A revolution in construction in Greece by Joshua Stevens (fr)

Translated Anarkismo. Clear: "On the first day of revolt, we attacked police stations," an 
anarchist in Thessaloniki told me last spring. "In the second, we attacked banks. Third, 
there was nothing to attack, and we suddenly had to face the fact that we did not really 
know what to do. " This seems to have been widespread anger. Occupations of schools and 
policies that occurred during the revolt led to what is called the Popular Assemblies in 
70 neighborhoods throughout Athens. Nearly half of them still work, composed of a spectrum 
of sometimes strange participants. Anarchists, local workers and local workers, and even 
municipal employees and office have everyone worked on this grid policy in democratic 
governance needs in the redistribution of resources and the strengthening of existing 
struggles against austerity and the threat of creeping fascism.

Their strategy can be read in a short article in 1958 by Colin Ward in the English 
anarchist newspaper Freedom, entitled "The Unwritten Handbook": "The choice between the 
solutions libertarian or authoritarian solutions is an everyday and all direction, and the 
extent to which we choose or accept ... or lack of imagination and creativity to discover 
alternatives to authoritarian solutions to small problems is the extent to which we are 
helpless victims of big business. " When a round of austerity measures include a new and 
even unaffordable tax in electricity costs, many Greek and Greek suddenly saw their power 
cut. Popular assemblies began to compile lists of households without power, classifying 
them on the basis of vulnerability (age, presence of children, etc ...), and have made 
people qualified es to restore their electricity illegally .

On a cold April evening, in the district of Perist?ri, the participants of the meeting 
discussed models to develop local economic transactions through alternative currencies and 
non-cash programs such as banks time. Round glasses following the workshop I gave last 
spring, most anarchists local issues and local-are known worldwide for their courage and 
war street were about programs Agriculture supported by the Community, a phenomenon very 
liberal home [NDT. United States], hardly considered policies (very radical in fact). In 
Greece, however, forge a direct relationship with the agricultural sector is a clear 
affront to the International Monetary Fund and its threats import thresholds, issued to 
force the passage of austerity measures.

During my few days on the ground in Athens, I was invited to an antifascist demonstration 
organized by the Popular Assemblies of the south of Athens. This marked what seemed to be 
an expansion of their role in direct confrontation Golden Dawn, where the state has proven 
to be involuntary, or unable to act. "If we do not resist in every neighborhood, they will 
soon become our prisons" could be heard reverberating on the facades of buildings. 
Counting by tens, I estimated the crowd at about a thousand, walking the mall adjacent to 
Dafni Metro, scrolling through several neighborhoods before reaching a former military 
building occupied and renamed Asyrmatos - Greek word for ' wireless, "in reference to the 
huge antennas exceeding what is now a fairly large community garden and a conservatory 
operated by the community.

In the adjacent neighborhood of Aghios Dimitrios, where the event was largely organized 
People's Assembly meets every week in the theatrical space of a local municipal building. 
Apparently, everything seems peaceful enough, to the point where it is provided in the 
agenda through an arrangement with the municipality. I was surprised to learn that each 
weekly meeting is a micro-occupation somehow, the participants simply come and take up 
space without any visible sign of refusal of employees, or police response. "In 2008 
(during the revolt), we occupied the building for a month," a local resident told me. So I 
think that for those authorities, 2 hours per week is an opportunity.

Popular Assembly of the oldest works in the Athens district of Petralona, ??which was the 
site of a recent and well-known murder of a Pakistani man at the hands of fascists. When I 
visited the Assembly last spring, and they they opened a space for cooking and coffee for 
informing people about food and food production, and were running a busy schedule of 
events on the health and mental health given by pairs, partly inspired by the Zapatistas 
in Mexico. Today, they and they operate medical clinics, dental and eye, in coordination 
with other Popular Assemblies on a non-monetary mutual aid.

While we serpentions in trade corridors and narrow streets of the neighborhood last week, 
all seemed quiet change from survival mode in a statement declared power. The action took 
the attention of passersby and bandwidths. Leaflets were thrown through the open windows 
of buses, supermarkets and even in the gentle breeze of the day. Two young women masked 
periodically darted out from the crowd, the canister peinturant a stencil on the wall with 
the front image of a boy raised fist with the inscription: "The son of Adolf will receive 
a blow black and red fist "(a reference to the colors of the flag classical anarchist).

The smell of fresh paint still hung in the air, fire its smoke appearing on the walls, the 
edges of the bus, and a new favorite target in the country, crisis facilities in place to 
buy gold people. These contractors are qualified mavragoriters [NDT. Reproduction of the 
term as appearing in its English version], a term coined during the years of Nazi 
occupation of Greece. "It was the Greeks, usually friends or sympathetic to the Nazis, and 
they took advantage of the crisis and famine that affected the country," explained a young 
woman who wanted to remain anonymous. "It has reached a point where they bought houses in 
exchange for two bottles of olive oil or quantities of rice."

That underlies the description of this young woman seems to correspond to the spirit of 
the Popular Assemblies: dignity. She referred me later in a statement posted on Indymedia 
Athens, in which the city anarchists denounced the neoliberal mantra heard throughout the 
country and Ethics mavragoriters: "There is no work shameful." Popular Assemblies seem to 
work contrary to what appears in the press release: "The shame is not a job." Survive just 
to relive stories of foreign occupation or fascism house for them and them is a dead hope.

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* Joshua Stephens is a member of the Institute for Anarchist Studies, and was active in 
the anti-capitalist movements, international solidarity and co-workers over the last two 
decades. He currently serves his time in the northeastern U.S. and in different parts of 
the Mediterranean.
Posted by Canadian anarchist Collective Emma Goldman