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The steep Temistocleos Street leads to a huge flag, half red, half black, symbol of the anarcho-syndicalism, that preaches direct action. It’s the welcome card of the Nosotros group for those who get to Exarchia Square, on the homonymous neighborhood, center of the anarchist effervescence in Athens.
Nosotros occupies a three-floor building and is the meeting point of the anti-fascists and those who believe in an alternative society, who choose to ignore the crisis in order to support the local economy, independent of the foreign capital. On the first floor, there’s a cafeteria, a saloon, and a group that wants to mitigate the activities of Golden Dawn members, the neo-Nazi party that has 18 chairs on the Parliament.
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Olga comes from the city of Thessalonica, on the east of Greece, is 23 years old and studies cinema. She’s on vacations in Athens, but puts coffee, bear and tsipouro [a cheap distillate] on the client’s tables to guarantee income and keep the building functioning. The building is an example of those who were rented by the movement, aside from some that were occupied. The menu has, apart from beverage, free classes for the community — especially for immigrants.
“That is so-and-so, who is hurt, was beaten up by the police after a fight with a fascist. This is my friend, he’s 67 years old, he’s unemployed, he’s lost his family and comes here to attend theater classes. Yes, we teach Greek, theater and art, for free, for whoever wants it”, said Olga to Opera Mundi. She doesn´t show her face or tell me her surname. “Not a chance”.
The neighborhood of Exarchia is close the National Technical University of Athens and it’s a focus point of radical political activities. The area is almost autonomous when compared to the rest of the city; the police are rarely present. But with the economic crisis and the rise and institutionalization of neo-Nazism, tempers are fierce and the tension concerning the police raids is constant.
The historial of those encounters is pretty violent. In a recent chapter, on December 6, 2008, the death of Alexandros Grigoropoulos, 15 years old, who was shot by a Greek policeman, set off a series of riots in Athens. The place where the shooting took place gained a memorial, which symbolizes the first great reaction of a part of the population against the economic crisis and the Greek State.
Grigoropoulos’ death wasn’t the first or the last in confrontations with the Greek police. After the episode, at least 300 officers were hurt and three were shot. Anarchic groups that were until then in the open went underground, and the police, influenced by the neo-Nazi scenario, are accused of arresting them illegally and of torturing them on captivity.
“Receiving orders and obeying because someone who’s supposedly better than you tells you so? It doesn´t work. Am I afraid of the cops? What do you want me to do? Sitting down on my couch while the immigrants are being beaten up by the Nazi? Impossible”, stressed Olga. “The police advance at us, obey fascist orders, pretend they don’t see what’s happening and that the country isn’t collapsing. We can´t be quiet standing the tear gas thrown at us”.
The moviment’s future
The Nosotros’ philosophy, since it was opened in 2005, is part of the AK (Alpha Kappa) principles, the Anti-Authority Movement of Athens, the strongest tendency on Greek’s anarchy. His members say that social centers are “the best way” to consolidate AK. There’s where they schedule meetings and have ideas to fight fascism through broader interactions with society.
The building has teaching classes, computers, free internet, a bar on the inside and one on the outside, and tries to escape the Greek government’s chains. It is also more “open” to the press in comparison to other radical equivalents. The administration is based on direct democracy and a magazine, Babylonia (www.babylonia.gr), concentrates the group’s communication with editorial articles and reports on the movement’s actions.
Recently, Nosotros organized a party, and the takings would be used to paying lawyers to help two members that were arrested after a confrontation with the police. At the same time, the group studies economic alternatives and patrols immigrant neighborhoods to repress the cases of gratuitous violence against the inhabitants — most of them are Pakistani, Albanese, Chinese and Syrian.
Its members don’t deny that they throw Molotov cocktails against the police on protests days against the Troika’s measures, and add that there’s no way other than resistance, with the creation of an alternative cosmos, anti-State. “It doesn´t matter to us if the parliament did or did not approve the IMF’s memorandum. We’re not interested in this kind of politics”, said Olga. “But, if neo-Nazism continues to grow, we’ll also grow and confront them.”
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