation, and in doing so, more greatly comprehend what
the situation of ânormalâ life was before the present. The other thing
working here is that this sudden understanding by comparison also
reveals the absurdity of ânormalityâ, its undesirableness, and its lack
of promise, future, and security. The dream of security, the only thing
that the state purports its usefulness in, is vanquished with even the
smallest amount of uncertainty, and not only is the stateâs promise of
certainty and safety revealed to be untenable, but also undesirable.
This of course puts the state in crisis, and makes the state always on
the edge of crisis. The state whose job it is to manage crisis and act
as a buffer will go into crisis when crisis occurs, what makes our times
particular is that the piece meal work that gives the illusion of
culpability and ability of the state to manage crisis has been
completely eroded. Most crises now plainly come from the state and its
unwillingness to deal critically with its own position atop the razor
(and we must balance on its head). In response to the hurricane in
Puerto Rico, it moved soldiers not aid into the territories affected, in
Houston it abandoned ship, in Flint it covered its eyes, in North Dakota
it was insulted by its own failings and nudity. What makes uncertainty
so dangerous to the state (it is also a fire that it plays with often)
is that it reveals its own fragility. It means the collapse not just of
the specific project of a couple politicians, but the project of
statehood itself (which is why in school we always learn about the
fertile crescent).
So uncertainty leads to an increased awareness of normal conditions (or
a louder confrontation of life with its foundation) by contextualizing
normal life in comparison to this new situation of uncertainty. The two
forces at work then in an uncertain situation concern this potential,
whether it leads to a new and improved security or a future without the
causes of oppression an opening to a new dynamic. This is where history
becomes weaponized by the capitalist state and its associates, when the
present is uncertain one thing that can be both a marker for the future
and a refuge because of its âstabilityâ is the past. History in its
present form, cemented in writing, made stationery/stationary, becomes
the promise of the future, and it works because it is both secure in
that it promises a time when things were secure, and because its form
has been secured, and wonât be changed. It is the bones of those whoâve
died becoming tar in history, where itâs slow degradation away from
light and life deep below the soil turn it into the dirty fuel of the
present. When the capitalist state is in crisis it promises its two
histories of recovery: fascism and social democracy. One is aimed at
spreading an uncertainty that doesnât promise anything but death, so
that it can implement a brutal repression and order. The other promises
an incorporation of the bright future, where the change we seek and is
possible becomes monopolized by the state, repression comes to those who
threaten its hope. The main difference between them is who is targeted
by repression, who is invited into inclusion, and how admitted the
conflict/crisis is. If the crisis is accepted by the public to be an
existential crisis of the state and of capitalism and that both systems
should be destroyed, then social democratic policies must be implemented
to offset the brutalities of capitalism. If the conflict becomes one of
identities then this âproblemâ is admitted by fascism and transformed as
such, and the products of contradictions (discontent, poverty,
revolutionary activity) are eliminated by force.
The problem of waiting comes up again with these two examples, because
if people are to be moved beyond these two options they need to plan for
reformism and misdirection, and to bring uncertainty to a higher stage,
to open conflict. Uncertainty is waiting, or maybe it is waiting with
greater consequences, with a sense of urgency, with a sense of coming to
something historic. Then the question of planning again, do we plan, can
our plans get in the way of better plans, in planning do we determine
ourselves to history, or can we move beyond history.
So what gets us to this place of uncertainty, and what kind of
uncertainty? Iâve found in modern theory and in practice a divide
amongst revolutionaries. Iâll call it the red/black divide. I apologize
in advance for my caricaturing, which is the case with all theories and
generalizations, but this is done with honesty as well, as many
revolutionaries are indeed caricatures.
One of my first nights alone in Exarchia I wandered drunkenly into the
square and sat by a statue that is always covered in posters and
graffiti and which has been the locus of more than a few battles. A
group formed on one side of the square with flags and was chanting
loudly seemingly to the entirety of the square. I thought excitedly that
some action was about to be pulled off, one of those fantastic battles
with the police, this is the prelude, what a lucky night! One of the
people I had been drinking with didnât seem so excited by what was
happening and was instead looking around nervously, she wasnât really a
part of the movement, but not opposed to it at all either, and her
restlessness made me stay on my ass and not join in. Then I noticed a
man in a leather jacket standing near me, he had on reinforced gloves
and as I noticed those I also noticed the long piece of rebar extending
from them, which he gripped tightly, preparing himself, was he also
going to fight the police? No, he was facing the crowd, and then two
other men with metal joined him. I recognized in the chanters some
people I had been with in an assembly and went over to them, saying
hello, they seemed totally disinterested, and when I asked what was
going on they ignored me. After an intense 10 minutes the two groups
dissipated. I found out later from a friend who was there that I had
witnessed the near implosion of the anarchist movement, as two factions
which had been slinging mud, and beatings towards each other had almost
had their first real battle. I had made friends with people on one side
and found out from them, that since I had been seen walking with them, I
should not walk alone past certain squats for fear of getting the shit
kicked out of me, I had made myself associated without knowing it.
There are two mouths of the anarchist movement in Greece and one gets
fed and kissed more than the other which tends to curse more. The Red is
associated with the more traditional anarchist movement focusing on
labor, class warfare, more formalized mutual aid structures, the goal of
building a mass movement, federated structures, and remaining combative
in ways that are familiar to the leftist tradition while remaining more
faithful in its opposition to capital. The other side is the Black,
which is associated with more informal structures, illegalism, guerilla
attacks and riots, anonymity, expropriations, autonomous mutual aid
structures, associations instead of strictly bound groupings, and is
tied more with the âsecond waveâ anarchist movement and post-left. These
titles also allude to presupposed class designations, the red with the
traditional proletariat and the black with the lumpen and the labor
reserve army.
The anarchist movement in Greece originally began in the late 19th
century with anarchist immigrants from Italy and it was mostly an
anarcho-syndicalist (red) movement although it did have its black
moments with the notable assassination of King George the 1st by an
anarchist. With the rise of the 20th century communist movement and the
ensuing civil war, anarchism moved to the background as the struggle
became between the Leninist left and the right. The left was smashed
over and over again with its own aid and through impotence in
parliamentary politics and intense political repression. The polytechnic
uprising in 1973 resurrected the anarchist movement from a grave which
couldnât be found and suddenly anarchists were in the streets. This was
the case for most anarchists I talked to as well: red or black or
neither, they all traced their lineage to this spontaneous
birth-uprising and didnât believe me when I told them that a Greek king
was assassinated by an anarchist. The movement grew considerably in the
80âs and 90âs and 2000âs, all the while anarchism is being popularized
in Greek culture in conjunction with the rise of Bachala. The uprising
in 2008 marks its second birth and this one brought it actually into
mainstream discourse, mostly through disavowal, but also because the
uprising popularized anarchist approaches. Bachala, expropriations,
attacks on banks and police stations, which had been quarantined in the
anti-authoritarian xoros became popularized. Once these things became
widespread enough where they couldnât be ignored anarchism moved out of
the fringe lunatic category and had to be recognized as a political
force. This was cemented in the anti-austerity riots and demonstrations
after and during the referendum of the SYRIZA government, whose failure
and betrayal only solidified the position of anarchism as the only real
alternative for âthe leftâ.
For the Red, this was the moment they had been waiting for. The
traditional left had broken and they were poised to absorb the incoming
proletarian rebels who had finally become disaffected by years spent
toiling in useless and oftentimes reactionary political parties. The
Black was equipped to deal with this in its own way, but their audience
and participators were coming more from youth, drop-outs from the Red
movements, those who had been made houseless, and those who had little
left to lose and had decided that any and all political systems were in
their way.
The conflict between these groups might not seem apparent at this
juncture, but with the popularization of anarchism came the opportunity
for incorporation, this couldâve been made into a schism in mainstream
discourse, and in a way it was, but it also made legitimacy a game that
might have a real future for anarchists. With the influx of refugees
fleeing from the Syrian Civil War an urgent need for housing was created
which couldnât be fulfilled by the state, already austerity ridden, with
no interest in helping its own citizens let alone Others. Anarchists
took up the call, making refugees squats around the city. These were
mostly associated with the Red current and because the work seemed to be
charity by the mainstream (and was in-fact too much charity based for
many anarchists looking for more inclusive and non-hierarchical models,
where the anarchists wouldnât be the patrons) it became a well-liked and
encouraged phenomena, that even had the tacit approval of the state.
These squats still operate in precarity because they could be raided at
any time or attacked by fascists or the police or both. With the squats
and the increasing popularity of anarchists and of riots, the media saw
a need to make a divide between anarchists and the public by including
anarchists in the public. The Red, especially a few outstanding
organizations became known as the âgood anarchistsâ by the mainstream,
and the âmainstream anarchistsâ by the people in the square.
What this really meant was that certain anarchists were given a voice
and certain anarchists could not be heard except through their actions.
The media would politely if not resentfully talk to the Red, while the
Black would be heard only as the latest news-fear for the public. Not
only this but Bachala began being used by the news media as a way of
discrediting the anarchist movement, âoh, some good ones are doing work
for refugees and for the homeless, but some bad ones are making a mess
for the police.â These âbad onesâ were made out to be either a dangerous
threat or a trivial ill-intentioned nuisance. The Red was let in, with
that came a position to protect. Sadly this was internalized by the
movement to the point that one of the major Red squats put out a
communique and posted it all over the square denouncing the riots take
place in the neighborhood. This was too much for many of the anarchists
in the neighborhood, even the ones who affiliate with the Red, and gave
the split not just a tactical difference but an actual antagonism, the
Black felt that it had been abandoned to the police, that their comrades
wouldnât support them when the cops came calling or when the fighting
broke out, which was almost explicitly what this communique said. The
arguments were that bachala has no place in our movement, it is aimless,
only for enjoyment, âlifestylistâ, is not productive, alienates people
from our movement, etc. The argument for bachala was that it in fact
invites people into the movement, explicitly creates propaganda of the
movement as antagonistic to the established order, it is what separates
the anarchists from the rest of the political parties, and is what makes
Exarchia what it is: a cop-free haven.
This split was extended and reinforced with the trials and tribulations
of the Conspiracy Cells of Fire (hereafter CCF). The CCF is an anarchist
urban guerilla group which is the most recent iteration in the rich
legacy of urban guerilla groups that have operated in the last 40 years
including Revolutionary Nuclei, Revolutionary Struggle, Revolutionary
Sect, and 17th November (named after the polytechnic uprising). The CCF
made an explicit departure from these groups in that it was very much
anarchist and of the milieu. It distinguished itself through its efforts
to use anarchist theory in an effort to avoid the traps usually set for
those who engage in terror based politics. They stated that they would
still be active in the movement, that their way of operating was not the
priority or end-point of all other struggles, that this was a tactic
being employed in relation and solidarity with the rest of the movement,
that specialization of tasks/skills would be avoided, that they would
stick to replicable tactics, and that there would be no underground.
This already distinguished them from the 20th century, and seemed to
promise not only a break from the Greek history of spectacular failures,
but also a break from the Red Black divide.
The CCF states that they started with a group of friends who wanted to
do different kinds of actions and also wanted to make something
consistent. They advocated for people to create their own cells and
solidaristic groups, making informal networks more formal but without
becoming federated, retaining their individual autonomy and also
security. This seemed to at once transcend the split and make a
synthesis, in fact this was as much their goal as was their attacks:
âIn that context, we forged our own alphabet. Speaking the language of
direct action, we openly raised the issue of creating organized
infrastructure. As anarchists, we often distance ourselves from the
concept of organization because we equate it with hierarchy, roles,
specialization, âyou must,â and obligations. However, words acquire the
meanings given by the people who use them. As the Fire Cells Conspiracy,
we stormed into battle over the meaning of revolutionary anarchist
organization.â
I keep on employing the word "seem", this is because despite their goals
they only entrenched the divide. The Black supported the CCF more or
less, with critiques, but solidarity. The Red for the most part
completely disavowed it, despite the long history of red urban guerilla
terror groups, on the same grounds that they disavowed Bachala: it was
alienating, extreme, irrelevant to the peopleâs struggle,
self-indulgent, and futile. The funny thing that I found was that the
group was actually more popular outside of anarchist circles than they
even were within them. Before I came to Greece an attack had been
carried out, allegedly by the CCF, where a bomb had been left in the car
of Lucas Papademos (the unelected prime minister of Greece during the
economic collapse, âbailoutâ, and ensuing austerity measures). It
injured him, a banking official, and his driver. This attack seemed to
be heralded as a good thing by the people I had talked to on the street,
in Exarchia square, even my landlord wasnât upset by the bombing. The
responses ranged from, âhe got what he deservedâ, âshouldâve gotten
worseâ, to âevery member of parliament should be bombedâ.
This highlights to me the failure of engaging in the popularity game.
Yes, the goal is a mass-movement, a change at a fundamental level in
society as a whole, but if you chase after âthe peopleâ you end up
falling behind, aiming at a supposedly historical image that never
really existed in the first place, or worse, succumbing to the elitism
and ridiculousness of a conversional project. If you dive into the
pocket of the state you will be made into loose change. Pursuing
positive media attention, especially from a state which has been as
widely discredited as the Greek one, will not bring a movement closer to
âthe peopleâ. This bombing was evidence of that. There was obviously not
a single mainstream media report on the bombing which favored it or
thought it justified, but that had little to no effect on the people
whose lives were ruined by the economic policies he implemented.
What seemed most offensive to the anarchists associated with the Black,
was that the public condemnation of not only the CCF but of bachala by
the Red made the movement weak. It drew a line which allowed certain
anarchists, anti-authoritarians, and revolted peoples to be taken by the
police and the state. It was taken as a statement which proclaimed some
of our comrades arenât our comrades, if you capture them and put them
into prison we wonât say a word. This weakened the already fragile trust
and solidarity networks kept intact only through the necessity of
maintaining the neighborhoods functioning and autonomy. Diversity is the
strength of the movement in Greece and the multitudes of theories,
actions, squats, cliques, riot-gangs, all functioning in friction and
overlap, bridging and creating new gaps and spaces is what keeps the
xoros strong, but all that is brought to an end when a fight can result
in complete abandonment: to be stranded in the straights of history.
What this also does is turn disputes along personal lines into
ideological ones and the reverse, making an ideological difference into
ones that involve messy break-ups and underwear being tossed into the
street. Most dangerously, it reveals the divides in the divided, which
the state can move through like water (if it is competent or moves with
enough weight). A measure taken by one squat to overcome these breaks
was the creation of an assembly for the defense of squats which took a
non-aligned position; meaning the people involved would come to the
defense of any squat under attack, in spite of personal and ideological
differences, and also to involve people from the communities in which
they operate as a way of expanding stakes and terrain of the squatters
struggle. Instead of an eviction being a battle for one building, where
the anarchists are the disrupters, it becomes an issue of the police in
a whole section of the city, where they are the troublemakers.
There are some dirtier divides which donât fall into the dualism devised
in this chapter. One of these is the relationship of anarchists to the
mafia and to drugs and drug dealers more generally. The mafia has a
strange relationship to the movement, it has been made part of the
neighborhood of Exarchia for reasons that seemed ethereal to most people
I talked to. One connection is that the mafia is involved in the drug
trade, which has been moved more and more into Exarchia by a coordinated
police effort of relocation wherein they allow or physically move drug
dealers into operating in the neighborhood. I have heard stories of
police arresting drug dealers and dropping them off near the
neighborhood, telling them to sell there or theyâll bust them. Iâve also
heard stories of police making raids on junkie hangouts and telling them
to move their activities to Exarchia. Because of the police-less nature
of Exarchia dealers already make the migration thinking they can operate
more freely there. Drugs (coffee, weed, and cigarettes excluded) are
seen by many anarchists as irrelevant to the struggle at best, and
instrumentally damaging to it at worst. There is also a moralistic
element to the rejection which seeâs drug dealers as petty capitalists
who exploit proletarians and drug dealers as degenerates who impede
movement momentum, criminalize the neighborhood, and make the carefully
protected public spaces dangerous. This attitude has been combined with
the states weaponization of drugs and drug dealers as a criminalization
tool to create a very antagonistic relationship between drugs and the
anarchist movement. Most anarchists donât bring drugs into the squats
because of the fear of corrupting the political processes and the fear
of addiction that can take hold of a movement. They also donât allow
dealers into the plateia or into parties, as they invite a dangerous
element that threatens the well-being of the people there. I witnessed
in my time in Exarchia a heroin dealer getting the shit beat out of him
at a techno party for dealing on the dance floor, and a dealer stabbing
a migrant in the square for supposedly interfering with his business,
these relationships have dramatic consequences and also inform how the
movement relates to the public. The other connection to the mafia is the
alleged ties of some anarchist squat protection groups to the mafia and
of urban guerilla groups for the acquisition of weapons. These two
issues greatly divide the movement in that they foster distrust and also
elevate sectarian struggles to a possibly lethal level. Should
anarchists involve themselves in inviting criminals into the movement?
This could lead to more efficient and effective underground networks, a
larger base of supporters, access to an illicit economy, and a large
strata of disaffected anti-law people who could become potential
comrades, not only that it doesnât allow the state to define ethics.
However, in involving the criminal element one risks further demonizing
the movement, allowing for easier repression from the state, and
inviting even greater violence and infiltration into the movement, one
doesnât need the states ethics to know that inviting someone into your
organizing who would shoot someone for a bag of coke is not a good idea.
The other question, and the main focus of the questions in this chapter,
is how does the movement relate to those outside of it? Does the
violence enacted by certain elements in the movement alienate people
from these politics which have a radical potential or does the violence
in fact connect the movement to the greater whole and to a long history
of violent resistance to oppression? Does Exarchia provide the movement
with a base or does it quarantine the struggle? Can the
anti-authoritarian movement use mass-media to further its struggle or
does that delegitimize and divide the movement?
The juries have left the assemblies, and there isnât one body to begin
with.
Tending to the flame of rebellious knowledge is, in my opinion, one of
the main purposes of the anti-authoritarian movement. They keep these
ideas and actions going, constantly giving them new life, new lives, and
new grounds to develop, so that when the time comes they can spread
without anarchist kindling, as what happened in 2008. These debates are
crucial, their scopes are overlapping, and rarely their goals and means
are conflictual, but the key to increasing the friction is ensuring that
these separate pieces are bonded together in solidarity. If so, the
conflict and contestations that the plateia gives birth to produce a
powerful and sturdy movement through the exposure of faults and the
repairs. We are not trying to bolster an ideology, we are trying to
empower each other. As the old saying goes: a good friend is one you can
argue with.
Bachala is confidence in uncertainty, or maybe just confidence period.
The cultural climate of Greece and Athens lends itself to anarchists, or
maybe the anarchists made the culture lend itself to the politic, but
either way there is a symbiosis that makes what they do there possible.
But this symbiosis is not the sole cause of the powerful politics they
have developed, they have something that we here (myself of course
included) in the US lack more than anything else: self-confidence.
Bachala is wild and uncontrollable, once felt it makes you move to the
rhythms that felt too shameful to be displayed in public or even
thought. The situationâs uncertainty forces a situation upon the present
where one must act. Confidence in bachala becomes secondary, a chance
feeling which can be trusted or not to get you out of and into a
dangerous situation, the confidence to jump out and into is most useful
in the waiting period, in the event that births the event. âOh, making
bachala?â It comes with a wry smile, and gleeful mischief in peopleâs
eye, or a scornful look from the more tactful and serious comrades.
It is too indulgent for ârealâ revolutionaries. I want to linger with
indulgence, because most of the discourse around bachala from its
detractors, both revolutionaries and media figures, comes from a
demonization of indulgence. Revolutionaries fear the indulgence in the
excitement of destruction, the forbidden libidinal rage at the core of
many peopleâs personal investment in radical change, the thrill of a
dangerous situation that one has agency in (not the blind danger of the
everyday), things that anarchists have been caricatured with for the
last 150 years and things which continue to fuel the spasmodic eruptions
of conflict in the social sphere. The stigma of the bomb throwing
anarchist is powerful for anarchists, but they do not realize that their
quest to extinguish the flames of misrepresentation often leads to their
own repression and the stemming of generalized insurrectional activity.
This activity is the same activity which brings new people to the
neighborhood every weekend, which gives the migrants the power to reveal
themselves in the limbo they are trapped in and put on a mask and make
their struggles heard on a sweaty Friday night. The thing being danced
over here, is that the fear of indulgence is the fear of indulging in
catharsis. Maybe the detractors feel that catharsis would be premature,
and that we must wait till the day of reckoning to let loose upon the
world, but fire breeds fire, and fire is used to clear land as much as
it is to prepare it for the next seeds, the char is the fertilizer for
the generations.
Catharsis is also the unsaid starting point for the demonization of
bachala for mass media, and the reason for the creation of koukouloforoi
as an entity. Bachala is demonized as being the irresponsible act of
taking your frustrations and desires and putting them into action in the
public sphere. The public sphere is now everywhere thanks to
surveillance and online media, and by public I mean a place where
everyone resides, not necessarily a place that is free from private
property or the state, in fact quite the opposite, the public here is
the terrain of statehood. The streets are the public space of the public
spaces, the pure and super mobile terrain of cross-class interaction and
Exarchia is more of a true public in that it really is open and âfreeâ
for everyone (except the police) which is why the death of Alexis
happening where it did had such impact, but I digress. In not having
catharsis mediated by the processes of emotional institutions like
congressmen, grief centers, or courts, it becomes extremely dangerous in
its momentum. Koukouloforoi, the separate beings who enact these
catharses, become the outside other who instead of being a normal person
who is attracted to catharsis, is a thug instigator who lurks in the
landscape and who ruins good political actions with their violence and
arrogance by wanting to immediately enact justice, without considering
the proper authorities or the other protesters wishes. They embody the
subaltern, the lumpen whose actions dare to enter the public space, ruin
the possibility of the good life, they also embody the lumpen in that
they are ignored and hyper-visible, in they are useless and also
extremely dangerous and importantly in that they make themselves âbelowâ
the âgood publicâ in that they bring forth the uncouth desires residing
in the depths of the metropole. This invocation is the acknowledgment
that this class doesnât have the power of the traditional proletariat of
being able to take hold of the sites of production of society. They only
have power in their destructive capabilities, their power is to disrupt
and attack all of the things that make this paradise of boredom and
emotional abandon possible. Their powers of destruction do make things
however, Exarchia being one of those things, and the countless
friendships that burst through the political divides of the
neighborhood, are all encouraged in the acts of courage, power, desire,
and emotional fulfillment that is bachala.
It has been a suspicion of mine, that the etymology of bachala comes
from the Greek god Bacchus or Dionysus, the god of revelry. Bacchus is
the liberator, he encourages indulgence in sensual pleasures, bringing
to bear the individual against its restraints. When in the drunken
revelry of bacheia (the frenzy) one loses all sense of oneself, freed
from care and the insecurity that comes from the constraints of public
life: the constraints on people within themselves on how they move and
live, the encouraged self-paralysis. Bacchae is enacted in festival,
dance, music, wine, fire, ceremony. The cult of Bacchus is also called
âthe cult of soulsâ because of the blood sacrifices enacted in these
rituals (those killed or captured by the cops or the police themselves),
and also because Bacchus was said to be a conduit between the living and
the dead. The cult of souls might also refer to the liberation of oneâs
soul from the bodily constraints of the world, an invitation for
spiritual communion and relation that can be enacted in the here and
now, and not through the martyrdom of the monotheists where communion
lies beyond the pale. The connection between the living and the dead is
also the connection of the past to the present. Those who have moved out
of sight, who once walked in the light, and have now become subaltern, a
remnant of the history that was never written, come back to haunt the
present with the new enactments of the desires of the past. In the
festival, their stories come to bear, the hidden angers and truths of
all the failures and successes and struggles of the past are made onto
the present. Bacchus is sometimes called a âdying and rising godâ:
âIn Greek mythology Dionysus, the son of Zeus was a horned child who was
torn to pieces by Titans who lured him with toys, then boiled and ate
him. Zeus then destroyed the Titans by thunderbolt as a result of their
action against Dionysus and from the ashes humans were formed. However,
Dionysus' grandmother Rhea managed to put some of his pieces back
together (principally from his heart that was spared) and brought him
back to life.â
Bacchus is a demi-god, half man half god, he transcends humanity, but
does not leave its realm. He accesses divinity, and through the frenzy
his followers can touch that holy ecstasy. But his followers achieve
that ecstasy not by following a program of sacred words, but through
embodying their own pleasure and will unrestrained. Abolishing
alienation, people no longer are themselves by fully enacting themselves
in a destructive and creative communion (as I write this, it feels
dangerous, it is something I should not be praising or even describing,
falling for the seduction of âevilâ, or that such a desire cannot be
enacted because its destructive capabilities are too great). The riot
enacts reality through its transcendent spectacularity, it is a true
spectacle, a spectacle that breaks through the specter of normal life, a
festival of retribution and destruction, a forging of new relationships
to police, to streets, to strangers, to normalcy in the heat of its
fire. A street you would normally only walk on to get from your
apartment to the bus stop, becomes the site of a furious battle between
people and their would-be destroyers. The people you pass on that
street, who you avoid eye contact with so as not to breach the fortress
walls of their life (we have been taught to believe bodies are walls),
are suddenly your friends, people who you can and do trust your life
with as you combat the police, trusting them to keep you out of prison
and in the sustained present. This friendship, or comradeship, bleeds
through communal and personal experience through the âeventâ and into
everyday life via the plateia. The one-way street suddenly has a car
being pushed down the wrong direction, and then being lit on fire so
that, for that night at least, no one can have proper access to the
proper procedures. But its power doesnât just come from its ânewnessâ if
it did, it would become impotent once ritualized, because the nature of
riot is free form.
Once bachala is seen in person it is not forgotten, and Iâm sure every
cop feels the same way. When you hear a loud bang from a concussion
grenade as you turn the corner with a beer in your hand and see at the
end of the street a bunch of young people in masks attacking the police
with molotovs, pushing the police away from a squat and out of the
neighborhood, it leaves something with you besides the stench of teargas
and burnt plastic. But the âbachala fadâ has proved itself in Greece and
in Exarchia, and the places where it springs forth it does not easily
recede from. This attack may find itself in lull for a few years, but
when the time arises it generalizes again. In Exarchia, the anarchists
and koukouloforoi tend to the flame carefully, but with great relish,
and their diligence to explosiveness has paid off in the small world
which has flourished in the center of Athens. The cops are actually
afraid to come in, and this has allowed opportunities for things that
are otherwise even harder to accomplish. Attack as defense has proven
itself as an accelerant, making other struggles possible as it spreads,
defending the new struggle.
Bachala is not enough, direct action catharsis and the space it opens up
as an offensive defense and a place of communion and new relations is
invaluable, but it can also become stagnating, as its capabilities
become a crutch. Some comrades I was staying with, in discussing their
decision to squat in Exarchia, told me that their options and strategies
were two: one was to make their occupation in Piraeus and the other in
Exarchia. Piraeus is arguably the most defunct part of the city, known
as one of the biggest hotspots for the Golden Dawn in Athens, it has its
own housing crisis, a complete lack of jobs, lots of dilapidated
buildings, and the main industry is tourists who get off the train there
to leave for the islands; there are almost no anarchists there and near
no political action beyond the occasional anti-fascist demo (which are
somewhat dangerous in the neighborhood). Exarchia is the other option, a
veritable heaven for anarchists where the cops have a hard time catching
people, where there is a community, the square, cheap food (sometimes
free), squats, demos, plenty of occupations, good parties, it is where
the work has already been done. They chose to go to Exarchia and build
from the base that had already been created instead of trying to
transform Piraeus, this is one of the pitfalls of having a designated
home.
Capital flows freely through the neighborhood, profiteering from its
movement as it does everywhere it goes. If they began communizing the
neighborhood, then the absence of the presence of constant occupation
and warfare in the minds of the neighborhoods residents, partakers, and
participants would be eliminated. I say absence of presence because the
neighborhood exists in occupation, but can be forgotten in the normalcy
of daily life and in intoxication (although often drunkenness elucidates
conflict: bachala). The strength of their movement comes from its
visions and its ability to transform life, but if they enacted this now
the neighborhood would be destroyed: riot police is one thing, the army
is another (although the army is made up of conscripts and would likely
be as disobedient as the rest of the population, unlike the police who
are mostly made up of fascists).
The insurrectionists play the waiting game heavily. They wait for
insurrections to spread, and they wait to communize life and the
environment. It also comes from the unfair, but often true sentiment
that exists or at least represents in part, the attitude and activity of
bachala which is this: that the only thing that stands between the
people and history is the police. The police do have the power to
destroy the neighborhood, if only the public eye was removed and the
media hadnât promoted koukouloforoi in the public landscape.
The word koukouloforoi came about as a warning to the public. In 2008 a
15-year-old boy, Alexis Grigoropoulos, was murdered by the police in the
anarchist neighborhood of Exarchia. His death was filmed and news of it
spread quickly, police arrived at the scene and started to attack
witnesses, anarchists on the scene immediately spread out attacking
everything that made this world kill this boy, the situation exploded
and led to a revolt that shook the country for a month. The hoods as an
image were born in the occupations, arsons, and street combat. The hoods
as a term came about a little after the riots had begun, as a warning to
those not in the streets, to avoid the streets at all costs, because the
hoods were out and they would attack anyone at will, and were coming
after you, the âpublicâ.
Koukouloforoi means âthe hooded onesâ, âhoodsâ, and one favorable
reclamation âthe masketeersâ. The term âhoodsâ may seem like a thing
that arose from the streets over rollies (rolled cigarettes) and energy
drinks, but in actuality it is a word that was created and propagated by
the news media, a term that was put on the streets from above (From
security cameras, balconies, helicopters, satellites, heavens, CEOâs,
etc.). The word came lagging after the beat of mass molotovs and riots,
as fire became (or perhaps was resurrected as) a spectacular staple of
politics in Greece. Koukouloforoi was a way of turning political actions
into criminal acts, a way of associating revolt with poverty,
criminality, dirtiness, to turn a threat to the established order into a
threat to ânormal peopleâsâ established order of work and quiet.
Koukouloforoi are depicted not just as criminal provocateurs taking
advantage of political and economic crises to steal and cause havoc, but
also as a group of people so fringe and so on the edge of society as to
exhibit the nihilistic urge for destruction, and in this they opaquely
admit that these âhoodsâ are the living embodiment of the futurelessness
that now pervades all aspects of social life.
Part of the fear of koukouloforoi comes from the intense alienation that
our age is steeped in. Where nearly every person outside feels like a
stranger, an age where any and all information can be true, because we
are so removed from reality that we have no ability to verify life,
where we are more likely to trust what we read in an article than what
we see out our window. âThe Net-surfer is a traveler equipped with a map
the size of the country he wishes to explore.â In this climate of mass
fear and distrust, our own libidinal desires can be projected, and the
koukouloforoi stands in for this fear, of our own violent will for
destruction of normal life, and a will for embodying spectacular life,
instead of the boring, slow, creep towards an uncertain and increasingly
bleak emptiness. The hood here doesnât hide a familiar figure (grandma,
son, etc.) as the Zapatistas envisioned, but of the wandering stranger,
whose willingness to enact havoc combines with anonymity and signs of
the lower class to make it the ultimate foreign threat. This is the
pragmatic reuse of the archetype of the âforeigner in our midstâ, the
other who comes from amongst us, but is not one of us and is predatory
(like the vampire, werewolf, and terrorist (which comes with the
classist and racialized metaphors of savagery, a constitution of man and
beast).
The term bachalakithes, which means those who do or make bachala, does
come from the streets, from slang. This term has some similar
associations as koukouloforoi besides the obvious overlap in terms of
actors and activity. They both have disorder, mystery, destruction, and
an emotional release or drive as a component of their being. A desire
for emotional release, destruction, and mystery is a component of most
peopleâs lives, but by putting them in the realm of the Other, of the
agitator, there is an attempt to move them out of the realm of
normality. Emotional drives for justice, liveliness, and catharsis are
made into an unknown Other by their association with these words, once
the actions and feelings are Othered the actual people can then be
ostracized from discourse and from voice. The weapons employed with the
creation of koukouloforoi are those of poetics: namely metaphor. Words
that describe drives necessary for humanity are associated with those
describing âcriminalâ phenomena, which remove them from the possibility
of realization on mass and also attempt to remove them from the realm of
imagining its self-enactment (so they say, as if capitalism doesnât
require criminality, as if crime wasnât appealing).
This is also partly why students have been counterposed to koukouloforoi
so often by news media and popular discourse as well. Students
activities, are like those of the parties, they are formal, respectful,
unmasked, and are seen as aspiring members of Greek society who are
hoping to transform Greece into what it could be (through the proper
channels). Because of their position and credentials, students
supposedly occupy a place where their voices can be heard, because their
demands are articulate and researched. Koukouloforoi on the other hand
only have the voice which their spectacular actions force upon the
national (and global) stage, the riot forces you to look at it, and
imposes interest. This is, of course, the media representation of
student activities. In reality there is huge overlap between these two
âgroupsâ. Lots of hooded oneâs are students, and lots of these combative
actions take place around universities, as universities have some
protected status from the police.
Media representations of koukouloforoi, and their need to invent such a
term, comes from the necessity of mass media, civilization, and capital
to objectify things which cannot be sold so that they can become
impotent commodities. To make this a possibility, phenomena have to be
made into image, into archetypes which can be associated with histories
and fears. What we are talking about is the poetic battlefield, where
the powers of dictionaries, encyclopedias, and poets fight poetry, life,
slang, and humanity in an attempt to carve up and (re)associate ideas
and metaphors with the dead. This is the memorialized dead, the fixed
dead. Not the forgotten dead who come alive again in struggles for life.
So, the koukouloforoi is an archetype which has been invented to be
projected onto this lively phenomenon, which doesnât mean it canât be
re-weaponized.
What makes koukouloforoi such dangerous fire for the media to play with
is that it blurs the distinction between politics, fun, and catharsis.
This blurring is aided in part by the people who participate in these
events who are usually bonded by friendship (and if they arenât, the
event does that for them). The cult hero of the koukouloforoi can be
found everywhere now, it has become a symbol of modern revolt. From
Ferguson to Athens to Santiago, the hoods are becoming a locus of
unmitigated action, a symbol for movements whose aims are themselves and
the associations that swirl around them, who make no demands only
poetry. The media stoked the fire too long in its morbid fascination
with subaltern, lumpen, criminal, dirty beauty. The fire is spreading,
and the broken trees of humanity have become kindling. Revolt is in
movement, its self-confidence and daring generalizes itself, and the
media in its attempts to associate the phenomena with historical âevilâ
has instead attached all of the power of the dead who dreamt of living,
of the real history outside of books, who haunt the world to join their
descendants when the change awakens.
A man in a wheelchair
in a squatted park near my flat
asked me for a cigarette.
He said, âHalf is for meâŠhalf for my friend.â
He then wheeled towards his bench,
facing the street he looked once at me smiling,
pulling out an air-horn which let out a deafening
scream sending a couple hundred pigeons
scattering in unison all over the park.
He was communicating with the busses,
every horn they made he replied with
his own artificial cry. It seemed no one
would look at him, but the horn brought
people to attention, people are aroused by their
annoyance, and he was that.
One morning, after a discussion in the plateia a previous night about
knock-off Adidas over some beers, some people were informed by other
people of the need to protect the migrants outside of the economic
school in the center of Athens. Recently the police and fascists had
come to harass the migrants who peddle their wears (knock-off Adidas and
the like) outside the school, beating up and arresting them. This was
not only an encroachment of the police on the public space and on the
vulnerable, but also on the fortified institutions which are the
universities of Greece since the fall of the dictatorship. The selling
is done on the outside of the economic school ASOEE, âoutsideâ the
logics of classroom economics. The school has had its funding cut, its
study of abstraction has become confused, its own relevance has shown
its futility. The school is still packed, the flood of students coming
to study their own situation, but in a context with more equations. The
jobs arenât here, the ones that are wonât be of use as the economic
meltdown and SYRIZA dealings made so clear, the jobs that are around are
represented along the perimeter of the school.
It is not just on the perimeter, but also on the perimeter of each
studentâs daily life, that there is no money waiting, the only option
being the straight path into the fog of a future, which lies on all
sides. At the end of the study they will be thrown out from the study
and into the study. The universities are also much more diverse in terms
of class composition than universities in the US, so the reality and
conflicts of the situation arenât a shock. This future for the migrants
selling Adidas comes from the lack of the right papers, papers which the
students have, but will they deliver? Will the papers that they hope to
earn from the completion of university deliver? Most of the students I
spoke to had no such aspirations or fantasies and saw their study as a
way to stay out of the job market for a couple of years and get cheap
housing and food. Their future in the prophesizing of moneys whims
seemed as ludicrous as ever. Even the progressive âsocialistâ ministers
with all the right policies, predictions, weapons, and public support at
their back had no power in following through on anything, especially a
rehabilitation of the past and a past based on hope. The universities
and their protections are in fact a testament to the lack of a future
for the young.
Let us stroll through history for a moment.
In 1967 a military dictatorship was established by right-wing generals
backed by the US and other NATO allies, who feared that the center
coalition parties winning the election would provoke a red infection.
This combined with the countries long history of conflict between the
left and the right, including a massive civil war. The junta was brutal,
exiling âleftistsâ to the Greek islands, these islands are a history of
20th century Greece of their own, as they were used by the British under
colonial rule as a prison for those struggling against them, by Greeks
during the civil war to house communist guerillas, in the junta against
leftists (anyone who opposed the dictatorship including democratists),
and more recently as a purgatory for those unfortunate refugees who get
caught trying to live.
In 1973 after years of brutal rule, a revolt erupted which emanated from
the Polytechneio, it established a pirate radio station, assemblies, and
was literally a beacon of light as it had its own generator and the
state had cut out the electricity for most of Athens. The occupation of
the university ended with a tank crushing down the gates to which
students were clinging, which only generalized the revolt in which
dozens of people were killed by police. The revolt was successful
however, and ended with the death of the dictatorship and a transition
to âdemocracyâ (democracy is in quotation marks because the democracy,
like the one in Chile, would retain a good amount of the staff and laws
of the disempowered junta). One of the first protections set up by the
new government was making universities a sanctuary from the police as a
token nod to the student revolt. These laws have been slowly dismantled
ever since, to the point where over the last decade the protections only
exist through custom and public remembrance. The Polytechneio which is
strewn with beautiful graffiti and which features one of the biggest
squats in Athens (one of the university buildings), has been slowly
defanged by the State, by removing almost all of the departments which
were housed there, so that now only the architecture school remains, the
maintainers of the structure but not its content. This moving of the
student population away from an intermingling with the powerful Exarchia
history and presence has had mixed results for the state. The campus
however still plays an important tactical role as a fort in between
Exarchia and one of the two main streets that surround it, and acts like
a big, faction neutral squat. A MAT vehicle is always parked outside.
In 2017 it was occupied again by anarchists on the anniversary of the
uprising November 17th, and was systematically derailed.
On the perimeter of the school are tables, usually migrant laborers are
selling knock-off clothing, sunglasses, bootleg pornos, bags, and
sometimes beauty equipment (nail-clippers, combs, etc.). After a
particularly brutal beat down of a migrant worker some anarchists
decided that they were going to make an intervention, and so showed up
in the morning with masks and sticks and waited inside of the cafeteria
with subtle eyes on the street, eating free food that was gained through
the bullying of school administrators by anarchistâs past. All of the
universities I visited in Athens have at least one room dedicated to
anarchist projects, a squatted room (steki) with locks of its own,
usually stocked with books, helmets, sticks, and music equipment and
walls covered with graffiti. These safe houses are embedded in the
protected perimeters of the university which are built into the city, a
representative of Greeceâs once strong welfare state and commitment to
education.
The morning was early, anarchists waiting bored smoking in the shade,
away from the already scorching summer heat. Their masks and flags
grabbing the occasional glance from economic students filing in for
summer classes. Some stay at the front of the school some move to the
rear entrance. They wait for around 2 hours when suddenly an anarchist
with their head poking beyond the entrance gate has their eyes light
upon the most blessed vision and a joyous cry erupts from their lips:
âÎÏÎŹÏÏÎżÎč (Batsi)!â Everyone stands up quickly, throwing their
half-smoked cigarettes to the ground, running out onto the back street
where a cop car is sitting in traffic behind some cars. Some people
walking by stop to look, and a group of people at a bus stop watch with
some interest as a group of fifteen people interrupt their wait by
charging loudly towards a cop car. The police in the front seat, quickly
look to each other and make the decision to abandon ship. Both doors
swing wide, and the police bolt, the anarchists donât chase them down,
appeased with the car as sacrifice. Their sticks beat the car furiously,
the windows crashing everywhere, glass filling the streets and its
insides. The symbol was enough for a second, until one of them yelled
and found someone in the back seat. He was terrified, but quickly helped
out the back window. An old man at the bus stop still looks completely
unfazed. They quickly rush the arrested man inside, and begin slapping
each other on the backs, as the flags are washed with a cleaning
solution. The air is electric, an unbelievable thing has happened upon
this boring morning, an adventure which broke through the hours usually
spent staring out the windows of a classroom, the site waking a student
from their back of class daydream. As the freed man realizes that the
assailants are not going to harm him in anyway, as he probably assumed
he was being kidnapped, he quickly explains that the cops were in the
middle of bringing him to his court appointment for being caught without
papers. His cuffs are still on his hands. The celebrations are cut
quickly by thoughts on what to do with this âvictoryâ.
A pair of bolt cutters are found, and brought out to try and snap the
cord, they make a dent, only enough to reveal that there was an attempt
to remove them. A disguise is made instead, a long coat found laying
around is draped on his back so that only a little bit of the shiny
metal peeks out from underneath his sleeves. Calls are made for a car,
no one has one, instead directions are written on a tiny piece of paper
on how to take the bus to the courthouse, âA short twenty-minute ride,
only one bus change. Good luck in the courts!â, two people walk him to
the stop.
Was this liberation a liberation at all? What are the breaks with
normalcy, for whom, and what? The police knew the menace, the sight of
the black clad flag bearers, they also knew the pistol on their hip, the
prisoner behind them, and each other, and in the second between the
shout, the run, and the sight, they had made their decision to avoid
duty for a day. The migrant knew of his court date, his fate, his
journey, the dead end ahead of him, and the interruption which swirled
around him. For the anarchists the day was one of excitement and
revenge, but also a proof that they had their own power. The indent that
day was not in the cop car window, but the break in the role of the
police. The spectacle of violence interrupted the day like a gun blast
next to a deaf manâs ear. An unnoticed, almost ignored event, as
dangerous as it was explosive, but only for those who held the weapons
and could play the liberator for a brief moment, a loud secret which
could be held in the hearts of those who participated. Those who, on the
dance floor later that night on the top of Strefi hill (a hill park in
the middle of Exarchia), would give each other a glance and smile at the
misdeeds of the day which were now quieted, but lingering in the drum
and base like the beat on the car.
Perhaps the police, after having fled, decided to go to a café to
discuss how they were going to break it to their boss, and also because
they had earned a bit of time off. After talking about those fucking
anarchists and how those nihilistic teens made their shit job shittier
they wandered back to the office, got yelled at, explained themselves,
got yelled at again, and then went back to the beat. After work they
split, their uniforms stripped, their paid purposes taken off, they
resumed their lives as unappointed unnoticed people, and as persons. One
of them, after spending a long day at work and then riding home on the
bus, in the packed compartment, stepped on a young womanâs foot who
startled him with a yell and a curse, a quick apology putting the memory
of the day back under its covers. When he finally arrives at a small
apartment in Neo-Philadelphia it is dark out. He pulls some supermarket
feta out of the fridge and grabs a slice of bread, eating it and
considering the day while smoking, then going to bed, trying to get some
sleep before doing the whole thing over again, the image of the group in
all black running at him, ready to attack, lingering like the cigarette
burn on his rug, before he falls into his sleep.
Maybe the migrant worker, was liberated an hour or two too late, or
maybe a few days, or weeks, or years late. A court date had been pressed
onto his already bad luck like a seal on a bed of wax. He was working on
the street, selling pornos and knock-off crocs when the cops had picked
him up. Today was that day, when it would all be decided. Was he going
to go to prison and eventually be deported or was something else going
to happen? No telling what the other option is because I hadnât heard of
any. As he was packed into the back, he wondered what the next year was
going to look like. There was no future in store, or none that he had
the money to pay for. The streets he had finally become accustomed to
were passing by, the heat making sweat drip into his eyes, the thoughts
of the friends he made hiding in the back of his mind so as not to lose
himself completely to panic and nostalgia. Traffic on the road, and then
the sound of a muffled shout breaks his thoughts. Something is coming
towards the car, the two officers in the front look at each other and
then bolt without saying a word to him. Suddenly the car is surrounded
and glass is breaking all around him, he ducks to cover his head, what
the hell is going on. One of the figures shouts, the smashing stops and
someone grabs his arm trying to help him out the back window. Was he
being kidnapped? Why would someone besides the police want to take him?
Oh no, the fascists? No, they wouldnât attack the police. The glass is
brushed off of his back, the apologies said give a quick relief to the
flurry of motions. He is quickly rushed inside the university into a
room, escorted by, getting a better look at their all black uniforms and
youthful sensibility, most definitely anarchists. More apologies are
said for not noticing him, this is a theme in the life of the migrant
and the main tool in possession against the police: being hidden
unnoticed. But he had been caught, first by the police, then by the law,
then by the police again on the way to the law, but the clean chain of
bureaucratic niceties accompanied by brutal beatings had been broken in
a most unruly and incapable way, the interruption was joyful despite its
impotency. They took out a bolt cutter which couldnât make its way
through the handcuffs, and then a ratty blazer put on him to cover his
chains, but he was smiling now. He asked for directions and they
escorted him to the bus, on the two-minute walk to the stop he probably
received two hundred slaps on the back and shouts of good luck. The bus
ride was short and he stepped out onto a hot day, walking in,
âvoluntarilyâ to the ominous marble and cement court building and a year
in prison.
I'm at a protection party at a new squat,
an all-nighter till the cops come,
social awkwardness is a kind of foreignness
in itself, not understanding a word doesnât help.
Iâve grown so much Iâve become a baby again.
Meetings upon meetings, graffiti
together and a photo-op,
a guard asked us to please
come back at night.
During a riot you throw stones,
molotovs, getting closer till
you are theirs.
When they are thoroughly
teased and charged they
bolt longingly towards you
knowing they canât make the catch.
They are weak in that moment,
and susceptible to your fire.
Poetry knows no borders
it doesnât stop at the body
it meets between them.
Radical eyes look for nakedness
in clothesed doors, for fear in walls,
and love in stone.
Cracks open for humans
and water alike, but water
makes its own through erosion.
The hammer loves briefly and itâs
effectiveness is determined
by precision and power.
Despite what you may have heard
you must be sharp with a hammer,
not with bodies (unless the hammerâs
object is lesson or lesion),
a house or a nail or a word or a hammer
must travel light.
Prosfygika is a squat in the center of Athens, about a 30-minute walk or
6-minute bus ride from the plateia of Exarchia. âProsfygaâ means
refugee, and the buildings have served that name faithfully. The
apartment complexes out of which it is based were built in the 1930âs to
house Greeks who were removed forcibly from Turkey and traded with the
Turkish government for Turks based in Greece, who were also forcibly
removed. In a mutual exchange of claimed identities, lives were captured
and roots cut to encourage their growth: these two mortal enemies
expelled each other from their bodies as a sign of good faith, a
testimony to the internationalism of nationalism, and to their shared
willingness to sacrifice reality for the imaginary project. The
apartments have been the asylum of those at the whims of their
fatherlands nationalist agendas: first Greeks were removed from their
homes of hundreds of years for a political stunt, now todayâs refugees
whose homes were destroyed by bombs that fell from speeches and dotted
lines join those whose houses were closed by eviction and poverty. The
building acts as a visible memory of not only their struggles (seen in
the graffiti, repairs, banners, and families), but also of the greater
history of Athens (the facades are still pot-marked from British
shelling during the civil war). By the front of the complex is a
building which is being transformed into a tea shop, where a cup of chai
will be sold for half a euro; in front of that is an old memorial to one
of the communist guerillas of the civil war.
The squat is probably the largest in Athens, accommodating around 500
people, the vast majority of whom are squatters. The Greek government
promised redevelopment plans which have been in the works for the last
20 years, and in the early 2000âs the state bought most of the
apartments in an attempt to destroy the complex, erase its past â and,
of course, make some money. The residents fought the court, and over the
course of their trials and battles with the bureaucracy they ended up
squatting their own apartments. This battle with the state brought
together the extremely disparate inhabitants into a more cohesive
community. Out of this struggle was born a popular assembly, which has
generated one of the most powerful symbols of revolt in Athens. The
complex is in the center of enemy territory, to an almost comical
degree, and is perhaps more surrounded by antagonists than Exarchia. Its
cruel and obnoxious next-door neighbors are the Athens court of Appeals,
the Supreme Court of Greece, and The Athens Police Headquarters.
The refugees living in these squats need papers which they cannot get
because of the lawmakers next door, and when they try to act without
them they get a visit from the other next-door neighbors, and when they
complain too loudly they get locked up in the basement of their other
neighbors. These institutions already attract fascists, but recently
they had an influx. Several leaders of the Golden Dawn were facing trial
for charges, which included possession of quite a number of illegal
guns, in the supreme court building. The fascists had to show solidarity
with their leaders and so came out in mass, and what did they find right
next door? A gigantic housing complex filled with refugees and
anarchists, since they assembled with anger in their hearts and their
enemies of the street were right in front of them, skirmishes ensued.
The police eventually arrived to back up and protect the fascists.
In the days that followed this skirmish, the assembly was made more
popular and began to make new plans, and to try to do what
revolutionaries do, invite uncertainty to the party. Both paid off. The
next day of the trial people were made ready and informed. When the
fascists and police did come they found themselves equipped for dealing
with âmilitantsâ but were completely unequipped and unable to deal with
elderly women tossing cobblestones at them while holding their
handkerchiefs over their noses and mouths to combat the tear gas. The
barrage that rained down on the police was not just of objects, but
shouts from all walks of life, and images which they hadnât dreamed
could affront the public vision of democracy (a project which in Greece
probably has more weight to it than the US). The assembly had prepared
the way, and then stepped out of the way, for the democracy that goes
without a name. The battle was decisively won, and Prosfygyka became the
dark spot in the middle of the legitimation center of Athens.
Let me explicate a little more about the squat. At the beginning of the
2000âs the complex was quite empty, and it was primarily squatted out of
necessity. People who are homeless will look for homes, and homes
without people will cry out through their empty windows to those who
will take care of and love them. Those people came from all types of
backgrounds refugees, migrants, the unemployed, homeless people, junkies
being treated at the nearby hospital, anarchists, punks, political
escapees. But they were all refugees. They were refugees from the
capitalist war. Those who had been counted among the dead, despite their
breath, those who had dodged bombs, left prisons with nowhere to go, and
had no hope or chance with the culture or the future; those swept into
the cracks. But the cracks are deep, and cracks can be made into
tunnels.
The necessity bred community (which I guess now has become a trope, of
the disaster communist), and as the needs began to be met they bred new
needs but of a much different kind. The refugeeâs covert existence of
hiding their expropriation and therefore hiding their own survival and
existence had become vibrant through their successes. Their conspiracy
created a community which succeeded well enough to attract attention.
When they were forced into a defensive position of conflict instead of
sticking to avoidance and staying underground, they had given themselves
the opportunity to show off their work through a series of spectacular
battles with surprising consequences. The attraction of evictors and the
dangers of the state had brought these people to a new (and very old)
place of hiding, a place meant as a dusty, protective, blanket to
problems fundamental problems to capitalism and Greek society, namely
the tribulations of nationalism and the failure of the state to
concretely provide for its people or even its own image of the
nationalist project. The state needs squatters, without them Athens
would face a drastic increase in homelessness (a massive problem
already) and a drastic increase in the population being housed in
prisons. The Greek state unlike the US state is not equipped to deal
with mass incarceration and doesnât seem likely to be in the future. The
dangers of squatting in Prosfygika were enormous; if a person was
arrested they would only have to be moved a couple hundred yards to the
police station, and then a couple hundred yards in the other direction
for their court date.
Let us take the squatters as they are and move on from the history of
the past to the history of the present, looking constantly around,
bewildered and in need of solidarity and friendship as a cure for the
constant dislocation of chronology and permanence. Prosfygika is a squat
filled with refugees of all sorts, and in coordinating the basic needs
of the squat made an assembly. This assembly faced some difficulties
from its diversity, mainly from the language problem, which was overcome
with time, work, and acclimation, as people increasingly learned Greek
and English or found one or two people from each language to act as
bridges. One of the main strengths of Prosfygika is its international
character, which began materially and became intentional. The assemblies
are conducted in Turkish, Greek, Arabic, Spanish, and English (often
Kurdish and Farsi as well). The assemblies are not separate factions
which coordinate, but are a cohesive if sometimes slow-moving unity of
pluralities. The peoples position as neighbors of necessity, quickly
made the economic and political situation of the utmost importance, not
only as the common link, but also as the grounds on which they navigate.
Barriers breed breakers, as seeds break soil. The barrier of language
was not only overcome by the common assembly, where everyone could speak
to each other with moderate mediations (still able to listen to each
otherâs bodies and expressions unmediated), but also through the most
commonly spoken language on the planet: food and hunger. Two important
food-based measures became a link between Prosfygikaâs inhabitants, and
also between Prosfygika and Exarchia. The first was the bakery, a place
where every week people from the squat and from squats around Athens
would come and bake their own bread at the bakery, paying what they
could and helping each other create food, in an effort not only to feed
themselves, but to connect the larger squatting community, and create
their own internal economy, with the hopes of becoming economically
impervious to attacks from the outside. These baking mornings were often
accompanied by political debates, guarding the perimeters, discussions
of necessities in terms of infrastructure and expansion, and long
beautiful silences. The second was a farm defense. The grounds of
Prosfygika are dry and hard, and below the dust, there is probably
concrete (although who knows, the buildings are somewhat old). Not only
that, the activity in the squat can be surveilled fairly easily, and
disrupted, because the perimeters are permeable and open. Gardening was
the solution, and so planting began with fruit trees along the perimeter
to act as a wall, a wall that could serve as nourishment for the
inhabitants, a way of cleaning up the landscape and improving the soil,
of increasing possibility for resistance by removing a method of
economic control (hunger). It also might result in your apricots tasting
like tear gas, but this is living!
An old antifascist on a bike
took me in his sidecar,
relaying a kindness and a story
of growing in the shadow of
the guerillas in Greece.
Their fight, their protection,
their eventual extermination.
Working the fields at four years
and fleeing into the forest when
his mother saw the planes.
That night I dreamt I was with
my high school friends in a hotel
drifting in space.
When I was finally ready it was too late.
I understood death as a technocrat,
I had to finish packing, the journey must run,
what ethics does survival bring,
but I had to accomplish my duty in accorded time.
Itâs been a year, but Athens still burns like a dumpster lit on fire and
put into the middle of the road of my life. The dumpster, filled with
the debris, the refuse, the memories I thought forgotten, the little
details I hadnât thought important enough to keep from the landfills
(the unconscious of commodity life), all set ablaze and in their fiery
light filling my skies with their smoke, as they dissipate into the
atmosphere. Last night, as I attempted to fall asleep next to a loved
one, the heat of that fire and the smell of that smoke wafted into the
cold room bedroom of my shitty college dorm housing, and the feeling of
Athens wouldnât leave me. Despite the internet I have become sequestered
with my memories, and my reaching back to the past which is
simultaneously a reach across the digital to the world where my comrades
are still fighting, has given me few replies, leaving me alienated from
the weight of this dream which I called my life. I found out a comrade
died in the struggle which I had thought to die in, leaving me
disoriented in the wasteland of the empty (feeling) American political
landscape. Here there arenât struggles that would call my comrades to
die in, and I cannot tell if that is a good thing or not anymore.
The dry heat and âmilitancyâ of the desert of Rojava once called me,
like so many Western leftists, through its projected imaginary, through
the digital portal, and through my devaluation of my own life, which had
given me the impetus to make it âinto somethingâ, by which I mean a call
to die for something, and I was ready. Now it seems I have abandoned my
suicidal hero fantasies, but nothing has replaced them, except for my
own desperation and increasing reliance on the presence of a
transcendent struggle waiting just around the corner which will wake me
from my senses like the smell of burning food, but instead sits
eternally on the supermarket shelves waiting to be cooked. I am overcome
with a desperation that makes this whole project lose its immediacy and
its poignancy, and the struggle which awakened me now seems in vain, but
maybe itâs just the walls around me muffling the horizons.
âThe Spanish Civil War of our dayâ I was ready to believe and in
believing die like those in the international brigades fighting on
ground but never for ground, maybe for a portrait of me which sits by a
lamppost or gets posted online. I met a PKK fighter in Greece, we talked
about revolution, and I argued with him over what he had experienced,
like a fool. We could barely communicate with each other, so instead we
got acquainted over beers and chess. I lost every game and he bought the
beers. His kindness shined through the crude gestures we were both
forced to make to understand each other, his mimicking of a machine gun
firing, that guerilla warfare is not revolution, that he only read Apo
in the years he fought, that in his years the only change heâd seen was
comrades leaving and dying around him. How do you write about something
which you only come to know by being far away from it? Everything turns
into love poems or repudiations and disconnections. I was given love,
but maybe by people with whom I couldnât share a vision, people whom I
betray with every sentence which questions them in this one-sided
conversation through the computer screen. I will not stop loving them,
and I pray that they will not die in this struggle.
Luckily, until this point I had never known anyone personally who had
died in âthe struggleâ, even though Iâm not sure if the struggle he died
in was his struggle or âthe struggleâ. Now I believe it isnât my
struggle, is a good death the one you choose? I hope he had friends
around him when the Turkish bombs landed on his life filled body. He was
an experienced fighter in all manners of the word, inside and outside
the anarchist movement, but how much can spirit and strength rail
against the cold plummet of a piece of metal? Many people including
myself are drawn to Exarchia because of its fantastic displays of
pyrotechnics: living inside the heart of an explosion, our bodies
casing, our spirits powder, and our contact spark and friction. It felt
like we finally had room to fly from the ground like saplings and bloom.
Each squat was our planting bed, protecting us from the harsh weather,
allowing us to conspire and gather resources, but which also identified
us as a separate species in the forest of Athens. We are revolutionaries
not because we are separate and militant, but because we are vigorous
and mischievous, because we are loving, and because we are unafraid of
illegality in the face of our own immiseration. But we are not gangs,
and some have been lured into this, that our illegality and our
self-defense are what make us revolutionaries, that our friends and
networks can protect us and move us. But we aim at transcendence from
the game of cat and mouse, from zones of defense, from work, and from
capitals cruel cradle.
Despite its failings Exarchia was alive, the roots went deep and linked
all manner of divergent measures. In its fractions and factions, in its
debauchery and ascetics, there was a thing that couldnât be broken: the
lack of separation between politics and life. All of our struggles were
born from our surroundings, and all of our actions mingled superfluously
with the social life, without becoming stuck in the word choices that
define cliques or other continuations of high-school social dynamics
leftists seem so fond of. Beers were kept out of meetings, but they were
not kept out of the streets, and once emptied they were filled with the
gas people pretended they would fill their imaginary cars with, and
tossed at the cops who would be working like any other day, kept
interested only by their own ideological persuasions and the speed being
snorted in their busses as they watched the game that their bets were
riding on. What will jobs make of us?
There are no jobs in Athens, which is why the squats are thankfully not
the property of the anarchists alone, and neither is the looting of
supermarkets; the anarchists just added style and pizazz and made them a
regularity. When a supermarket was raided by the anarchists, the cashier
didnât say a word, and barely even looked up from the register. One
woman asked in an annoyed way why they were cutting the line, but the
day in the market continued as per usual afterwards, and did not shut
down early. With wheels of cheese stuffed into suitcases, and gleeful
smiles wrapped around their heads, another monthâs food was secured:
another monthâs survival and, with it, a feast.
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