Brief reflection on a conversation between an anarchist and a progressive student with many anarchist friends, one night in the occupied park...
We had been talking about the revolt, the tactics of the State, how to win the revolution, what were the weaknesses in the anarchist space, what was going well. Like any other night in Exarchia. At nights the whole neighbourhood was one giant multicentric meeting, a hive of the buzzing bees of the revolution, talking, arguing, theorising, planning, laughing, socialising, making the networks stronger. At one point I mentioned the Kolonaki attacks, to name a method of keeping the struggle fresh in people's minds, to show that the anarchists were capable of acting outside of Exarchia too, even in the richest neighbourhoods.
And she says: "But the Kolonaki attacks were done by police."
"What? What are you talking about? I mean the time in March when thirty koukoulofori smashed all the luxury shops."
"Yes, that was police."
"No, it wasn’t."
"It was. Some cops admitted this to my friend. They said, yeah, we did that."
"I assure you, it was not the police."
"How do you know?"
“I know."
“How?"
"...We know the people who did it."
"But I don’t believe it, why would the police say they were the ones behind it?"
"To create divisions and discredit the people taking more aggressive actions, obviously?"
"But this friend isn’t political at all, it makes no sense for them to tell lies to some uninvolved student."
"But look how quickly that rumour comes to the anarchist space, and the people at its periphery."
It’s the same game as always. Everyone should choose their own level of involvement but everyone needs to support the attacks. They can make criticisms - internal criticisms - but the support has to be there. If we’re afraid to show that these attacks give us joy to claim them, not as our own acts but as a part of our struggle, people will sense the marginality of these actions, and the uncertain ones will latch on to any rumour that the attacks were really a provocation by the State meant to discredit the struggle, and they themselves become the unknowing discrediters. Everyone loves a conspiracy that leaves them as victims in a moral play and not protagonists who have to take bold actions in murky situations. How sad, to think of all the brave combatants written down in history as police provocateurs thanks to the people doing the actual police work of discrediting the foremost attacks of the struggle, which sometimes have poor aim, but always are necessary.
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