Letter from Gerasimos Tsakalos, Member of the Cell of Imprisoned Members of the Conspiracy Cells of Fire

From Act For Freedom Now:

We have rage

On the morning of November 1^st we were moving around in the area of Pagkrati in order to act in the framework of the campaign for international solidarity the organization had decided together with comrade and brother P.Argirou. Because, however, of the police-like curiosity of an employee of a courier company, certain personal errors and our being surrounded by the pigs of the DIAS group and other police forces that isolated the area, there was little choice and we were led to the building of GADA (police headquarters building) to the floor of the anti-terrorist police.

Despite the fact that my recognition was immediate, since one of the directors of some department amidst kicks and punches the moment when I was sitting in a stationary position shouted “it’s Makis”, I denied to give my information for the first few hours, with the hope of gaining precious time in order to help my comrades. We refused to have our fingerprints taken, photographs, dna and generally we refused to sign anything or to help in the least these pigs, holding the obvious attitude that every revolutionary should have.

The interrogation began with the usual offensive comments. That were decreased temporarily when they noticed a tattoo that I have with the word “conspiracy”, which made them change their attitude. Knowing that they would try to take photographs to publicize it I sat with my head bent down in order to avoid it. Then pretending that they would transport me to the detention room, they took me out to the corridor of the 12^th floor where, pulling my head, they told me to watch where I’m going. At that time I was photographed by the camera that was in the corridor. It is the photograph that was published after our arrest. So began an interrogation that lasted roughly 3 days which fluctuated depending on what was happening outside. Annoyed by the constant repetition of my answer “I have nothing to declare” they began provoking me again with offenses and provocations about individuals that I knew, or not. The interrogations took place in two rooms, and in one of the two, where I had communication with my lawyer and my mother, an officer of the anti-terrorist informed me the last day that they were both rooms with microphones and cameras.

As for my DNA, after the arrest, my socks were immediately confiscated for the corresponding sample, while even during my transport, while they had my head pressed down, somebody with surgical gloves forcefully pulled hair from my head, again for a DNA sample. Their stress and anxiety increased, seeing our negative attitude to their questions, while at the same time outside the incendiary parcels continued to be delivered to the recipients, according to the plan of the organization. The threats increased, talking of killing me on Imitos mountain and they would throw me from the window in the case that there was a problem with some plane. Obviously they meant the plane that was landed in Italy because of the parcel for Berlusconi.

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Violence is a Small River: To be with Society is an Ocean

By Jake Carman, The Defenestrator

An Interview with Athens Anti-Authoritarian Movement Comrades

This August I interviewed three comrades from the Athens section of the Anti-Authoritarian Movement of Greece (Alpha Kappa/AK in the Greek acronym). The folks I interviewed live in Exarhia, a neighborhood with a massive anarchist population in central Athens where the December 2008 Greek Uprising began, around which 200 police maintain a permanent security perimeter. AK, the largest anarchist organization in the country, is based around only three points of unity. These minimum core values are:

The antiauthoritarian character of its scope and frame.

The direct democracy in the way of decision-making.

The denial of occupation of any form of power.

Vaggelis Nanos is in his early thirties. He helped found Nosotros, the first and largest social center in Exarhia. He also works on Babylonia, AK’s monthly publication which is distributed in kiosks across the country. Sofia is also in her early thirties, and is a member of the AK working group for the creation of an anti-authoritarian economy. Epaminontas “Nontas” Skiftoulis joined the movement at its beginning,around the 1970s struggle against the Military Junta. He is quite influential for his ideas and articulateness. Police also accused him of being a member of an early anarchist guerrilla group.

Click here to read more…

 

The Evolution of Revolution

By Bobby Whittenberg-James

“Men (sic) make their own history, but they do not make it just as they please; they do not make it under circumstances chosen by themselves, but under circumstances directly encountered, given and transmitted from the past. The tradition of all the dead generations weighs like a nightmare on the brain of the living. And just when they seem engaged in revolutionizing themselves and things, in creating something that has never yet existed, precisely in such periods of revolutionary crisis they anxiously conjure up the spirits of the past to their service and borrow from them names, battle cries and costumes in order to present the new scene of world history in this time-honored disguise and this borrowed language.” – Ironically yours, Karl Marx

Proudhon was the first to call himself an anarchist, advocating a mix of socialism and capitalism called “mutualism.” Bakunin’s collectivist anarchism critiqued mutualism. Kropotkin’s anarchist communism critiqued collectivist anarchism. Are we really to believe that this is the apex of anarchist thought? Do we really want to adhere dogmatically to theories concocted over a century prior to neo-liberal globalization? Do we ignore everything that has happened since then and refuse to learn from it? If we are truly seeking anarchy, of course the answer is no.

We want an anarchy that is relevant in combating the existing economic and social order. We recognize that neo-liberal globalization has vastly changed economic and social relations from the time of the founders of what came to be known as social anarchism and we choose to adapt our resistance and our tactics as a result. This is not to say that proponents of social anarchism or market anarchism aren’t “real” anarchists (as those sectarian factions and others tend to say about anarchists who don’t bear their particular anarcho-prefix) but that those theories and ideologies and dogmas are not anarchistic and do not result in anarchy. Because of this, we, all anarchists, autonomists, and other anti-authoritarians, should continue to critique anarchist theory and practice to wrest anarchy from the hands of socialists or capitalists seeking to co-opt anarchist rhetoric and aesthetics to wage counter revolution and seize control.

We pay respect to anarchists of the past of all stripes and creeds, and seek to learn from their discoveries, successes, and failures. We also pay respect to past and present day stateless egalitarian hunter gatherer societies and look to them for inspiration as well, knowing that white men from the mid 19^th century didn’t have all the answers.

Looking to the past, present, and future we strike what we don’t like or what does work and we keep the good stuff and create something that works for us in the here and now. Those who speak of revolution as some lofty dream, or future event to be hoped for, a single moment in the future, already wage counter revolution.

Anarchy: Breaking Up with Socialism

By Bobby Whittenberg-James

For well over a century, some anarchists have aligned themselves with socialists of various shades, even fighting on the same side for different periods of time in several failed revolutions. We do not wish to rewrite history or to downplay this alliance, but to learn from it, challenge it, and question its role in the fight for anarchy today while advocating for its immediate and total annulment.

We can define socialism loosely as an economic system in which wealth and property are held either in common or by the state and/or party, in which the means of production and control of distribution are held by the state and/or party, workers, or the whole of society. Socialism can range from leninist totalitarianism to social democracy, to libertarian socialism and social anarchism.

Even under these broad strokes, anarchy escapes. Anarchy is not production and consumption, federations and councils, meetings, and voting and it certainly isn’t the state. Such institutions are authoritarian. Anarchy is autonomous individuals associating with others voluntarily to fulfill their needs and desires. This is probably best exemplified among hunter/gatherer bands. Socialism, like capitalism is an economic system, and anarchy seeks to abolish economics altogether.

Say You Want an Insurrection

So do we—a total break with domination and hierarchy in all their forms, involving an armed uprising if need be. Until that’s possible, we’ll settle for recurring clashes in which to develop our skills, find comrades, and emphasize the gulf between ourselves and our oppressors.

But how do we bring about these confrontations? How do we ensure that they strengthen us more than our enemies? What pitfalls await us on this road? And what else do we have to do to make our efforts effective?