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Athens Report on 27/9

Posted by: Posted date: September 28, 2011 In: Movement, News | comment : 0

Just came back from Syntagma square and i felt like sharing with you what happened but basically my innermost disappointment.

Today was the day that the greek parliament was about to vote this new tax on properties and a call for gathering in Syntagma square was quite well promoted some days ago.
But in Syntagma were something like 1000 people, there was no dynamic at all, a few people scattered around here and there talking about new taxs and how difficult is for them to make it under these circumstances and in other parts swearing at the police. At about 10 the police decided that they want to give Amalias str back in circulation, that was it, the law was voted and it was about time the litlle fest to finish, and they actually pushed back all the people using tear gas. The people started to run in order to avoid the teargas, as a result some of them did put their lives in danger because the traffic in Stadiou str was not blocked and people were directed towards the oncoming cars. People were running scattered around a highway full of cars that in their turn were trying to avoid hitting the bypassers. 5 or 10 min later some of the people are at the beggining of Ermou and others in Syntagma square. End of story Amalias is evacuated you might have thought BUT it seems that is not enough for our special forces and the social-fascist PASOK because police 15min later went on assaulting people that were at the center of the square and chasing away the people in Ermou str. Finally, Syntagma square was violently evacuated once more but who cares certainly not the Greeks, there is Champions League on and everybody is watching Bayern versus Manchaster Citi!
The degeneration of the indignants’ movement in Athens is quite obvious up to a certain extent. People do not choose to go down the streets anymore as eagerly as before the summer and the government of PASOK is determined to violently push everybody back to their sofas and i think that at the moment this is not inevitable. It seems everybody is still mesmerised by the summer breeze and lives its own personal drama of their living standard worsening, people just try to cope with this new reality unable to respond at the moment.
The aforementioned description i did of today’s protest is just to give the picture of the situation:

a few hudreds of people running around to avoid countless of police squads that had surrounded them. They were no provocateurs around or anybody else provocing this mess, there was no obvious danger that could cause any harm to anybody whatsoever. The police acted under the social-fascist commands to disolve the protest. The intensions are quite obvious, nobody should be down the streets challenging PASOK’s  and EU’s distractive policies in a manner identical with that of George W. Bush when he was threatening the nations of the world that ‘either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists’. PASOK tries to impose this perception of choosing sides, having already blocked the act of choice itself, and condemned as paranoic terrorists everybody who chooses to be against them. Thus, condemning every attempt for serious opposition.

They first tried to impose this  ’dilemma of blackmail’ through a consent built the ruthless accusation of Greeks as useless,idle and lazy non-productive people that they stabornly deny to work so as to provoke a feeling of blame to the social imaginary of the Greeks and when this did not work and the indignants appeared they went on at direct assaults. If self-blame does not work, no worries fear and repression is always the best antidote throught the centuries. Part of this rationale resonates with what happened once more today. This rationale of blackmail comands that ‘we the people have no right to bring chaos in Greece, we must be saved either we like it or not- we should shut up and go back home’-thus even a few hudreds of people who constitute for Greek standards a pathetic protest are considered a threat-even a person protesting at Syntagma square at the moment is dangerous of overthrowing this useless, pork-barelling government! Our fellow Greeks should join Syntagma square before Syntagma starts to resemble the Polytechinc School where everyone can go and throw a tear gas bomb. The only power (if only fleeting) Syntagma have ever had was the multitude of people, the multitude of bodies that no police force can break down or deal with because only this mass of people is automatically self-identified with the force of democracy beyond this ruthless parliament. I wish things will change quick, there is no time.

 

 

Wishes for a better world
from Athens,
Iouliaaa

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