General strike in Greece

Tommy Ascaso

I'm loving this poster:

http://www.occupiedlondon.org/blog/2010/12/14/447-they-hold-the-scissors-we-hold-the-rock-general-strike-in-greece-december-15th-2010/

That's pretty awesome. It'd be great to see an English version with the same slogan.

ex New Democracy minister Hatzidakis was attacked by demonstrators in Athens today

http://www.indymedia.org.uk/images/2010/12/470775.png

Looks like Athens is a battleground at the moment. Petrol bombs, tear gas...

http://freevoicenetwork.org/articles/greece-15-12-2010-the-huge-protests-and-the-western-media-parody/

Huge protests stormed Greece today. Rallies and marches run not only in the major big cities but even in smaller towns. Workers, trade unionists, anarchists and people from all kinds of political parties expressed their anger against the austerity measures of the government and the stance of European Union. For once again what we see, is the reactionary broadcasting from the Western media. Below there is a screen-shot of what the BBC has broadcasted today, definitely one of the most outrageous lies ever seen about Greece.

-image-

BBC instead of being focused on police brutality where repression forces attacked peaceful protesters, spends too much of its analysis in what happened to Kostis Hatzidakis, a conservative MP who was beaten up by an angry crowd. He was nothing more but a person who belonged to the previous conservative government of New Democracy, one of the most corrupted governments in history of Greece. He knew that thousands of angry people were gathered in Athens city centre, he knew that all of them were very hostile towards these politicians but instead of avoiding the “battlefield” area decided to cross this crowded street ignoring these possible consequences.

Many protesters faced police brutality and there is not any single word for that in the mainstream media.

BBC shamefully mentions only what the police claims ignoring any other source. The protesters in Athens were not only 15.000 but according to local people more than 100.000! It is very obvious that BBC reproduces cheap pro-capitalist propaganda!

The post is being updated right now. Please send us here your info.

The comments will be available as long as we gather more info so we can discuss further these issues.

as usual the best place to look in English is Occupied London

Who is the bald guy in the suit at the end of the first video on Occupied London? It's like the whole crowd is trying to kill him.

Rum Lad

Who is the bald guy in the suit at the end of the first video on Occupied London? It's like the whole crowd is trying to kill him.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kostis_Hatzidakis

http://griekenlandisoveral.wordpress.com/2010/12/16/a-description-of-today%E2%80%99s-demonstration-in-athens/

Entdinglichung

Rum Lad

Who is the bald guy in the suit at the end of the first video on Occupied London? It's like the whole crowd is trying to kill him.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kostis_Hatzidakis

0:30 on the video, and you can see him getting a slap.

This might sound silly. But how do you go beyond this? I've not closely followed whats been going on over the many months, but it seems that there's been several general strikes and eruptions of anger on the streets. Are these strikes working? Are more people getting involved? Is anger and solidarity spreading?

http://en.contrainfo.espiv.net/2010/12/16/weve-got-the-rage-report-from-the-general-strike-in-greece-december-15th-2010/

in solidarity!

T La Palli

This might sound silly. But how do you go beyond this? I've not closely followed whats been going on over the many months, but it seems that there's been several general strikes and eruptions of anger on the streets. Are these strikes working? Are more people getting involved? Is anger and solidarity spreading?

Some of those are difficult questions to answer especially the first one.
Whether they are working, a single day strike can only do so much.
I don't want to talk about numbers of protesters. But something important to mention is that there is a feeling that the general movement on the street is rising up again after being numbed by the May 5th strike when the 3 bank employees were killed.

I agree with T La Palli doubts. I mean, looking from abroad, Greece movement seems impressive. Congrats for that, comrades, you are an example. But however, I see some estructural weaknesses to the greek movt. like the lack of anarchist-syndicalists or revolutionary unionists confederations in the country. I mean, mass organisations not coopted by political parties. Another possibility is to start to occupy companies and factories, like in Argentina (205 occupied factories, by the way).

Do you imagine if you'd had an anarchist union of 60,000 members (for example)? If you'd had around 500 social coops, 100 occupied self-managed companies? With the street force that students represent, greek movement would be unstoppable.

What I'm saying is that we need to present our social/economical model to the greek general society, and push it forward in mass scale. We should build a paralel society from now on and start to join forces with grassroot movements... I imagine that there is some collaboration. The next step should be to build this alternative. You cannot expect to go on calling for general strikes without offering an alternative system to capitalism and working hard for it.

Salvoechea

I agree with T La Palli doubts. I mean, looking from abroad, Greece movement seems impressive. Congrats for that, comrades, you are an example. But however, I see some estructural weaknesses to the greek movt. like the lack of anarchist-syndicalists or revolutionary unionists confederations in the country. I mean, mass organisations not coopted by political parties. Another possibility is to start to occupy companies and factories, like in Argentina (205 occupied factories, by the way).

I really hate this line of ahistorical reasoning which says roughly: "the reason struggle x failed is because there weren't any/enough adherents of ideology y involved in it". But I guess having this predetermined universal answer means you don't have to really think about what would advance the struggle.

Peter

Salvoechea

I agree with T La Palli doubts. I mean, looking from abroad, Greece movement seems impressive. Congrats for that, comrades, you are an example. But however, I see some estructural weaknesses to the greek movt. like the lack of anarchist-syndicalists or revolutionary unionists confederations in the country. I mean, mass organisations not coopted by political parties. Another possibility is to start to occupy companies and factories, like in Argentina (205 occupied factories, by the way).

I really hate this line of ahistorical reasoning which says roughly: "the reason struggle x failed is because there weren't any/enough adherents of ideology y involved in it". But I guess having this predetermined universal answer means you don't have to really think about what would advance the struggle.

Hey Peter, though I basically agree with you I also think Salvochea makes a good point too.. I mean, it could mostly be due to ignorance, a lack of reporting, Greek/English language barrier etc. but I don't know anything about any of class struggle anarchist/libertarian communist groups in Greece.. nor do I know much about mass assemblies, occupations etc.. what are they saying, doing etc?

Another thing I was doing (and I'm sure a lot of us have been doing this) is comparing the struggles in Greece with those of France.. now, from this side of the laptop, the struggles in France seem more connected to the strike action, mass meetings, occupations, blockades etc sort of thing while the Greeks seem much more insurrectionary.. I'm not sure if that means one is better than the other, I think they have their positive and negative aspects (I think you can potentially build more in the Frence situation, though the insurrectionary nature of the Greek struggle means it's more difficult for the unions to control things - as they seem to do in France..).. but I think there is a discussion to be had here..

How can we (if we can at all or if we even want to) fuse the organisation of the French struggles with the insurrectionary character of the Greek's?

I think this is an important question (or three questions, I suppose) as angry workers in Europe are all looking to Greece and France for inspiration, but we all still want/need to go further than both those struggles have gone so far..

Ed

it could mostly be due to ignorance, a lack of reporting, Greek/English language barrier etc. but I don't know anything about any of class struggle anarchist/libertarian communist groups in Greece.. nor do I know much about mass assemblies, occupations etc.. what are they saying, doing etc?

If you want to keep your eye on Greece both Occupied London and the more recently formed Contrainfo are pretty good (also Actforfreedomnow blog contains more militant insurrectionist stuff). Taksikipali's news updates & translations on this site were also very good but he hasn't posted in a while now (is anyone in contact with him?). TPTG has more theoretical analysis sometimes translated into English. As a whole it is far from perfect but my impression is that the situation for political English-language news from Greece is a lot better than it was a few years ago.

Speaking for myself personally my translations till now are a bit scattered as I try not to overlap with the already existing ones. I am still unsure of what is important to translate and publicize in English, what is needed most right now, what is useful, what is just a waste of time. Maybe this would be a good discussion.

Ed since mentioned that you didn't know about far-right extremism in Greece until you saw it on youtube a few weeks ago it means you haven't been following the updates on either this site or on occupied london, as it is a constant theme.

Ed since mentioned that you didn't know about far-right extremism in Greece until you saw it on youtube a few weeks ago it means you haven't been following the updates on either this site or on occupied london, as it is a constant theme.

Meh, I think that's a bit unfair.. I've tried to keep up with stuff on Greece and stuff that I'd seen in relation to the far-right had been things to do with co-operation with the riot police, semi-paramilitary actions and other violent attacks.. these are things that can go on with little/no mass support. What I found surprising (perhaps naively in hindsight but still something I hadn't seen much mention of) was how the far-right were pulling in 20% of the vote in elections and how there seemed to be a really prevalent anti-immigrant feeling in Greece.. I don't read very much about that nor any analysis of the overlaps (if there are any) between the progressive anti-austerity movement and those who hold reactionary anti-immigrant views..

You're right as well though, we've not been in touch with taxikipali.. we should probably shoot him an email..

Ed

How can we (if we can at all or if we even want to) fuse the organisation of the French struggles with the insurrectionary character of the Greek's?

Do others agree that this fusion is something ideally that we should aim for in Britain? I also wondered what are the other key lessons that we should take from Greece, and then from France.

And of these lessons, which are compatible with the situation we are in here? With there being big differences in laws and policies, organisational forms, cultures of resistance, economic forms, policing, etc., presumably some paths or struggle cannot be replicated.

Apologies again, if these are not the most useful questions, but I’ve been sort of watching Greece and sort of watching France. And I’m not sure what to draw from either in terms of strategy and tactics for here.