How does it currently look with the well-known radical district of
Athens after the police attacks and the attempt to gentrify it? ----Shortly before dawn on August 9, 2022, the police moved into the heartof the Exarchia, a notoriously rebellious neighborhood in Athens. A yearlater, the central square of the Plateia Exarcheion is still occupied bythe police and the battle for this historic area is ongoing. More thanthe future of the Exarchy is at stake. In post-crisis Greece, thisdistrict is just one of the fronts of a wider struggle for public spaceand autonomy.In August of last year, the police moved to two places in Exarchia:Plateia Exarcheion, a small central square, and Strefi, a low woodedhill. A metro station has long been planned for the first of them. Thesecond of them was handed over by the city of Athens to a privatecompany for reconstruction. Both spaces are the only open public spacesin a densely built-up neighborhood with narrow streets. People will havelimited or no access to these places for years to come. In the shortterm, this means a strong and continuous police presence. In addition,these are significant steps in the gentrification of the historic community.When you go to the Plateia Exarcheion today, you see groups of policepatrolling around every corner. A view that was unthinkable a few yearsago. For decades, the Exarchia was known around the world as a center ofradical and anarchist politics - a rare enclave of solidarity and freeexpression in a European capital. However, because it was the epicenterof radical politics and resistance against the state and capitalism, itbecame the focus of police attention. If Exarchia is indeed arevolutionary stronghold, it has always been under siege. However, it isclear that the current intervention is different. It is the culminationof several years of pressure on the anarchist and anti-authoritarianspace, which began under the left-wing coalition governments of SYRIZA(2015-2019) and continues under the government of the right-wing NewDemocracy led by Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis. Numerous squats,While the constant presence of the police in the center of the Exarchiais in some ways disturbing, it is less dangerous than the future thatthe construction work foreshadows. These projects will furtherstrengthen a pair of economic forces, namely the real estate bubble anduncontrolled tourism. After the real estate market collapsed during thecrisis and tourism revived, Athens suddenly turned into one of thebiggest investment opportunities in Europe. New apartment buildings arebeing built everywhere and old ones are being renovated. Propertyinvestment and tourism have combined to cause the most significantincrease in short-term rentals in Europe. The explosion of apartmentsbeing added to platforms like AirBnB took off in late 2010 and continuesunabated. Skyrocketing rents and property prices are forcing people toleave. Added to this is the danger, that people will be forced to leavetheir homes because of debt. A dangerous legacy of the crisis is a pileof bad debts that can be sold to investment funds, which in turn canlead to evictions due to small debts and more cheap properties enteringthe market.A frequent and not exaggerated claim in cost of living discussionspoints out that people have to pay 300-400 euros in rent out of a salarythat is often no more than 600-700 euros. In Exarchia itself, apartmentprices have increased by 126% since 2017. Although the money attractsmany, it is clear that the short-term rental industry follows a typicalpath of capitalist development. Landlords are taking up an increasingshare of the market; a study last year estimated that more than 20% ofrental listings in Athens are owned by people with 6-20 properties.Exarchia has never been the cheapest place to live in Athens, but atthis rate its center, like most of central Athens, will be unaffordableto anyone outside of the upper middle class or the visiting touristgroup. A combination of state pressure and economic forces threatens tofundamentally change the character of the Exarchy. The Greek state wouldthus get rid of the thorn in its side and capital would gain new terrainto exploit.Exarchia will not be a museumSuch a development did not come as a surprise and did not go unnoticed.Recently, several groups have been formed to defend the Exarchia and theStrefi hill and to reject the subway. These and other groups that havedeployed various tactics have led the ongoing defense of the Exarchyover the past year.Many large demonstrations took place in the fall and winter. Severalthousand people gathered at the largest of them, which took place inSeptember, and there were significant clashes with law enforcement inthe Exarchia. The police presence has not suppressed the culture ofresistance, and clashes with the occupation police continue here asalways. Groups of protesters regularly lined up in front of the fencesat the Plateia Exarcheion and occasionally prevented work on the subway.Self-organized festivals and events mobilized music and theater andbrought other people. Attempts have been made to legally challenge theprojects in the courts and in the State Council, but with limited results.Like any campaign, this one was met with criticism. The text, whichappeared in May, pointed to the lack of physical resistance to the firstpolice operation in August last year and argued that protests, marches,petitions and rallies were only a traditional repertoire of actions anddid not adequately respond to the new threat. The reputation of theExarchy may also be part of its downfall. Its reputation as a rebelneighborhood encourages gentrification and attracts tourists,encouraging people to believe that maintaining that reputation is asufficient goal. For many years the Exarchia was as vibrant as ever withcountless political collectives, squats and projects, and frequentclashes with the police. Nevertheless, one can feel the deviation andthe lack of the overall direction and perspectives of this radicaldistrict. Without a revolutionary counter-project for this district, thestate plan appears to be the only long-term proposal.In addition to open and public forms of resistance, direct action alsoplayed a role. In April this year, an anonymous group claimed to havecut power lines and sabotaged floodlights and cameras used for work onthe Strefi hill. Another difficult question is how to deal with theexpansion of short-term apartment rentals. This new challenge willrequire evolving tactics. A common way to confront them directly was totag well-known apartments with slogans or throw paint on them, whiledisabling security cameras and damaging facades. Businesses that areseen as supporting the gentrification process are also targeted. From the streets to the beachesThe residents of Exarchia are not alone in the fight to defend theirneighborhood from the economic forces that are rapidly reshaping Greece.The combined effects of real estate investment, privatization andunchecked tourism are felt across the country.Athens Mayor Kostas Bakoyannis (nephew of Prime Minister Mitsotakis) hasintervened in many public spaces during his tenure. Sometimes, as in thecase of his flagship project, the reconstruction of Athens' mainavenues, these were costly and controversial fiascos, often involvingthe handing over of public space to private companies. While residentscontinue to defend Strefi Hill, a similar process is underway furthernorth in Drakopoulou Park, involving some of the same private companies.This summer, another local group mobilized to defend this park, whichhad been cared for by residents during years of neglect by themunicipality, but which is now being handed over to the private sector.Bakoyannis always frames these efforts as attempts to improve the livesof Athenians; but in general it looks like cleaning up and privatizingthe city to improve it as a tourist product.The spread of this economic model is manifested not only in cities. Inrecent years, tourism records have been repeatedly broken in Greece.More than 27 million people visited Greece last year, more than twicethe country's population. Small municipalities are at risk of beingoverwhelmed. In addition to increased demand for short-termaccommodation, this influx of tourists is putting pressure onausterity-ridden infrastructure. It prompts businesses to maximize theirpremises and profits in a short-sighted rush to enjoy this boom.On the coast, this takes the form of hotels and bars that set upequipment on public beaches and collect fees for its use. Limited andweak regulation of these businesses has resulted in large parts of thecoast being effectively privatized. The inhabitants of several islandsbegan to fight back. Residents' committees have been mobilizing sinceJuly, trying to regain their right to the land. The free beach movement,which started on the island of Paros and spread to other islands,opposed business owners and demanded the right to access this publicland. The mobilization has already brought some success. Businessmenvacated the beaches and the government promised to finally act. Withtheir protests, residents are slowly beginning to reclaim the placeslost to tourism and uncontrolled capitalist growth.Exarchia is currently Greece in microcosm. At a time when allprogressive forces seem to be in disarray and all attempts at resistanceare at a standstill, a rapid state-led and capitalist transformation istaking place. People's access to apartments, public spaces, beaches andentire neighborhoods is being taken away to support an economic modelthat is hailed as a miracle of overcoming the crisis and which benefitsonly a small part of the domestic and international elites, while thequality of life of those who live here is reduced . Developing aneffective response and alternative will be a long and difficult process.Such a response is needed from the streets of Exarchia to the beaches ofthe Aegean Sea.Source:https://freedomnews.org.uk/2023/08/10/exarcheia-a-year-of-occupation-and-the-struggle-for-public-space/https://www.afed.cz/text/8001/exarchia-rok-okupace-a-boje-za-verejny-prostor_________________________________________A - I N F O S N E W S S E R V I C EBy, For, and About AnarchistsSend news reports to A-infos-en mailing listA-infos-en@ainfos.ca
Geen opmerkingen:
Een reactie posten