Thanks to our friend Kerrie Moor, who coordinates humanitarian efforts among several independent teams in Athens, we had a surprise visit last Friday. A lorry, accompanied by several gentlemen, appeared in the night and just dropped almost 300 kG of various food, including fresh lamb’s meat, vegetables, carrots, potatoes and onion. Next morning they surprised us again, bringing rice, lentils, various sweet and unhealthy snacks (THANK YOU!) and toiletries. Continue reading
The Mystery Of Cornucopia Lorry
Posted in Economy, Prosfygika Daily, Solidarity
Tagged distribution, food, infrastructure
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Infrastructure Challenges
Building computer network is fun, but to keep Prosfygika a livable place, we have to face severe technical challenges. And face them quickly.
Most of technical problems we can solve on our own, provided equipment, materials and funding will be available. What we need badly are skilled people to lead and coordinate work, and to turn our unskilled people into another skilled people.
On average, squatters do not pay a lot of attention to infrastructure, once bare minimum is provided. In single building squats the whole infrastructure is in, so it is at least visible and people have chance to check it easily. In Prosfygika, as it is a cluster of squatted apartments, there is a lot of “in-between” pieces, which are not properly maintained.
As the technical group, we focus on that part. Helping people in their individual spaces as much as we can, we decided that shared infrastructure is our priority. Because without it, there will be no neighborhood any more.
PROPOSAL FOR PARTICIPATION IN THE NEIGHBOURHOOD OF EXARCHΕΙΑ
On 06/12/2008 the occupying police forces murdered 15-year-old Alexandros Grigoropoulos. This murder was not an isolated incident, as noted in popular opinion, strengthened by state run media; but the expected result of political and economic power imposed on the weaker classes. The murder of the young fighter that stood against society and the state that created it, show openly that there is no tolerance for those who make the decision to self-organize, and to fight back for social liberation.
The escalation of class antagonisms (both intense and gradual) in that period, and the attempts to destabilize the regime by the insurgents forced kyriarchs to defend their privileges with tooth and nail. From the assertive marches of students of 06-07 until the murder of Grigoropoulos on December 08, the rage and social discontent against the police system directly targeted those are responsible for maintaining the system of imposed oppression and poverty. Anger emerged publically through dynamic demonstrations and strikes, in the main streets of the city and in smaller clashes with the police and emergency operations. The massive and consistent presence of those who could not be integrated and subordinated to the neoliberal project of the dominant, forced the mobilization of warfare tactics and terrorist strategy on the side of the repressive system.
The new state strategy attempts to weaken the radical horizontal movement, which seeks social liberation through the destruction of state hierarchy entirely. After organizing efforts fell from 2012-2014, SYRIZA took advantage of the weak social resistance to ascend to power, using state-economic factors to stabilize the state’s regime of oppression and exploitation. The new face of repression shows excessive bias- already evident in state terrorism- including the continuation of poverty and the attempts to assimilate the horizontal-radical movement. The leftist State intensifies and prolongs oppression and exploitation, attempts to brand anarchist and communist fighters as dangerous criminals, and holds these activists and revolutionaries in prisons, thus clearing the path for bosses and authoritarians to have total control.
The murder of the young fighters was a straight and unconditional attack by the state apparatus against those who do not submit before slavery, those who side with freedom and not with submission. Exarcheia, from then until today, remains a meeting place for those who question and do not submit to the state and social inertia. The struggle against the power and the state is seen in participation and support of social liberated territory and structures.
The squats unite the oppressed by erasing practically any hierarchical expression and are a direct example of social self-organization, against the monopoly and brutality of the state and capitalism.
BREAK THE SYSTEM OF EXPLOITATION AND TYRANNY
TO GIVE SPACE FOR SOCIAL RAGE
ON 6 DECEMBER IN EVERY STREEET
06/12/2016
ASSEMBLY OF SQUATED PROSFYGIKA
Posted in Memory, Struggle, Struggle & Solidarity
Tagged 6th December, anarchists, Grigoropoulos, Riots
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UPDATE FROM ANTIFACIST COURT SESSIONS 15/11/16
On November 15, comrade J. Kouvedakis went to court for the incident with DI.AS group in Victoria Square on the day of Imia (01/30/2016). The same day, several comrades were also on trial, after they were arrested on 31/10 for their actions to protect Prosfygika, Av. Alexandra, from fascists and state repression. Their trial has been postponed before. Comrades in solidarity gathered early in the morning and filled the halls of the court.
The Charges (the first comrade):
– Resistance
– Disturbing public peace
– Threating bodily harm against police
– Serious injury of police
– Destruction of property
– Refusal to give fingerprints
– Bearing Arms
The only witnesses of the court were six policemen DI.AS. The two of them ”recognized” the comrade, saying he attacked them with chairs, stones, helmets, bats and damaged police cars and motorcycles. A third, prompted by his partner, said that may he also though this comrade was involved and, though initially he did not recognize him! Based on the file, the driver of the patrol said the arrest was a result of damage to the vehicle. Meanwhile the cop DI.AS who made the arrest said it occurred away from the damaged care. The third policeman cast doubt on the claims in the file saying that the person who damaged the police car had a black helmet, while the comrade in question was wearing a helmet of light grey! The pair who made the initial accusation, as well as the third, made contradictory statements (on file) as to both the conception and the characteristics of the offender. Despite the contradictory data during cross examinations, the police maintained their initial testimony. Photographs, from a news website, were produced as evidence, which quite clearly showed to the police using chairs as a weapon.
At the end the comrade had a chance to speak, giving a statement the exposed political nature of the trial. The expected verdict is not only directed against him, but against the entire anti-fascist movement and its strategies against the fascists and repression. Anti-fascism is war against oppression and poverty, which are born by the state and capital. The global political and economic system that is responsible for the poverty of the people and for the wars of European and American imperialism in the Middle East. The police and the fascists have a common role, namely to safeguard the interests of the political and economic elite, and suppress any attempt by the oppressed class for social liberation.
The Jury continuously interrupted, in order to devalue the political motivations and defense of the comrade. In particular, the place and time of the arrest are directly related to the anti-fascist mobilizations during this period. The arrest took place in an area where refugees and immigrants are housed, on a day commemorating fascists of Golden Dawn, Imia. The Greek government helps shape the global political-economic regime, participating in imperialist interventions, forcibly displacing the people their homes and neighborhoods. Cops and fascists, ensure that the masses are squeezed out of such places, that they do not have the social territory to organize for liberation. Local people, immigrants and refugees must struggle together against oppression and exploitation.
At the insistence of the judge to testify as to his whereabouts on that day, the comrade replied he had taken part in an antifascist march. This started in Victoria Square, where there was already a calling for minimum solidarity with the refugees and migrants residing there. The march was an act against repression and the mercenaries of the state, with the result that part of the march was already mobilized to move against the police forces. He disputed the allegation that the police forces were already in the square because a series of small fights and confrontations had already alerted the march and the police to each other’s presence. The comrade denied the accusations of the police, and politically defended the need for immediate action against state, police and fascists. He closed by stressing that the fight for equality, freedom, solidarity continues in the streets. Wherever they meet, communicate and self-organize, the struggle for class revolt and social liberation grows stronger.
The prosecutor was, obviously, embarrassed during the speech where the comrade recognized the signs of class war – poverty, oppression and dynamics of social liberation struggle. Standing at critical jargon partner against class and defended as the 750 employees! He proposed condemning the comrade to 19 months imprisonment with 3 years suspended sentence on charges of corruption and attacks on policemen.
In conclusion, we can say that those who defend the antiauthoritarian struggle must be aware that we will not be treated equally in courts, even without strong incriminating information. The political nature of this trial was enough to override and support police lawlessness. Unsuprisingly, as the judiciary is part of the state, which ensures the safety of the capitalist system from any actions aimed at destabilization, a system which caused the suffering of all peoples of the planet.
Self-organization, direct connections, and horizontal organization in the oppressed class disturbs those protected by the fascists and state repression. The struggle is given without sacrifices and roses in hands. Despite convictions and repression, the struggle for freedom will always remain open and we need only our will to realize it.
SOLIDARITY POLICY – ETHICS – ANTIFACISTS IN ECONOMIC AND THOSE FIGHTING FOR EQUALITY, FREEDOM, SOLIDARITY
DIRECT DEFENSE OF SOCIAL GROUND AGAINST POVERTY AND OPPRESSION
REACTION TO FASCISTS AND REPRESSION
11/23/2016
ASSEMBLY OF SQUATED PROSFYGIKA
Posted in Solidarity, Struggle
Tagged Antifacists, Court, Police Operation, Victoria Square
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November in Greece
Mid-November is a strange time in Greece, especially in Athens. Especially if one is living close to Exarchia and anarcho-leftist groups of Greek society. Between 14 and 18th of November everything and everyone is focused on the November 17th anniversary. This is perhaps the most important Greek political anniversary: symbolical date of the “beginning of the end” of the junta (aka Regime of the Colonels) rulings in Greece. Officially dated 1967-74, it was a culmination of fascist domination period in Greece that started in 1949 at the end of Greek civil war, won by the royalist government. Desperate to keep Greece in the Western Bloc, USA and Great Britain not only allowed it, but provided material help to the fascists, effectively pushing Greece into 25 years of military and police terror and dictatorship.
17th of November 1973 is widely considered a symbolic end of that era. With massive demonstrations known as Athens Polytechnic Uprising, the social resistance grew strong enough to bring the end to the regime (officially: 24 of July 1974). Continue reading
ANNOUNCEMENT OF EVENTS On 31/10 & 1/11 in PROSFYGIKA Av. ALEXANDRAS
Since early summer, due to the the action of paramilitary murderers Golden Dawn in the Athens appeals court, the neighborhood of Prosfygika, Alexandras Av., has been in a constant state of siege, which has pushed to the limits all the people in and around it, as opposed to the state projects, law enforcement mechanisms, and fascists. The deciding factor of this situation was the decision of the head judges not to accept the political nature of the trial, playing with the balance of power, as anti-fascists and refugees were isolated on one side and fascists were supported on the other.
Ready and Waiting
It is important to note once again that in the neighborhood of Prosfygika, there are living about 500 people, squatters or not, of many nationalities, religions and cultures, the elderly, children, the sick, immigrants and refugees, between two hospitals – Elpis and the cancer center of Agios Savvas. The ongoing effort towards the devaluation, isolation, repression and plunder the neighborhood of Prosfygika, Av. Alexandra from the state and the market, is interwoven with the transfer of the Attica region last summer, the appeal trial of Golden Dawn, and in general the choices of institutions.
All the previous period, from early summer to the last meeting in September (30/9), state and fascists attempted to impose their presence against the neighborhood of Prosfygika. Their original plan entailed fascists in Degleri St. (running between Prosfygika and the Court of Areos Pagos) mixed with the cops, the fascist organizations in isolated Loukareos Street and undercover police as well as green riot cops stationed as permanent “protectors”, forcing the people of the neighborhood (Prosfygika) to “hide away, like mice in a hole.” These police stepped back due to an open advocacy call, which organized the community, refugees and people in solidarity to stand together. By mid September, the small number of fascists who were remained were forced to leave by anti-fascist slogans of this guard. The cops had returned to their acquired positions, ie the pavement of Degleri St., to protect the fascists during their entry and departure to the court, and at the central police headquarters.
On the court dates that fell on the anniversary of the murder of Fyssas, fascists upgraded their presence, as did the police, including on 10/14/16, where squads of riot police occupied Kouzis street and half the streets Koronias and Trichonidos cutting off large parts of the neighborhood. On 31/10/16 they attempted again to invade, and to violently break down the just self-defense of the people and impose their terrorism.
On the same day (31/10/16), at 7:45 a.m., at the same time that 50-60 members of Golden Dawn we approaching the entrance from Degleri St, riot squads invaded from Av Alexandras, attempting to push resident out. 10 fascists separated from the group, invaded from Koronias St, attacking simultaneously. Two people were arrested and then tortured. They were accused at GADA (Athens Police Head Quarters) with secondary level charges, and the trial was postponed to 11/15/16 in Military Courts.
After clearing the nieghborhood, creating a safe space for the fascists throughout the trial, Police turned to Trichonidos St. and tried to invade homes breaking external doors and using chemical and stun grenades between Elpis hospitals Agios Savvas, seriously endangering residents and patients. The organized defense of neighborhood residents spontaneously repelled the invasion. While other riot cops on the GADA side entered the neighborhood, attacking the people of the neighborhood and those whose came in solidarity to guard. From that time until 3.30 pm, there were fierce battles with riot police in the streets, either melee or from balconies and terraces, which eventually forced the cops to retreat. No incendiary materials were used for for the defense of the neighborhood, contrary to the regime’s fear-mongering. During the conflict no one was arrested, but there were several who were slightly injured, and several residents and guards who were taken to the GADA, but were released without charges on the same day. After the end of the conflict the neighborhood of Prosfygika returned to peace, free from the forces of repression and the terror, more united and more powerful than before. The only disturbance was harassment by undercover police the same night to residents of the neighborhood.
The next day (1/11/16), the neighborhood of Prosfygika was fortified and ready to resist against a renewed attempt of repression and fascist invasion. In the morning 15-20 fascists came to the entrance at Delgeri St. and attempted a new attack with stones, with protection from several units of riot police, prior to entering the trial, and were answered with stones from the neighborhood guard. During the following time, and ongoing court cases, there were confrontations with the forces, which remained at a safe distance from the neighborhood. The only exception, was an attempt by a riot squad to isolate a small group of anti-fascists from ORMA who were in the courtyard of Appeal side Degleri. The presence of residents and people in solidarity and threat to record the police prevented this attempt.
As we continue the meetings of paramilitary gang of Golden Dawn at the Athens Court of Appeal, the community of Prosfygika Av. Alexandra will defend its territory by its own efforts and the support of solidarity. A land that did not fall from the artillery of the English capitalists, nor the machine guns of snitches, and continues to stand as a barricade against the world of power, oppression and exploitation.
We clearly and publicly declare that we will not tolerate the exclusion of our neighborhood, which according to the judicial and repressive designs will be extended until the end of the trial, several months later. We will defend our neighborhood with determination and without counting the cost against the plans of repression and fascism.
Close the Degleri St enterance to the fascists of Golden Dawn
Stop the Isolation of Prosfygika neighborhood from repressive forces
Solidarity with the squats, and all who fight for freedom, equality and solidarity
2/11/16
ASSEMBLY OF SQUATTED PROSFYGIKA
Winterisation 101
Preparation for winter (aka “winterisation”) for squats has some specific material needs, indeed. We need to make buildings windproof and thermoinsulated. We need to provide people with beds (almost 100% sleeps on the floor) or at least with better padding. We need to stop drafts inside buildings (they are mostly public ones, like schools, with huge staircases and corridors — a lot of space for cold drafts).
The materials we use are a bit uncommon, but tested in squatting conditions in Poland and Greece, so if used properly, they provide basic comfort and safety.
1. Making the building windproof.
1.1. Glazing.
This one is a no-brainer. Every broken or missing glass pane has to be replaced. If the crack is minor and we are short in money and workpower (we always are), good old duct tape can keep the pane together and make it airtight.
If the pane is big or there is no way to put the glass on, we can use twin wall polycarbonate, plexiglass, or even clear gardening PVC foil. If possible, we avoid using non-transparent materials. Winter is dark and people are enough depressed already. They will need as much light as possible to get through the season. Also, using cardboard and other non-water-resistant materials is a bad idea. Winter in Greece means a lot of wind and rain.
Whatever we put as glazing, there are several ways to fix it. Standard silicone putty, mounting glue, hot glue — and the tape as well. Tape will also help us cover the gaps between the widow and the frame (remember, if you tape the windows shut, always leave one that can be opened for ventilation — mold is a standing problem in the wintertime).
1.2. Filling the gaps
The best (but expensive) way to keep the doors and windows windproof are rubberfoam seals. You need to measure your average gap to fill and buy the seal of specific thickness. Otherwise, if you can keep the door or window shut until the spring, you just fill the gap with paper, textile or anything and seal with the duct tape.
1.3. Keep the drafts at bay
There are three major ways to stop chilly air streams within the building and keep warmer air where it belongs:
- Curtains and partitions. Use heavy tarps to separate big spaces into smaller sections, to block the wind from outside door, to cut off unused parts of the building. If the tarp is metalised, put the silver side towards warmer part of the building.
Wherever possible, raise wooden partitions with door. It provides better comfort and insulation. - Drop ceilings. High ceilings mean a lot of air to warm — and a lot of space for drafts. Spread ropes at some 2.5 m level and put tarps (silver side down) as a false ceiling.
- Door skirts. Staple narrow piece of cloth to the bottom of the door, to close the gap.
2. Thermal insulation
There are two challenges in this area. To keep living spaces as warm as possible and to keep people’s bodies as warm as it is comfortable. We recommend three basic ways to achieve it.
2.1. Emergency extra glazing.
The simplest way to keep the heat in is to add insulation layer to the window. We cannot make squat windows double or triple glazed, but we can put bubble wrap on most of the panes (especially those which do not need to be fully transparent). For best effect, use large (~2.5 cm) bubbles. Wash the window clean and apply the wrap flat side to wet glass. Secure edges with the duct tape and wait till spring.
2.2. Beds or extra padding for sleep.
In the winter, sleeping on the floor sucks. Not only the floor itself gets colder every week (the worst situation is in March, when the building is significantly colder than the outside), but also the cold air is heavy and during the night it is highly uncomfortable to sleep low.
Our best recommendation is to get beds for everyone, especially bunk beds. We (LTG) are ready to manufacture practically every amount of them (materials and manpower provided, see https://daedalus.libtech.website/tag/shelterbed/). For the winter, they need just a bit of thermal insulation as a mattress: camping mat, double blanket or 3-4 layers of bubble wrap.
For those who still sleep on the floor, the best simple upgrade is to put a slab of hard insulating foam under their current bedroll. Use so called XPS (Extruded PolyStyrene) — the greenish-bluish plates, 5 cm thick, normally 50 x 100 cm. They provide adequate insulation and are hard enough to sleep on them all the winter.
2.3. Warm feet.
Instead of ever-present flipflops, during the winter people should wear non-slip socks, made of any material that keep warmth even when wet (wool, fleece, etc.). Not only feet are the most distant from heart (less blood circulation) limbs, but also they will be in constant touch with cold floor. So, keep them warm!
3. Ventillation.
Having a properly winterised building means that we need to deal with mold. Condensation from human bodies alone is enough to make problem, all water splashes and leaks notwithstanding. If possible, every room and space should be ventilated. Extraction fans (window-mounted) are the best. Otherwise, strict window opening regime has to be applied. Use every moment of sunshine to open a window, let the moisture out and fresh (possibly warm) air in.
4. Finally, heating.
Against popular thinking, heating, especially in Greek climate, is the least of our worries. Or at least it should be. People and equipment generate quite a lot of heat, so if the building is windproof and insulated, it does a big part of the job. In squatting conditions, where the electricity is “free”, people tend to overuse electric heating. It causes not only blackouts, but also fire hazard. So, every effort and expense to keep the heat in the living space means less heating — and less danger.
Light in the night…
Days are getting shorter, winter creeps slowly closer and closer and we will certainly have a lot of use for our power tools. It boils down to one word: electricity!
So, last night, our able electrician, B., came in to check the installation and deal with the nasty looking worms nest of burned cables sticking out of the wall in the main room. Continue reading
HANDS OFF PROSFYGIKA (against the transfer of 177 apartments from TAIPED to Attica Regional Administration)
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
HANDS OFF PROSFYGIKA
“Those who wait on the wooden bench are
the poor, our people, the capable.
The battleworn and proletarians …
… are our own Christs, our own Saints “
On 03/11/14, 138 occupied apartments in the neighborhood of Prosfygika turned over TAIPED (State Service for Sale of Public Property) in order to be sold and thus exploited. According to this plan, the explusion of more than 500 residents of the refugee, families, patients, immigrants and refugees, combatants and workers, will happen in the near future.
Before this territorial attack, there was a war of propaganda. For days, the ravens of the mainstream media attempted to create a climate that could pave the way for invasion by cops and fascists in the Agios Panteleimon area of Athens. Slander, depreciation and profiling are the propaganda arms of the state and the bosses, used against society and its struggles.
The impending destruction of Prosfygika as a proletarian neighborhood demonstrates all aspects and levels of urban cannibalism. The reactionary cries against immigrants and the poor fall in line with the agenda of investment companies and their undercover dealings with “progressive” charities, erasing dozens of people’s lives. It is typical paranoia, especially as those who claim to work for progress build the most nightmarish realities, to propose the expulsion of refugees in order to build a museum for refugees, and to expel patients for hosting other patients. Behind all this, are hidden aspirations to gain control, and the political opportunism that devastats the lives of dozens of people. The bourgeois cannibals smile showing rotten teeth. Vampires of urban world attempt to give life to the self-righteousness, and show cruelty to the lives and blood of the persecuted.
The attack in the neighborhood of Prosfygika is a condensation of the modern junta of local and transnational bosses and the fascist leadership of the Greek government, the IMF and the Troika. It encompasses all the individual characteristics of the non-stop war that has been declared against society and the working class itself and all those social and political subjects under the pressure of capitalist tyranny, and against the responsibility of creating a world of justice, equity and freedom.
In Prosfygika Av. Alexandras, there currently live more than five hundred people in each category of the order of the oppressed: Refugees, immigrants, families with children, the elderly, the sick, formerly homeless, political activists, recovering drug addicts in the ELPIS hospital, and people of all nationalities and religions. It is a multiethnic mosaic of communities and the most persecuted peoples of the world. People who have experienced the capitalist war, refugees and torture, poverty and misery, persecution and hunger.
The history and present of refugee captures the struggle of the workers and plundered. Those who never found solid ground to stand on, and those who never stopped fighting. You hear bursts of guerrilla machinegun and the stound of rebels marching passed from house to house through bullet holes left from the long ago December of guerilla fighting. You are alert to the cries of tortured political prisoners in Averoff prison and the rumble of demolishing bulldozers. We are suffocated, today, with the new tyranny imposed on us and stands menacingly around us through the violence and brutality expressed symbolically through boht monsters of the ruling power, the mansions of violence and repression, the police headquarters that all besiege us.
The story of the neighborhood of Prosfygika speaks to the struggle for survival and dignity, solidarity and companionship, for self-organization, equality and social struggle for interracial and interreligious coexistence in times of poverty and cannibalism. Its a social and cultural workshop, a self-managed community that continues to be there for those who built it, immigrants, refugees and those looted by capitalist barbarity. It talks about the smiles of dozens of children playing in the streets of the neighborhood, collective kitchens and self-organized production structures, self-education, social and political activities, caring for patients and the weak, maintenance, with limited means, a place that encapsulates working class struggles memories of the last eighty years.
Every fighter, man or woman, is called upon to struggle. We are called to realize the imagined community of struggle with genuine solidarity and autonomous initiative in conjunction with collective coordination. The victory of Prosfygika against the repression and plunder of the state and the bosses will either be a victory for greater multiform radical movement or will be a geat defeat.
The attitude of each and every oppressed person of struggle ought to defend what we have gained so far and, even further, stand in opposition to those oppressing our lives. Prosfygika and the entire movement must overturn government plans and the bosses by opening wide the struggle to all people, creating pressure through interventions in various fields, and the mass mobilizing and combative defense of our occupied ground.
All of us, people – refugees, squatters – will not give up an inch of land without a fight to the bosses. United we will stand up to halt the onslaught of modern totalitarianism. We will struggle to stop every attempt to sell and privatize Prosfygika. Until it becomes impossible, we will defend our spaces, our sturctures and our lives against private economic operators with our bodies.
“… Blessed is our bitterness,
Blessed our brotherhood,
Blessed the people that is born … ”
Giannis Ritsos
HANDS OFF THE LABOR NEIGHBORHOODS – REFUGEES – IMMIGRANTS
SOLIDARITY WITH SQUATS AND THE WORLD OF STRUGGLE
PROSFYGIKA BELONGS TO RESIDENTS OF THE COMMUNITY
NOT ONE STEP BACK
3/12/2014
ASSEMBLY OF SQUATTED PROSFYGIKA