A few words about the Exarchia riots on 12th April 2025

In the evening of April 12th, we chose to confront the forces of repression in the streets of Exarchia. This conflict erupted in a climate of intense police presence in the neighbourhood by the state and attempts to instill fear among those who resist.

Exarchia constitutes an area claimed by the state and capital of all kinds (tourist-hotels, restaurants, bars, construction, housing-real estate, airbnb). By fast-track procedures, especially since ND has been at the helm of the state but also with increased acceleration from the covid and post-covid era, a relentless attack has been taking place on the characteristics of the place in an attempt to extirpate the fighting past of the movement, the insurrectional tradition and riots. Beyond the presence and attacks of the cops this is also carried out through territorial claims by the state with the eviction of the squats (in which SYRIZA was also a participant). This state/investors’ attack consists of the elements of repression toward the people in struggle, the displacement of anyone that ‘does not fit’ and cannot withstand the cost of housing and the establishing of a sterilized reality characterized by investment, over-consumption, surveillance, violent ‘touristification’, hipsterism, alternativism and police reppression.

In this way the attack is not only against the territory but also against revolutionary memory itself, against history and the subjects that have acted through time. It is no coincidence that the state in Exarchia is suppressing the following triptych: the Polytechnic University – Exarchia Square – Strefi Hill. All 3 areas have their own connotations: The Polytechnic University carries the history of conflicts of the past and present and is a place of rallying both for the anarchist space and wider movements, while the square and the hill are places that social resistance, talks, political events, clashes and the people of the neighbourhood’s cooperation at the level of socialization and contact with nature have flourished. The place they are dreaming of is a showcase museum of the Polytechnic University, a square full of shops and tourists and a hill for access to the few with privilege and money.

For all these reasons we wanted to make it clear in all directions that the insurrection is alive and is the only perspective and realistic solution for Exarchia to remain in the hands of those living and really caring about the neighbourhood.

Collateral Damage: Relationship of Means and Conditions

During the clashes, there has been damage to vehicles which were not the immediate goals of our action. We don’t ignore this fact. But the examination of these incidents cannot be cut off from the overall context in which they were manifested. The clashes on the narrow roads of Exarchia are conducted under pressure, with the intensity and immediacy imposed by the physical presence of police forces. In such conditions, precise targeting cannot always succeed. The use of specific tools on roads with limited movement and residential blocks, proved to have been inadequately calculated in some cases. We recognize this. We also found that at points where fires erupted near houses, the cops prevented the fire brigade from extinguishing them.

The battle condition does not offer the “perfect control” that could ensure that the non-existence of collateral damage. In any case, to highlight the destruction of private vehicles as a major moral issue reveals a distorted hierarchy of values. By the streets of Chile’s Santiago to Taxim’s uprisings in Turkey, insurrectional movements were faced with similar situations because the existence of insurrectional procedures brought them to the surface.

The night we clashed with the cops the Al Achli Hospital was bombarded in northern Gaza. When you compare broken glass and the metal of burned vehicles to lives lost, then the problem is not violence. It is hypocrisy. We are of the view that in a society based on property and individual interest, any loss of material property causes a reaction. The defence of life and freedom always has a price.

Police Repression

For as long as the police maintain its provocative presence in Exarchia the tensions and clashes will continue. And as long as they are not withdrawing, they will be the key factor in the reproduction of
instability that they are supposedly attempting to prevent. The state’s desperation to manage the situation was so great that the next time it proceeded to a blind evacuation of all the squatted and movement spaces of Exarchia in revenge. So they revealed their anti-anarchist plan and the criminalization of political identities as well as proceeding to make announcements that led to even greater totalitarianism, such as Chrysochoidi’s statements about the prohibition of concerts in Exarchia. A logic of blind collective liability for anyone moving and existing in the area for any reason. We know that any form of resistance involves the risk of losses, errors, deviations. We don’t stay silent, we don’t ignore them. We recognize them as part of the reality we are confronted with. But where complete submission is chosen, where silence is required in return for a falsified “tranquility”, we choose conflict. And whoever requires order without resistance, essentially requires unconditional subordination. As long as forces of repression camp in the Exarchia space, as long as any form of free movement and expression is considered a threat, as long as the neighbourhood is treated as territory for “gentrification”, resistance will continue in Exarchia – by any means required by the circumstances.

For the “good” and “bad” anarchists

In every moment of conflict, there are those who rush to separate their position. To denounce everything that does not fit into their own narrow framework of “correctness”. To present themselves as the “responsible”, “mature”, “good anarchists”. The recent confrontational presence in Exarchia was no exception. Some rushed to cry over burnt vehicles, to measure damage faster than the journalists, to quickly distance themselves — not for reasons of principle, but to protect their own political
“legitimacy”. The reproduction of the dominant discourse of “blind violence” and “irrational destruction” by circles that claim to belong to the anarchist space is not just a disagreement over strategy. It is
a conscious abandonment of the essence of resistance. When repression hits a neighbourhood, when the streets are closed by riot police, when all free movement is criminalized, the problem is not whether a few vehicles were burned. The problem is whether there is any will to resist left.

Those who rush to build political capital on the condemnation of the conflict, those who measure their legitimacy by the criteria of domination, have already chosen a side. And it is not the side of the
resistance. The distinction between “good” and “bad” anarchists is a tool of authority. When some from within reproduce it, they are simply confirming the role they are destined for: to become its “useful” interlocutors or the guarantors of “order” in the movement. In any case, the streets do not judge by statements and announcements. They judge by attitudes and actions. And on the streets, the real choice is simple: either you resist by whatever means needed, or you accept the condition that is imposed on you in silence.

The insurrection in Exarchia is not a stage.

It is not photographed. It is not rented.

It is a living process of resistance, born from the experience of injustice and matured in the field of confrontation.

We are here, with our mistakes, our failures, our anger.

We are here, not to apologize for fighting — but to make it clear that the battle continues.

And it will continue, as long as there are walls to tear down.

We are neither professional revolutionaries, nor devotees of destruction for the sake of it.

We are people who refuse to surrender.

And in this struggle, along with our successes, we will carry our mistakes — because we are fighting for something alive, not according to a sterilized script.

The streets belong to those who do not bow their heads.

The insurrection does not stop.

Fire does not forget.

The clashes are dedicated to those who resist, are tortured, fight, die for their freedom and are imprisoned in Palestine.

FREEDOM TO PALESTINE

KYRIAKOS XYMITIRIS PRESENT IN ALL OUR MOMENTS OF CONFLICT

SOLIDARITY TO ALL EVICTED SQUATS ALL OVER GREECE

INSURRECTION EVERYWHERE

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Translated by Act for freedom n ow!