Athens, Exarxeia area:Taking responsibility against gentrification and displacement by Anarchists
The gentrification of the neighbourhood of Exarchia continues at a rapid pace. Our rents are going up, Airbnbs are springing up everywhere, Cyrille-hipster shops are opening one after the other and groups of tourists are socializing with the cops continuing to pollute our neighbourhood with their presence.
At the same time, the control and surveillance of the area with dozens of cameras reinforces the repressive apparatus of state and capital which, together with the cops, are attempting to sweep and destroy of resistance, self-organization, occupations, the Exarcheia of rebellion. Latest attack: on the trees of the square, one of the few green spots in the neighbourhood.
A strategy fully in tune with the grim times we live in, where the bleeding from the bosses is reinforced by the anti-drug bills, the cost of living continues to rise creating suffocation, the cops continue their murderous work (see the murder of the Roma Christos and the beating of the 16-year-old anti-fascist Vasilikis), while announcements about changes to the Criminal Code foretell a future in which prison will be the immediate response to those who resist. At the same time, capital continues to flow abundantly into the hands of the few and business flourishes in the Exarcheia where we see, among others, Israeli business magnates getting rich through the displacement of the local working class, at the same time as Palestinian blood has drenched the Middle East .
But, as is known everywhere, exploitation and repression will always give rise to resistance and this is an inviolable rule from history. Putting our own minimal effort into this norm, we choose to strike back within our own neighbourhood, targeting the infrastructures of gentrification, control, and repression. We call for corresponding sabotage in every neighbourhood affected by the onslaught they call “development”.
• We smashed short-term rental housing complexes: Asklipiou 162, st. Komninon 8, st. Mavromichali and Vatatzi st.
• We trashed Airbnb cameras and storage boxes.
Redevelopment means the poor are displaced
Cops exploitation and exclusion, equals gentrification
Solidarity with the squatters and their struggle for neighbourhoods of self-organization and resistance
Anarchists
Translated by Act for freedom now!