Update 25/8/23/, Cops are currently evicting Zizania squatted social center. We will update soon with plans for solidarity and resistance.
update 29/8/23, Cops are now putting sheet metal on the windows of Zizania. There are OPKE cops at the door.
We call for an immediate gathering at the corner of Feron and Aristotelous.
25/8/23 , ZIZANIA squatted social center in Viktoria and Ano Kato squated steki in Patissia have been evicted.
Zizania is a squatted social center that opened in early April 2021, during the second lock-down and shortly after the events of Nea Smyrni. In this context, we chose to open a squat in Viktoria– having in mind the hard repression that hit the squatting movement over the last years, the huge loss of organising spaces, the policing and privatisation of public spaces, and the marginalisation of the area of Viktoria and its struggles. We chose to squat this specific building both for its central location and its 30 year old history of being a self-organized space(with breaks) in this neighborhood of the marginalised, the left aside,the undesirable.
Viktoria is where we live, where we met, and in different ways became part of the area’s constant struggles. It’s a neighborhood of the marginalized— migrants, queer people, sex workers, drug users, poor people, and those the state and society pushes to the outside. It is created and maintained by racist police checks, fascist attacks, sexist harassment, forced social isolation, and deep housing precarity while replicating Greece’s external borders in its criminalisation of people of color through barriers to healthcare, documents, work and education.
In response to such large-scale capitalist structures and intentions we squat to reassert an antifascist, antipatriarchal presence and consciousness in the area. To shape and build community through practices of mutual aid, active solidarity, inclusive and horizontal organization. To challenge, deconstruct and seek to abolish all norms.
For 2 years Zizania squatted social centre organised vegan social kitchens, various workshops, feminist cafe Kafeneios, film screenings,political discussions, solidarity bars, language classes and self-organised food distribution. We created a free shop, library and barbershop and provided space for various assemblies which participate in different struggles. Through the anarchist political principles of mutual aid and solidarity the open social centre structure created a space to enact non-hierarchical and anti-patriarchical organising of daily life accessible to the neighborhood. We were also active on the square of Viktoria through organising various political and social events while resisting police sweeps and attempts to privatize the plateia.
For us the way forward is to resist and confront the capitalistic and legal structures that brought us here. We squat against cops, state,real-estate, patriarchy, church and ordinary indifference. We see this as a radical move to continue our struggles together and embed them in the neighborhood. We squat to breathe new life into abandoned spaces and open up new possibilities. We rely on ourselves and our relations.
It is clear to us that our eviction and the eviction of Ano Kato are part of the organized attempts by the state to repress free spaces that pose a threat to its system. A squat is a space where our values are put in the forefront, where people can be themselves and dare to build connections based on mutual aid and solidarity in an anti-hierarchical, feminist way. Any state cannot afford to allow such ways of existing outside of its sphere of control.
The state has decided to evict these two squats in a moment when there are fires from Evros to Crete, when just a few days ago more than 18 people died on the northern border, in a moment where fascists are organizing hunts for people that don’t fit into their ethno-capitalist nightmare. These two evictions will be broadcast and used to build a narrative that the state has complete control and is cracking down on crime. This news will be sold as part of the ongoing distraction and control methods of the state, an attempt to hide the real problems suffocating us.
The state will always fail to see that you can never uproot the wild weeds of resistance, mutual aid and struggle. Like weeds in the concrete, we will sprout again amongst all that is rotten in this society. In the most unlikely spaces, at the most unexpected moments, we will take back our grounds of struggle and community.
FIGHT BACK
SQUAT THE WORLD
Zizania stays
We call for a demo today at 19:00 on Koliatsou Square
Update 26/8/23, Photo from yesterday’s demonstration against the evictions of Ano Kato and Zizania. Hundreds gathered against the evictions of the two squats.
——————–
Solidarity from Reykjavik, Iceland
Today 27/08 we marched in the centre of Reykjavik, handing out the above text written in English to passers-by, hanging banners in the central parts of the city, shouting slogans in different languages and disrupting for a while their touristic normality of consumerism.
LET’S BECOME THE SAND IN THE GEARS OF THIS SOCIETY/ SOLIDARITY WITH THE SQUATS/ AGAINST THE STATE’S EVICTIONS AND MURDERS OF MIGRANTS
workers against latte macchiato
———————
[Krk, Croatia] Solidarity banner for the evicted squats in Athens
On Saturday, an initiative of people from the Adriatic Climate Camp, organised the island of Krk in Croatia gathered in front of the antifascist monument in Omisalj in solidarity with evicted squats Ano Kato and Zizania in Athens. From Croatia to Greece, smash fascism in football stadiums and in government!
———————-
Solidarity from Berlin
-We hear your call, you are not alone. From Berlin to Greece – solidarity and resistance is our strongest weapon.
///Call for solidarity and action/// “The last of the Greek forests are burning to the ground as a result of deforestation and commercial exploitation.
The Greek fascist State is using this, a problem they willingly created, with the help from the Greek mass media, to create a witch hunt campaign against refugees by again blaming them for the fires. And by this hoping to divide the Greek society even more and spark more right wing violence.
This is going on right now, in front of our eyes, as we are trying to put out the fires. And at the same time, just right now, the same fascist state evicted our last 3 Squats in the center of Athens. We are losing our forests, our structures, and people are losing their lives. We are in Hell. Let the world know what the Greek government is doing. Let the entire world know that we are fighting a fascist government willing to destroy an entire country, risking the lives of millions, to make profit and tighten their grip of power, all in the name of Nationalism and traditional values.
Don’t support the state of Greece, call it out for what it is – a neo fascist murderess regime. Organize, agitatet and take action”
——————–
Solidarity action for the evicted squats Zizania and Ano Kato from Graz – Austria
In recent days, two more squats in Athens were evicted. Zizania and Ano Kato. After the eviction of several suqats in Exarchia, they continued their plan to turn Athens into a tourist city. We see the connections between the new metro line, the destruction of the Platia and Strefi Hill and the eviction of our places. At the same time, the number of Air BnB apartments is increasing, more and more hippster stores are opening in Exarchia and rents keep rising. This is the typical line of gentrification. Gentrification is also a big issue in Graz – many old houses have already been demolished and replaced by new, fancy buildings that are hardly affordable for the former residents. Many of these apartments are bought by investors and end up either as Air BnB apartments or are empty to keep prices high on the housing market. For this reason, we opened a house in a former working-class neighborhood. It is located near a homeless shelter. It is in very good condition, has not been used for a long time and you are welcome to use it! The address is Eggenbergergürtel 28, Graz – Austria.
We send a lot of energy to our comrades in Athens and all over the world! We will not stop fighting! When the authorities attack one, we all fight back!