Text of Thersitis (Anarchist, a place of intrigue & subversion in Athens) on solidarity in the occupation and reoccupation of the a/a space that is shared in the neighborhoods of Ilio and Ag. Anargyron

Recently another series of repressive operations against occupied spaces of the anarchist-anti-authoritarian movement  (a/a) has been underway. On 8/25, the self-managed squat Ano Kato Patision and the Zizania social centre are evicted, with the latter being reoccupied on 10/14 by comrades from Zizania and a number of supporters. On 4/9 the hangout of the anarchist queer collective Kaliarda at the Faculty of Law is evicted, which is immediately retaken by the comrades@. On 8/31, the first attempt to evict the Self-Managed Polytechnic squat is made, to be followed by three more, with extensive clashes between comrades and police forces, with dozens of arrests. The last unsuccessful attempt to evict takes place on 9/30, while on the same day the occupation of Evangelismos in Heraklion, Crete, is evicted, with ten arrested and one comrade seriously injured.

This story has been going on for years

Repressive attacks against of the anarchist-anti-authoritarian spaces   go back a long way. It seems, however, that since 2010 their suppression has been a primary concern of political administrators of all stripes. After the 2008 uprising, squatter projects and self-organized spaces are increasing, while in the social struggles of the period 10′-12′, the large strike mobilizations and neighbourhood assemblies, they are foci of resistance, planning together with a crowd of people a different model of social organization, with horizontal processes, without divisions and exclusions, with collective kitchens, self-education courses, events-discussions, etc., as well as a multitude of actions and interventions aggressive towards the policies of depreciation and exploitation.

The suppression of these ventures was and is aimed at controlling and/or shrinking unmediated action, neutralizing their uncontrollable character, as well as their interaction with ongoing social movements. And further, to limit the occupation itself as a social practice against the plans of the authorities – it is no coincidence that during this period many migrant housing occupations are also evicted, announcing that no movement for its emancipation, far from the predictions of the military life that at best awaits them, will be accepted. For this purpose, squatters’ eviction operations are always accompanied by their representation as anti-social spaces, where marginal and even criminal “elements” threaten the smooth flow of everyday life and the “common good”. A perfect reversal.

The occupations of the a/a space are territorialized ventures where the agendas of self-organization and solidarity are materialized. They are spaces for organizing resistances against the State, capital, patriarchy, against the world of oppression and exploitation. They constitute a breach of the institution of property, basic institution of the dominant, state-capitalist mode of organization. Relations against sexism, homophobia, transphobia and queerophobia are tested against the norms of dominance. A discontinuity in commodity relations, in the mediation of money, in relations based on profit and consumption. Against individualization, against any kind of separation. That is why they are and will continue to be targeted for repression.

The latest evictions are part of the counter-insurgency policies, the regime’s “prevention” policies against possible social eruptions. As such, they cannot be seen separately from their context, from the social and political context within which they are implemented. They occur in an environment of a more comprehensive attack by the State and capital against the exploited, an attack that is intensifying as social and class struggles subside. The recent labour law (which met with faint resistance) institutionalizes what was already happening: gruelling hours and rubber workers, treating them as expendable, with a triple-digit number of male and female workers killed by 2023 in all sorts of labour camps. The continuous price increases of everyday goods are yet another point of attack and further devaluation of the social elements at the bottom of the class hierarchy, without finding the required answers (collective expropriations in supermarkets and overall collective ways of resistance). State policies of discrediting vassals are legitimized by renewed ideological mechanisms of manipulation. The fires in Evia and more recently in Attica and Evros are justified as part of the so-called climate crisis, as are the floods in Thessaly. In this unfavourable situation, the “wreck” in Pylos shows in itself the position of the immigrants, the relegation of their life to a life of uselessness, being part of the politics of death. The leftist anti-government discourse embraces the well-known and easily digestible facts about the need for accountability, while at the same time solidarity is limited to offering help to the victims, unable to form dynamic fields of encounter and struggle.

Attacks on squatting ventures are part of policies to control and further curtail radical, oppositional discourse and practices. The provisions on the prohibition-control of demonstrations, the efforts for years to limit the possibility of participating in strikes as a collective way of organizing workers against the bosses (an effort that is accelerating after the last labour law), are moving in this direction. The attack on sit-ins in university schools, as well as the organization of the university police (which we saw make its appearance during the attempt to evict the Self-Managing Polytechnic), are signs of exactly this effort: for these spaces to cease to be socialization-politicization hotbeds beyond institutional and party channels, to be absolutely silent towards the state-business projects that run in the university institutions. The public space must be sterilized from the foci of questioning the dominant normality. The hangouts – those that did not receive direct repression with eviction – in order to exist will have to … comply: be registered, monitored and controlled through institutional-legal procedures, cease to be uncontrollable. Regulating and controlling “dangerous gatherings” to avoid social outbursts (and this has become more entrenched than ever in the covid era), so as to eliminate the possibility of collective resistance to dominant impositions, is a priority for political managers. In the same context, occupation, as a social practice, needs to be suppressed. The occupations of activists in workplaces as a means of protest, the occupations of students in school nuclei, students in university institutions, the occupations of housing for those who cannot or do not want to pay rent or refuse ownership need to be marginalized as a-social practices and as such, be suppressed.

The uniformity of the dominant regularity will be enforced by bat. The purpose is elimination from the public space of projects that are arrhythmic for the dominant development plans, those that, with their operation and interventions within the city, threaten the uninterrupted continuity of commodity relations and consumption. But we know it well: the regeneration plans in our neighbourhoods (so-called gentrification) always go hand in hand with exclusion, with our further devaluation. The regenerated spaces impose a specific model of life according to the circular scheme of work-consumption-work…, or of the visitor-consumer. Those who defile the dominant pattern will be treated as waste. “Clean”, “sterile” spaces do not fit us all.

At this particular juncture, in the environment of widespread futility, the almost non-existence of social struggles, the occupations and self-organized ventures of the a/a space are spaces of resistance, guided by solidarity, where movements are organized against the regime that wants us docile citizens. Where they struggle sometimes loudly and sometimes quietly, against the prevailing dictates.

The occupations and reoccupations of the spaces of the a/a space are a mound in the regime of futility and resignation, they are conflict with the regime of our oppression and exploitation.

Solidarity in the occupations

10, 100, 1000 squats

Against a world of organized boredom