We Wish you a Merry Crisis and a Happy New Fear

A postscript from the December riots in Athens [published in the Anarchist Studies journal, vol.17, no.1, 2009] On 6 December a policeman shot and killed a 15-year-old boy in Exarchia, a region of Athens well known for its grass-roots libertarianism. Within a few hours the whole city was being burnt down by hordes of furious protesters whose targets were of anticapitalist, antistate and anticommercial significance: banks, car trade companies, big stores, ministries, police stations, even the huge Christmas tree in Syntagma square. The riots continued for almost three days, with the conflict between the protesters and the forces of repression taking place on the streets among burning buildings and barricades. Many tried to find a parallel between these riots and recent events in the French suburbs or even with the events of May 68. Although the causes and reasons for such outbreaks seem quite similar, the case of Athens must be seen separately for it differs in one basic point: Those who participated in the assaults in Athens were not only university students, labourers or immigrants. They were from all of the above groups and even more: school pupils, middle-aged bourgeois, people with or without a political background and consciousness - all fed up with high rates of unemployment, poverty, state murders, repression and violence; with consumer standards of living and urban isolation. Moreover, the persistence of many academics veterans of the 68 conflicts - to negatively compare these days to their own, showing an elitist stance towards the protesters, caused an angry reaction, expressed in seemingly apolitical slogans like Fuck May 68 Fight Now! or You demolished our lives, well demolish everything!. What conclusions can be drawn from the riots and what is the significance of this mobilisation for the Greek radical movement? First, there is a question of definition. Revolution or Revolt? As Max Stirner put it, revolution is an iconoclastic process driven by a desire to substitute the old idols with new ones. In contrast, through revolt the ego is trying to retrieve all the things stolen from it . From that point of view those burning days of December were not a revolution but a pure revolt. This conclusion takes us to a dual critical point that is, the internal and external significance of these days for the radicals in Greece. The internal component has to do with the movement itself. Its been a long time since anarchist, antiauthoritarian and autonomous activists were praised by mainstream civilians and a significant percentage of the public opinion. It seems that the most hard-core and radical parts of Greek political life have renewed their bonds with society despite the constant, negative state propaganda. In addition, all the squats, the marches, the assemblies and the general alternative action which took place in the name of this revolt generated new expectations and responsibilities. Its high time that tradical factions dealt with the anticapitalist and antistate struggles in even more consistent and organised ways - beyond violent means. The external component concerns the emancipation of the protest movement from the custody of the parliamentary left. Orthodox communists as well as Eurocommunists and the rest of the alternative but parliamentary left were totally incapable of taking control of this sweeping action. Their Marxist, scientific tools of historical analysis could neither predict nor explain the revolutionary orgasm that hit Athens (and many other Greek cities). As a result, the Greek Communist Party started

talking about provocateurs who sabotage the goals of the working class whilst the Radical Left League was making ambiguous statements in order to gain as many votes as possible for the oncoming elections. Athens recent revolt has a lot to teach every European and not only European radical social movement about direct action, without avant gardes and representatives, which will constitute the first step against capitalism and the state, without regard to their abolition. After all, as Errico Malatesta put it: We will not reach anarchy neither today nor tomorrow nor in ten centuries. We walk towards anarchy today, tomorrow, always Christos Iliopoulos