In the events surrounding December 2008, it is often mentioned that December may have been triggered by a specific event, but the conditions for its expression had long been in place in the underground social laboratory. One of the most important processes was the defense of social conflicts, often at great cost, by the anarchist and radical movement, but also their connection with other forms of social mobilization that dynamically opposed the state, the police and the neoliberal policies of the contemporary capitalist paradigm. For years, the Greek state and its police have been looking for effective ways to extinguish the calendar sites of memory that constitute the meeting points of anarchists with youth, social struggles and the progressive world. Part of this preventive counter-insurgency strategy is the absolute restriction of the marches themselves, their suffocating control by the police, the terrorization of the participants in them and the burdening of the organizers in any suitable way. However, this was not an easy plan that could be developed from one day to the next, the extremely massive presence of the people in the demonstrations of both November 17 and December 6 was the first and most decisive deterrent factor, while the attitude of the organizations of the anarchist movement on the one hand and the relationship of trust that was built with the people who participated in the demonstrations also created a weakness for the Hellenic Police to find easy and effective strikes. However, this specific repressive plan had a very long horizon and many ways in which it was attempted to be imposed, while its -at least relative- success was of great importance to the Authorities.
We believe that the decisive factor that triggered the implementation of such a plan in Thessaloniki, to the extent that at times the paradox of applying repressive measures with greater intensity than those in Athens or even more intense than in previous years, has to do with the prevalence of the anarchist-libertarian ideological stigma as the majority current in the demonstrations and within the social radical movement of the city. A process that finds its roots in the formation of new, more stable organizational models by anarchist groups and the constant attempt to form intervention groups in social spaces, first in universities and then in workplaces. The above work was essentially fertilized with the outbreak of the movement against the University Police, the occupation of the Rectorate of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki and the mass student demonstrations that followed. Since then, the forces of the Left have been in decline while the anarchist blocs have continued to massify, constituting in their sum over the last five years the main backbone of almost all central demonstrations. This composition does not seem to have satisfied the prospects of the leaders of the Greek Police at all. The volume of repression is highlighted in its full scope if we include in a single cycle the 51 arrests of anti-fascists in the fall of 2020, the 31 and 16 arrests related to the occupation of the Rectorate of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki in early 2021, the 49 arrests at the Faculty of Sciences of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki in the spring of 2024 and finally the 112 arrests in the course of December 6 of the same year, to mention only the most characteristic cases. The composition of those arrested highlights the socio-political mix of the radical movement that the state repression wants to limit and undermine: anti-fascists, students, pupils, youth, young workers and members of anarchist collectives and organizations. To the above actions that resulted in the arrests of several hundred people (many of them the result of beatings and abuses) we can also add various other attacks on occupied spaces, political festivals, collaborative projects, etc.
The police plan escalated last year when they tried to surprise the organized movement with two parallel actions: the occupation of the area where the demonstrations of November 17 and December 6 would end and the blockade of the Rotunda area, while the peak of their aggression was the arrest of 112 people after the end of the march. Since the police did not find any other "good opportunity" to attack the demonstration, they decided not to wait for it anymore, but to openly attack the body of mainly unorganized demonstrators, attempting a mass arrest with the aim of terrorizing and recording a portion of the population that supports the anti-government demonstrations. However, the plan to completely block the Rotunda area and suffocate hundreds of people in cooperative and other stores there quickly became apparent as posing serious risks for the uncontrolled spread of police violence with unknown results even against passersby or neighbors. This year, the plan turned into a cordoning off of the central demonstrations at their end, of course with the main aim of targeting and isolating the anarchist-anti-authoritarian and libertarian blocs.
We thus found ourselves in the somewhat paradoxical position of the demonstrators demanding that the demonstration be concluded smoothly and the police essentially prohibiting its end by keeping the city's main street closed for more than two hours. A fact that highlights their priorities: in order to achieve the downfall of the radical movement, its fatigue and its collapse, they do not classify anything more than this critical task. They do not hide the fact that their ultimate goal is the complete crushing and dissolution of the libertarian resistance movement, however, this did not happen under conditions of intense pressure. At this point, the most critical clarification must be made: The pressure that the radical vanguard is subjected to does not arise purely from the position of the police; first and foremost, it is produced by the ebb and flow of social mobilizations. State repression steps into this void to raise its stature. In the reconstruction of the struggles and the social body of resistance, the movement should also seek the conditions for its development. For this reason, we should be very clear about the importance of broader social mobilizations. Both the mass demonstrations on the occasion of the state crime in Tempi and the current rural mobilizations are added to the reservoir of social conflict, and the forms of struggle have their own importance, especially when they de facto break legality. In this light, they are of great importance because they create rifts in the state framework while, under certain conditions, they cultivate consciousnesses in a radical direction. However, they certainly do not add up to the ideological reservoir of the libertarian or radical movement; almost all political spaces appear within these social dynamics. This fact should not prevent us from developing all of the available intervention possibilities we have, on the contrary it describes a new task related to the specific presence and contact with the struggling subjects.
It has been commented many times that the attitude of the police often differs when faced with demonstrators of the anarchist movement compared to other social groups that are protesting, even if they adopt, even temporarily, tactics of conflict with them. This may be an obvious assumption, and its explanation lies largely in the very social imprint that some groups have, while their political composition is such that trade unionists who participate in the struggles may at the same time maintain ideological or even organizational relations with the parties in power. As anarchists, on the one hand, we may not be concerned at any level with such relations, but increasing the social imprint of our ideological space remains vitally important. Returning to the Thessaloniki demonstrations, the anarchists may have managed to massify their blockades and emerge as a significant mobilizing force, but the social imprint of anarchism has not increased to a corresponding extent. It is characteristic that in this year's December 6 march, the numerous libertarian blocs that appeared were formed entirely by the political potential of the city's anarchist and anti-authoritarian groups and organizations. It was not possible to form a student bloc for various reasons, as emerged in the corresponding march of November 17, nor any student bloc, while the limited libertarian forces in the unions did not issue calls. This has resulted in the anarchist current still not being able to express broader social groups as such.
What we present today, however, as an observation of weakness, is a fact that has prevailed as a perception in the anarchist movement for years: in the central marches, the political groups, organizations and sometimes the more or less temporary open assemblies that are formed before them have the first and last word. The initial perception remains correct, but it seems from the flow of events that a paradigm shift is desirable here too. Calls for these demonstrations should be cultivated with patience and persistence in social spaces days in advance, exhausting the possibilities for decisions to be made by associations and unions, inviting progressive social aggregations, carrying out common substantive procedures between the organizers. A possible solution may lie there, as all the other plans and in particular the search for opportunistic political allies do not offer any particular prospects.
Concluding these notes, we must also say the following: many times the attitude of the police has been characterized as "irrational" while we also used the related concept of "strangeness" above, however, we do not believe that this describes reality. The police constitute the practical application of the current correlation of social conflict. Considering for a series of reasons that at this stage it enjoys the hegemony of neo-conservatism in combination with the self-evident and timeless state immunity, it wishes to exercise its power. Yes, it is especially valuable for the police to "beat for the sake of beating", this choice serves many and different purposes. Of course, however, it does not cease to be a dangerous practice for itself and mainly for its political superiors, among other things because it is also practiced by rabid fascists of the most pitiful and audacious kind. We have repeatedly admired this practice in the corresponding demonstrations in Athens, most recently the December 6 march, during which the Greek Police decided, completely arbitrarily, to cut off access to the monument of A. Grigoropoulos and to attack thousands of demonstrators without provocation. However, the riot police's batons, while they reveal strength, also hide weakness. Revenge is another process of the movement that the police and the state will have to face. However, the escalation of the conflict with the collapsing regime of exploitation, state crimes with dozens of dead, with the apologists of genocides and the stooges of the global bosses must never forget that it is not a conflict between the uniformed mercenaries of the Hellenic Police and the revolutionaries, it is a comprehensive issue of social war, which from our side we must sharpen in every way. So when we refer to patience in the title of the text, it does not mean that we applaud inertia and any complacency, but we refer to the maturity of the accumulated experience of our movement to manage to strike and defend, to clarify all possibilities and to act with a clear mind, choosing the appropriate moments of reconstruction and counterattack. Any individual tactics concern the movement itself and its procedures. But the conflict with the brazen and unbridled regime of oppression and the stagnant corruption and impoverishment that has waged a relentless and constant war against society is a social duty and anarchists should stand at its vanguard.
Collective for Social Anarchism - Black & Red member of the Anarchist Political Organization - Federation of Collectives
https://landandfreedom.gr/el/agones/2204-thes-niki-politikes-simeioseis-me-aformi-ti-diadilosi-tis-6is-dekemvri-sti-thessaloniki
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Link: (en) Greece, APO, Land & Freedom - Revenge and patience... -- Political notes on the occasion of the December 6 demonstration in Thessaloniki (ca, de, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]
Source: A-infos-en@ainfos.ca
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