Announcement about lately events of 5/5 May in Greece
At the incidents of the 5th May concerning the fire in the bank facility of Marfin Bank there were three dead bank employes and thousands of "charred" truths.
The suffocating atmosphere of the heartbreaking hypocricy of propaganda and the worn moralistic humanism of the radical movement's Cassandra's, force us to take a stand concerning these public events. This does not mean that we are talking as "specialists" of violence, or that we are"automatically" appointed as public prosecutors or defenders of the people who attacked the bank building.
Instead we find neccecary that some things must be told and get in a row. For this to happen, the experiential presence and the understanding of what happened that day at that point is not a neccesity. What is needed in our opinion is a serious and responsible attitude with the corresponding filing of a custodian in such revolutionary practices (such as burning a bank) for the treatment and the (self)critic of an actual fact (the death of three employees who were not the objective of the revolutionary violence).
The revolutionary nihilism that we express implies a fine thought and practice which is being built away from demonstrations of fake-cynicism "they were bank employees so they done well to burn them ...", but also from hypocritical threnodies that seek guilties in order to attibute the blaim, orating from the position of the infallible and humanist revolutionary.
Let's take the things from the begining...
in the metropolis and the parody of life that we experience, the death is no more than another journalistic event, a distant information, among so many others, a column in α newspaper, one more statistic …
Every day people die in hospitals from illnesses, in cars from road accidents, in labour accidents in the galleys of work, in underground crossings from drugs… And they want to teach us to be expressionless on these noumerous anonymous deaths.
Because it's just simple numbers “three deads from road accident, two deaths from narcotics.” They don't “sell” in the media, they are not projected with the supposedly humanitarian wrapping, hence they do not convince.
These are deaths that in a few words won't benefit the system. All TV-executioners, from the most conservative up to the most subversive, that supposedly were shocked with the three deaths at Marfin, would not withstand for a minute to face in the same manner all the anonymous deaths that the system which they faithfully serve, provokes. The truth is that based on the facts of the 5 of May it was set up a obscene grave robbing and a powerful trade of sentiments for the interests of the system….
"Collateral damages and emotional grave robbing"
Facing the imminent social crisis the spectacle of death caused its own short-circuit. The marches “shrinked back”, the public opinion polls against the demonstrations and the strikes followed, the flowers of the Prime Minister were deposited live on tv, the cops invaded in the "Zaimi" squad and the "Group of immigrants" in Exarcheia, the frontpage stories in the newspaper for the murderers "anarchists" began, the fascists invite a gathering outside the bank and the situation reached up to the public renunciation of “such gangs”, “individualistic nihilistic chaotic muddle-headed thought” and “idiotic murderers” from certain graphic clownish anarchists.
But beyond the propaganda and her techniques, the fact remains a fact. Three banking employees, without being targets, died during the burning of the bank where they were working. Here's our turn to not fall into the trap of the statistics nor the emotional manipulation. Sure we will not speak the language of “the malice moment” and “the adjacent loss”. This is the language of the enemy and brings memories of the oratory of the American army and its generals in the war of Afghanistan. On the other hand we will not pretend the commemorating of the death of three people who as regrettable it was for their families, as again it would be a sterile news information on the system, if it was not result, in the specific place and time, of a revolutionary practice .
In a few words we will not claim any sentimental space in the "sphere of spectacle", pretend to be shaken via a television-instigated humanitarian delirium inside which enough people from the interior of the radical movement were enslaved . No, we don't act as the "hard set persons thinking only the cause", but we believe that if these three deaths had happened as an “accident” in a road incident, few would have been those who would have learned it, even as news. So there is not the sad fact of death which acted as a catalyst in shaping a numb and awkward atmosphere, but the cause from where it came. Thus, avoiding any emotional grave robbing, we should stoop with meditation to work out the problem at its root.
It is true that if someone searches for brutal murderers, then he should look in the ranks of Vgenopoulos (bank owner) and his equals. His administration and his commands in conjunction with the acceptance of the staff were what led them to work in a seemingly closed bank without fire protection and locked doors. Such bastards as Vgenopoulos are instigators of tens of physical and mental dead workers, either in the killings of labour accidents, or the daily humiliation and conditions of employment contracts that impose discipline. Keeping this as datum, we can now face up to our own shortcomings, gaps, errors, carelessness, in order to break the emergency exit from an one-sided thought, that wants only to blaim the bosses for everything and relieve us, but it does not evolve us … What's to blame then, for causing the death of the three bank employees?
"The revolutionary Practice “hit and run”"
Now let's talk about options, strategies and habits. Firstly and for decades in Greece the "hit and run" is a known practice during major demonstrations. We are talking about setting up small fighting teams of militant anti-authoritarian that cuts off the body of the demonstrators and attacks in raid at preselected points (banks, journalist vans, riot police) returning in the volume of the people in order to hit again or disappear. Regarding the political dimension of the practice it should be emphasized that the hit and run does not belong exclusively to any particular tendency of anarchists. The "social" anarchists (mainly at the past when they constituted a more powerful component) apply the hit and run with the logic of deviating the demonstrations and diffuse the conflict. In this way, as they consider, they act as the detonator of social explosion and that they contribute in the exacerbation of social fight.
The intermediate insurrectionalist trend has inherited the practice of the "hit and run", has made some ongoing organizational evolution and mainly refers to the experiential moment of conflict and relations (solidarity, self-organizing, overcoming roles) that are developed outside the predefined stereotypes of the dominance. The common component of both trends is to identify the corporate demonstrations as moments of social struggle, that both "society anarchists" and insurrectionalists promote through their presence and action inside them.
The new anarchy individualistic - nihilistic trend, the third pole as we've described, it shapes a new perception in relation to the social struggle and demonstrations. In the tens of thousands of mass that flock to the mass demonstrations we do not necessarily recognize people who share the same value code with us and speak the language of liberation. The social mobilization is a mishmash of inconsistencies and behaviors, includes all the territories of human thought, from the peasant conservatism, to the left winger patriotism , the alternative, the reformism, up to the anarchist view.
The demonstrations function as the sum of thousands of separated persons with different routes, sometimes even hostile to each other, joined either by reason or on occasion of a guild application (like insurance laws). The vast majority of the composition of such demonstrations asks for the return to the old everyday routine (before legislation that offends their previous rights is being vote) or in the most left version, the improvement of the regularity with more progressive and humanitarian solutions inside the limits of capitalism, or communistic statism. It is no coincidence that the main slogans of the demonstrations require the application of fair laws against the unconstitutional measures of the government.
Even the violent diversion of a entire demonstration is ofthen a compilation of contradictions. In the aggressive exclusion of Parliament in the course of 5 May, other protesters sang the national anthem, some were throwing stones, others called the riot police to join them, the Communist party have identified troublemakers, others cried against those who were breaking banks and others applauded them and the anarchists were setting up barricades. A pantheon of all the behaviors with thousands repetitions of the last 30 years and beyond.
"Revolutionary Vanguard and Revolutionary militarism"
We and our perception don't constitute an enlightened revolutionary vanguard nor an elitist clique. Each one of us has tasted the contradictions, has been rolled in them, has participated in them to the point where the need for personal and spiritual development, some different experiences, some collective conversations and observations, some interesting pages in books and manuals, the individual thought and desire for exacerbation of revolutionary action, demanded to re-think the participation in demonstrations. For the space of thought and action that we express, we are not completed just when conflicts happened .
We believe in organized structures of impact and in clearly revolutionary viewpoints with memory, present and perspective. There is not any relation between the masked anarchist who throw molotovs because he denies the remains that are offered to him for life, the culture of spectacle, the values of money and the submissive consciousness, with the "angry" employee who, when he only feel the numbness in his pocket, he will raise just for little while his head. He is the same person that previously, when he considered himself comfortable in the regularity, was annoyed by the "troublemakers."
There is a huge value gap that no violence and no moment of conflict doesn't spans it, if there is not essential awareness and self-knowledge. In this direction of revolutionary awareness we consider that contribute the proclamations, the texts, the books, the pamphlets, the slogans in the walls, the posters. This is our own theoretical propaganda attack against a system that needs to die. And the demonstrations? And the demonstrations contribute, but we have to see them in a new perspective. Nobody is born guerrilla or revolutionary, it's a progressive process of evolution to define your life without compromise.
Demonstrations such as the one of May 5 is the necessary preliminary, the suitable lobby for those who want to come into initial contact with the revolutionary violence. Through them the growth of the "hit and run", in unfavourable conditions with hundreds of cops in the city, is a defining experience for those who want to sharpen the theoretical and practical tools in conditions of metropolitan battle. These are the suitable supplies for the practical development of other forms of action of the new guerrilla. Our goal is to organize the "REVOLOUTIONARY MILITARISM". A anti-hierarchical perception without leaders, ranks and followers that will promote the creation of small flexible battle groups of antiauthoritarians that will map the city, the targets, the getaways, will be equipped properly, will develop relationships with their respective affinity groups, will be open (with the necessary attention) to new partners, will devise plans of attack and will use (but will not turn hostile) the "working-rights demonstrations" as a Trojan horse of revolutionary campaigns. So there is no question concerning the participation to demonstrations or not, but only the question of evolution.
We believe that only through the organised dimension of revolutionary violence the consequence, continuity, and severity that would "prohibit" the future of such "failures" with such tragic results of Marfin, will be promoted. This is the only way that the new guerrilla movement will spread as a perception and a practice, causing the chaos in the sterile routine of the organized boredom.
"The informers and the consequences"
All these are written as a contribution to a dialectical field of thought and action between different political currents, and not in order to justify or cover something. It is known that the specific attack to Marfin did not bring certain ideological stamp for the political thoughtful and content of the persons that acted there. Base on the target (bank branch), anyone of any political tendency of anarchist and not only, could set it on fire. But of course it is quite convenient for "sharks of auditoriums" to allocate actions from the result in our own political current.
The statements of loyalty and humanity missionary texts that were circulated by some anarchist collectives with the certainty of the sentence about the origin of the "perpetrators" , have given the ultimate emptiness for political arguments about the "nihilistic trend" that "parasite against anarchy." Their picturesqueness don't bothers us, but when certain people reach in the dangerous point to "photograph" persons in auditoriums and cafeterias just to satisfy the eager ears of the police, then these individuals will be treated as they deserve, as informers of the police with the corresponding consequences.
"Goal-oriented action and Autistic Failures"
Coming back to the how and why in the case of Marfin, independent from which anarchist tendency feels each one that is expressed as individual or collectiveness, we must recognize that the three political movements ("social anarchists", "insurrectionalists", "individualists - nihilists") have a common characteristic. The clear delineation of goal-oriented actions (government buildings, law enforcement forces, symbols of wealth). The three employees that were working during the day of the strike, sure cannot be considered enemies, as neither allies.. So in no case they could be considered as the objective of the attack.
In what we write our objective is not to beautify the situations nor to observe the logic of equal distances. For this on the fringe of the delimited targeting defined, we do not forget the autistic attacks in invalid points (bus stops, pay phones, kiosks, cheap cars) but we are in position to know that this constitutes a invalid sample of irresponsibility that never make a real difference in substantialling reality. On the contrary the building of Marfin (in Korai square) as banking palace constituted a beautiful target.
We are not able to know exactly what happened there and what was said, but we know the chronic weaknesses that we believe contributed to the result. We refer to the fetishism of disorganized violence and the lack of understanding the means of attack.
"The Empty Guns Kill..."
The incident that happened at Marfin, the stark truth says, that it was a subject of chance that it had not happened for so many years. Each rebel should shape a particular relation of comprehension and perception of means of action that he uses. All the means of action from a stone up to a submachine gun could just as easily turn boomerang against our own selves. For this they say that "empty" guns kill more easily than the "full" ones. "Empty" weapons are also the means that their holder does not have awareness of their use but also their effectiveness.
So with the events at Marfin, some "discovered America" . However for so many years the setting is similar. How many times in the past or in marches or in "night" attacks comrades burned and wounded among them from molotov cocktails, because the bottles were poorly constructed, or because some people rushed to "hit" first. How many times there were broken heads of companions from stones that flew other “impatient” from behind without even seeing the target. Similarly, for those who don't have short memory, how many times have anarchists argue over each other in demonstrations because of different attitudes and perceptions.
The examples are countless. And all imply the same weakness. The schism between theory and practice, between consciousness and action. The revolutionary violence is appearred as fetishism, often repeating patterns of domination bunch behaviors , arrogance, roles and "qualifications". This contradictory of behaviors in the interior of radical space, functions as a rank of force in the classification of informal hegemonies.
At the same time next to these behaviors exists new comrades who receive fractional ownership relations and in their turn, but also in their individual responsibility, repeat them as misprint. The violence, the means, their use, their manufacture, the precautions, the experimentation, the techniques, so far were not put on the table for collective procedures to withdraw fetishism and enter the knowledge and the effective ownership. It was the prerogative of the more "insider" who thus were "protecting" their "ranks". The violence becomes perceptible as a game of adrenaline, of an informal competition in the number of attacks.
Instead we support that the conscience is what motivates us to develop our fighting skills and knowledge to attack the opponent.
"During training, all the military preparations were subservient to politics:" When handling sensitive chemicals, they had proposed us to always think about ideology, and so we will be able to do everything and get things right "(Ampimael Guzman - revolutionary organization Shining Path)
Next to the fetishism of violence, flowers the imperfect knowledge. Some comrades are ignoring the effectiveness of means of violence and the danger of these means, so they make excessive use, such as scenic hours of fighting from inside the university shelters, but also in unorganized attacks in riot police in Exarchia, dozens of cocktails molotov, that what usually accomplish is to“blacken” the asphalt, while the same people if had discussed and were organized could smash the cops and set fire to the police van.
A piece of this tradition of adoration and simultaneously the ignorance of exploitation of means is also the criticism of the static "experts" of violence. A web of dismissively criticize behaviors from the safe position of not participating in revolutionary practice, but covered with the excuse of knowledge of "older" experience "when things were not thus but was better”. Suspended reasons which flaunt old armed and violent experiences, each time setting the proper use of the violence and the content of the guerrilla movement, lag to devalue any innovative thinking and practice. Syndromes of a cowardly and timid thinking, admiring and liking what is distant inside the sure sphere of historicity and demonstrates a paper arrogance towards what tries to happen here and now.
In all this confusion of consciousness, the people who set on fire Marfin, either didn't see the people who were inside (carelessness that is not the first time that happens, as an example in the organised night attack in the national bank in the university road before four years 2-3 persons were enclaved in the roof ) or, worse, did see them but did not feel that they could die from a few molotov cocktails. We are convinced, without knowing the persons, that if someone gave them a gun, they would not shoot against the employees. So they did not want to kill them, no matter if there were heard propably stupid-cynic voices as "let them die, they are bank officials".
If something led to the events of May 5 is the abscess of a dominant tradition that smoldering for decades within the radical site, and now first of all, everyone must answer for himself by making the self-criticism. Most of what was written here is to meet our own experiential understanding and our own shortcomings without to constitute sophistries from some "outsiders".
So with this reason given, it's the suitable spark to supply more our thoughts and our actions moving in a future publication of a manifesto of the positions and the values over the trend of nihilism, the anarchist - individualism and the revolutionary terorrism that we express.
At the same time, the recent proclamation of a "group of comrades who contributed to the catastrophic activity in the city center during the course of the May 5" demonstrates that every experience that wants to be a revolutionary one, should make as priority to create moments and places for discussion and review. The comrades through their text, regardless of disagreements and agreements, worked directly on the process of restarting essential revolutionary dialectic.
Because the bet of revolution is not being played neither with terms of military superiority neither with religionistic aphorisms of empty political content. The new urban guerrilla molement is a process that “strikes” first of all at the centre of human relationships. From there everything begins…
CONSPIRACY CELLS OF FIRE
GUERILLA GROUP OF TERRORISTS
NIHILIST FRACTION