On 04/08/16, an announcemnt was published on the transfer of 177 apartments in the neighborhood of Prosfygika Av. Alexandras from TAIPED in Attica. This involves moving from a scheme to sell the neighborhood for economic exploitation, and a new grand plan, that of “development” and “upgrading” of the site and buildings of the neighborhood of Prosfygika.
This development is not “a shock” as the transfer of Prosfygika was preceded by a prolonged evacuation threat of Vancouver squat (in Athens) and the rapid eviction of three squats in Thessaloniki, which were first in the program of state interest. These radical new developments are directly linked, and clearly show that the intentions of the state to increase their attacks and targetting against squatted commmunities. Through repressive and rapid evacuations, the state launches strong political attacks under the guise of social development for “degraded” areas, claiming they will trasform them into urban paradises. This policy strategy is aimed at the assimilation of the community of struggle in Prosfygika into the “civilized” urban fabric, and proves the “humanitarian” zeal of the government to assert its “social policy monopoly”, violating the self-organized struggles of the oppressed to take their lives in their own hands.
This is a new upgrade in the tactics of repression, partly because it reverses meanings and hinders communication and secondly, because it is directly in opposition to self-organized practices and communities. The processes of development creat and respond to artificial needs and not on the real needs of the world of Prosfygika. Specifically, the proposals include renovating Prosfygika to create a museum building, student halls, and shelters for the homeless and refugees. It is obvious these are artificial proposals in response to social issues misery and poverty, as in the neighborhood of Prosfygika already is home to the homeless, the sick, children and the elderly, the unemployed, students, immigrants and refugees. Which museum could show the refugee issue when the refugees and migrants themselvesare already living and struggling in the neighborhood, developing and connecting their daily reality to the history of the neighborhood of Prosfygika; the tangible and lived reality of the persecuted is in oppositon to the state-building museum cemeteries that bury the memories and stories of wars that have never ended.
The neighborhood of Prosfygika Av. Alexandras includes a diverse group of people, whose common point is prioritizing collectivisation on the material scope of the neighborhood, as the basis of community relations. Thanks to them, therefore, the community of Prosfygika responds to issues both logistically and socially, as a body of self-organized residents with common needs and problems without pundits and rehabilitation programs, but through the collective toil and labor.
Nevertheless, the “development” plan is not exclusively towards the architecture of the neighborhood but has a vicious purpose against the population of Prosfygika and it is a direct hit on their essential elements; self-organization and collectivization. It is clear, then, that this is a strike against the horizontal structures and self-organization from the structures of government staffs, and the leftist elite that completely ignores the real issues society in the impoverished and struggling Prosfygika community in particular. So it must be understood that the only competent body to develop, reconstruct and build this neighborhood is the body of the Prosfygika community.
The connective tissues of self-organized community are equity, comradely solidarity and relationships that shield and enhance the collective struggle for dignity and equality. On these foundations, the neighborhood of Prosfygika will continue to fight in the social movement against looting and state repression.
SOLIDARITY WITH SQUATS AND COMMUNITIES OF STRUGGLE
HANDS OFF PROSFYGIKA
8/8/2016
ASSEMBLY OF SQUATTED PROSFYGIKA