Here is the full text of the article that appeared in an edited form in Issue 2 of The Spectre. See the comments section below for debate & discussion!
The situation in Greece is rapidly escalating in a state of national uprising as the Greek political entities are deciding to follow the austerity plan set up by German and European authorities. The reasons are well documented, a huge debt, created from excess lending, chronic corruption and a huge public sector have brought Greece to the brink of bankruptcy. The media, riding on the train, present daily images of chaos and urban warfare in the streets of Athens adding to the lack of credibility that Greece has. The ideas that Greeks are rioting just to riot and that every day the center of Athens looks like a warzone have been cultivated. The Greek riots are indeed very intense and a lot of violence is taking place in the streets, leading to the question, “are the Greeks more prone to riot”? Not much has been said about what is actually happening in each protest and how it turns into a riot. So, what makes the Greek demonstrations so explosive and what are their effects on the situation?
To begin with, not every protest turns into a riot, the likes of which are shown in the major channels. The current protests are peaceful in their nature. Demonstrators have occupied Syntagma Square (the most prominent square in the center of Athens) and are performing daily demonstrations to voice their disagreement over the course that the Greek politicians have chosen. What creates all those scenes, is a combination of different factors, stemming from the decades long oppressed feelings of the Greek society. More than twenty years of corrupt, kleptocratic governments, where mediocrities -at best- would assume key positions and take patron clientelism to new heights, has given birth to a wave of dissent, personified partly, in the anarchist movement of Greece. Anti-establishment groups have long existed, however the events of the past four years have caused an increase in the number of those groups. They enter protests, usually blending with the crowd, and on the opportune moment, break away from it, and start attacking the police or public buildings with molotov cocktails, stones and other objects, causing havoc and allowing the police to retaliate with tear-gasses, flashbangs and other means of “containment”, leading to the images of urban guerrilla fights in the media.
The other actor that is escalating violence in the streets is of course the police. Because of the years of public mismanagement, Greece has a very big police force, comprising majorly of poorly educated nationalists. Therefore, a big share of the police is made up of people who are not fit to carry weapons and exercise authority on anyone. By taking the opportunity that the anarchist groups offer to them, the police respond by over-extending their authority, throwing tear-gasses on peaceful crowds and beating on demonstrators who have little or no relation with the groups causing havoc. A simple search in youtube will uncover hundreds of videos of police brutality on demonstrators who are by no means aggressive or pose any threat to them. It should also be noted, that there are many occasions where members of the police, in civilian clothing, join the anarchists and throw objects to the police in order to justify further violence and the forced breaking up of the crowds by tear-gasses.
Those actions by both the police and anarchists are (healthily) not tolerated by the crowds of peaceful protesters who then proceed to resist that violence, either by retaliating or by forming large groups and forcing via their numbers, both anarchists and police to stop and distance themselves from the protest. Amidst the chaos that this depressing three-way fight creates, a lot of people are injured, prosecuted and property is vandalized, leading to the images of a war-like situation when selectively viewed.
Being an eye witness of the protests in the center of Athens offers a very different perspective than that of the media. Greeks do not riot, just to riot. The protests have a purpose and demands and contrary to the neo-conservative view that they are pointless, they are still a very valid form of pressure towards the governing body. (It is no coincidence that the Government actually collapsed during the protest of 15th of July in Athens and moved to a full restructuring of the governmental body by the ruling party). However, the sad reality is, that a country with such bright prospects in the mid 70’s, after the junta, for becoming a stable, well functioning economy, to end up in the IMF thirty years later, has created a lot of bottled anger and discontent to many different groups. Even though many benefited from that corruption and mismanagement, at a point (up to a point?), every Greek has come face to face with that feeling of a “dead-end” that is post-dictatorship Greece. The point came where the rug was “overflowing with garbage and no more could be swept under”, hence, the reaction. So, are the Greeks more prone to rioting? Perhaps, however, there is much more to what the media is showing in Athens, as despite the chaos and frustration that the Greek society is experiencing, I still witnessed roughly 400 protesters gathering after the police and anarchists fled, to collectively clean the street of any garbage and wash every inch of the square from chemicals using fountain water and plastic bottles for hours. Of course the media had no interest in covering that, it doesn’t really “sell” as much as chaos in the streets after all.
Ioannis Antypas
This article is well written and does have alot of interesting points to make – plus it’s great to have the views of someone who really did see things first hand, rather than just opinions from some distant journalist who thinks they know better – but there is something here that I think needs challenging and that’s the portrayal of ‘the anarchists’.
Throughout the article, anarchists are treated like a singular homogonous mass – it seems like you’re suggesting that all anarchists act the same, that it’s ‘their’ fault that the police use them as an excuse to attack and that they are somehow different, separated from and intollerant of (and not tollerated by) other demonstators. At best, this is a slightly misinformed misunderstanding of anarchism and of anarchist groups – at worst, it could see see as an irresponsible misrepresentaion. The mainstream media tries to push this idea, one of ‘the violent minority’, that there are mobs of foaming-at-the-mouths violent anarchists trying to hijack situations with no care at all for others safety or even for the cause. They just want chaos! That’s what anrchy is all about, right?
But let’s not get caught up in this name calling or division. Yes, it’s true that some of the people you mentioned throwing stones and molotovs will have been (or will have at least called themselves) anarchists – but not all of them will have been. Not every person who wears a black hood and attacks the police is an anarchist and not every anarchist joins in or even agrees with these tactics. To say so ignors huge swathes of anarchist theory, debate and tactics – anarcho-pacifists for instance are explicitly against using violence as a tool.
To give an example from Greece itself, the Thessaloniki four (arrested in 2003 during the EU Summit protests) were a group of anarchists framed for violent disorder and, in at least one case, for carrying petrol bombs. In the end, it was proven that none of them were guilty, none of them had attacked anyone and that none of them had carried any petrol bombs apart from the ones police planted on them (see here for details. Just to drive the point home, not all anarchists throw petrol bombs. Labeling all anarchists as if they do is simply wrong.
Also, I can pretty much guarantee that among those who helped to clear the streets of debris, there will have been anarchists! None of this is meant as an attack on the article, which like I said, is well written and informative – but it’s important not to discredit and dismiss a whole political philosophy, a whole set of tactics, a whole movement and a whole lot of dedicated people by using massive gereralisations like the mainstream media.
Think what you like about confrontational tactics (I could write a whole other article about my opinions on Black Bloc etc!) but remember that anarchists are many and varied and that they’re fighting for the same things as you are. So show some solidarity and share the love!