Anarchism in Greece

[Tim Cornelis]

Spain and Greece seemingly have the largest anarchist movement of the world. Yet the differences between the two movements are significant. In Spain we have a mass anarcho-syndicalist movement in the form of two unions, whilst in Greece it seems to be mostly disorganised insurrectionist anarchism.

What are anarchists in Greece involved in? Are they organising communities? Assemblies? Is there an anarchist labour union? Do they do things besides rioting?

[Mitja]

Do they do things besides rioting?

nope only rioting but you forgot the communist partie KKE i think that KKE has much more support than the anarchists
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[Os Cangaceiros]

Spain and Greece seemingly have the largest anarchist movement of the world. Yet the differences between the two movements are significant. In Spain we have a mass anarcho-syndicalist movement in the form of two unions, whilst in Greece it seems to be mostly disorganised insurrectionist anarchism.

What are anarchists in Greece involved in? Are they organising communities? Assemblies? Is there an anarchist labour union? Do they do things besides rioting?

Anarchism has a greater influence in Greece than it has in other places, it's true (I've heard some sources place the amount of anarchists in the greater Athens area in the thousands, and I can't think of any metro area in the USA that has thousands of anarchists), but they're insignificant when viewed alongside the general population of Greece. It's still very much a subculture.

That said, they've done quite a few things of real worth. Probably one of their biggest successes was helping spearhead the December 2008 insurrection, which managed to pull in a whole lot of people who were normally apolitical. They've gained the respect of anarchists worldwide because of their willingness to "do the damn thing". If you want to read more, I'd highly suggest reading this pamphlet (http://zinelibrary.info/files/greekzinefull.pdf). Some of the things they've done include expropriating banks/supermarkets, organizing the defense of community spaces on behalf of non-anarchist residents, creating squats, sparking off prison riots in prisons across Greece, breaking immigrants out of detention centers and organizing against the restructuring of higher education.

[Os Cangaceiros]

It's also probably worth noting that there are two main trends, the insurrectos and the anti-authoritarian movement types. Overall both have a disappointing strategy for action, IMO, and I'd kind of like to see a happy medium reached between the "gwar let's burn it all down!" crowd and the some of the wishy-washy beliefs of the AK movement.