"Anarchists" in Greece

[Slavoj Zizek's Balls]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-19724284

These people aren't Anarchists, they are people who are against austerity and happen to be throwing petrol bombs at the police. It's like calling Brutus an Anarchist because he assassinated Julius Caesar even though Brutus was a Republican...

[Blake's Baby]

To be fair, some of them almost certainly are Anarchists.

[Art Vandelay]

The largest current of anarchism in Greece is insurrectionary anarchism; fairly certain that anarchists make up the largest portion of the petrol bomb throwing population in Greece.

[Strider]

This whole debate about "who is an anarchist and who is not" is a bit stupid. Of course, crediting oneself as an anarchist does not make one an anarchist. However anarchism can include many different kinds of people, with many different perspectives on theory as well as in practice. This can be good as well as bad. Anyhow, crediting or discrediting one as an anarchist most certainly does not fit the certain ideology. In Greece, the way I have experienced it, a lot of people became interested in anarchism after the riots of December '08. Part of them took it seriously, studied and took action as anarchists, but another part sort of misinterprented anarchism. This last category now understands violence not as a means but as a goal. Their justified rage against society clouded their minds and made them lose the essence of anarchism: life and freedom, creativity not blind destruction. These people probably belong in this category.

[erupt]

I wasn't there and haven't been talking to anyone living or visiting there, so I'm gonna have to agree with the few replies; there are most likely quite a few anarchists protesting in Greece.

[Raúl Duke]

what's wrong with a bit of firebombs to the pigs?

Hell, if and when the revolution comes (to Greece, but the same can be said in general), throwing firebombs at, shooting at, maiming, etc cops may be necessary to win;

[Ele'ill]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-19724284

These people aren't Anarchists,


Why not?

[La Guaneña]

Well, I'll have to agree with the other posters that they are anarchists. Even because anarchists are not a homogeneous group.

Now if you want to discuss their strategies, that is something else.

[A Revolutionary Tool]

Maybe not every person who throws a petrol bomb is an anarchist, but I'd put money that quite a few of them are anarchists.

[Slavoj Zizek's Balls]

The media is too keen to label rebellious people as "anarchists" despite the fact that they probably have some other agenda as I mentioned above. I don't mean to say that there aren't any there (apologies if that was what you all thought I meant), I'm saying that this mass labelling of people is just dirtying the Anarchist name even more. Look at the London Riots, many people called it "anarchy" despite the fact that anarchy as a term has been twisted until it represents the complete opposite of what is was designed to represent, order without a state.

[Bronco]

I don't think the OP was denying that Anarchists would be involved in this or that there's anything wrong with it, but more commenting on how the BBC have just applied the blanket term of "anarchist" to anyone engaging in violent resistance as an attempt to discredit the action and make out it's only the sentiment of a few extremists, it certainly carries negative connotations to most

[Arlekino]

The media is too keen to label rebellious people as "anarchists" despite the fact that they probably have some other agenda as I mentioned above. I don't mean to say that there aren't any there (apologies if that was what you all thought I meant), I'm saying that this mass labelling of people is just dirtying the Anarchist name even more. Look at the London Riots, many people called it "anarchy" despite the fact that anarchy as a term has been twisted until it represents the complete opposite of what is was designed to represent, order without a state.

I understand what you mean I watched BBC24 news and reporter repeated word Anarchist about at least 20 times simple is that Anarchists are dirty word according to the reporter. I did not like at all. Well is undermining society of course.

[Sasha]

to be fair, a lot of the greek anarchists outside of the insurrectionist tendency do not label themselves as anarchist but as anti-authoritarians, but than again the majority of those who throw molotovs are probably insurectionaries so yeah, they are anarchists indeed.

[Philosophos]

To be fair, some of them almost certainly are Anarchists.

There have been many times when there were many policemen/paid-to-do or call them however you want "anarchists" that were throwing stones and destroying things. There were also some photos of them when they were taking their ... equipment from policemen(with uniforms). You can't really know if they are really anarchists. As another example I've been in several universities and I was talking with anarchists and saw some of their protests (I wasn't a left back then so I didn't join them) and they weren't doing anything wrong they were just protesting.

Edit: Also the media have this "habit" of calling the anti-authorians as anarchists because people don't know what anarchists are and they have linked it to complete chaos. Way to go with the media propaganda

[Rottenfruit]

Can say that i disagree with the tatic they are using

[x-punk]

The UK media (especially the state funded BBC) and politicians are always throwing around these terms, generalising whole groups of people. 'Anarchist' is one of their favourites because it tends to have a negative connotation and they throw it about any time you see a group of people clashing with the police. The banking protests in London and the London riots were two other recent occasions when they used it frequently. Another classic was during the workfare protests across the UK, the prime minister openly and publicly labelled the protesters Trotskyists.

Unfortunately this kind of propaganda seems to work with the people. Most people around where I am see 'anarchist' as just a term for a violent hooligan bent on just causing destruction and chaos for fun.

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

Anarchist has just become a dirty word.

It's like this mentality of, "well, if it's just anarchists throwing petrol bombs, then it's just a tiny percentage of troublemakers. If it's Socialists, liberals or 'democrats', then it means the population really is angry."

Doesn't make sense to me.

[Raúl Duke]

In the end, the media these days will never represent any social movement fairly unless you manage to somehow manage to pull off everything you do non-violently (hah, almost impossible in some cases due to how the police have a tendency to incite shit directly or indirectly through provocateurs) in which case the media will present you as a mere curiosity (and at some point stop perhaps even stop reporting about it) and the elites and politicians won't be one bit afraid and won't do jack-shit for that movement, afterall when it comes to the ills of capitalism and class-conflict they have no conscience and won't back down unless met by force.

To be honest, these days I don't care about what the media might say about a movement. If a movement keeps focusing on how they will be perceived by the bourgeois media they might as well fail and not bother in the first place.

[the last donut of the night]

In the end, the media these days will never represent any social movement fairly unless you manage to somehow manage to pull off everything you do non-violently (hah, almost impossible in some cases due to how the police have a tendency to incite shit directly or indirectly through provocateurs) in which case the media will present you as a mere curiosity (and at some point stop perhaps even stop reporting about it) and the elites and politicians won't be one bit afraid and won't do jack-shit for that movement, afterall when it comes to the ills of capitalism and class-conflict they have no conscience and won't back down unless met by force.

To be honest, these days I don't care about what the media might say about a movement. If a movement keeps focusing on how they will be perceived by the bourgeois media they might as well fail and not bother in the first place.

yeah man, spot on. tbh i don't see what the problem is either.

yall just jealous we havin fun

[Slavoj Zizek's Balls]

What I would like to see is everybody collaborating and storming the seat of government. It doesn't matter which tendency they are as long as they get Greece out of the EU before more peoples lives are ruined.

[Raúl Duke]

What I would like to see is everybody collaborating and storming the seat of government. It doesn't matter which tendency they are as long as they get Greece out of the EU before more peoples lives are ruined.

I might be ignorant of crucial facts that would help my argument, since I don't know what exactly happened in Spain a few days ago except from what I've seen in a couple of videos and photos, etc...but

As far as I know, it was a protest against the Spanish parliament, at one point in one photo it seemed that the police were very much overwhelmed and surrounded by protestors...

I thought to myself: why didn't they just incapacitate the pigs right then and there and start storming the parliament building where the politicians are in session and beat the shit out of them too?

Now, I'm not suggesting we should all be full-on insurrectos and blow up everything or something nor that violence is always the right call in all scenarios...but sometimes there are scenarios where I'm thinking to myself people really need to forget that stupid "non-violence kumbaya" bullshit and go for it, to hell what the media thinks if you beat up, etc politicians, cops, certain (i.e. well-known, notorious; public figures) rich fucks. I bet there are regular people out there so tired of the status quo that even if the media is crying all up and down about it those regular people with their shit jobs or unemployed or whatever, you know fucked by the system, would cheer that those puppets of the parasitical financial capitalist class got their asses kicked. I know I would, maybe it's just me.

Also, I'm not exactly saying we shouldn't care how people, particularly working class people, perceive us (although I don't think our main problem is the perception of violence the media, etc ascribes to us but more that the left, especially certain particular leftist groups, just dont know how to address normal people anymore it seems these days that's what I think our problem as radicals is); just that we shouldn't care one bit what the media thinks about us.

Another thing, I'm not saying this media-PR thing is a prevalent problem among the radical left, but it's a problem among broad activist movements like Occupy; a problem (besides the prevalence of "non-violence commitment") that I think the left should look into and see if they can counter it.

[Os Cangaceiros]

While the number of actual doctrinaire anarchists in Greece is quite small, they do play a disproportianate role in some instances of political unrest in Greece. After the December 2008 riots, the US State Dept. drafted a report on the unrest, and one of the top reasons for the destruction, according to them, was the "the insular, hothouse atmosphere of Greece's few hundred ultra-radical 'anarchists'".

http://anarchistnews.org/?q=node/15298

[Slavoj Zizek's Balls]

I might be ignorant of crucial facts that would help my argument, since I don't know what exactly happened in Spain a few days ago except from what I've seen in a couple of videos and photos, etc...but

As far as I know, it was a protest against the Spanish parliament, at one point in one photo it seemed that the police were very much overwhelmed and surrounded by protestors...

I thought to myself: why didn't they just incapacitate the pigs right then and there and start storming the parliament building where the politicians are in session and beat the shit out of them too?

Now, I'm not suggesting we should all be full-on insurrectos and blow up everything or something nor that violence is always the right call in all scenarios...but sometimes there are scenarios where I'm thinking to myself people really need to forget that stupid "non-violence kumbaya" bullshit and go for it, to hell what the media thinks if you beat up, etc politicians, cops, certain (i.e. well-known, notorious; public figures) rich fucks. I bet there are regular people out there so tired of the status quo that even if the media is crying all up and down about it those regular people with their shit jobs or unemployed or whatever, you know fucked by the system, would cheer that those puppets of the parasitical financial capitalist class got their asses kicked. I know I would, maybe it's just me.

Also, I'm not exactly saying we shouldn't care how people, particularly working class people, perceive us (although I don't think our main problem is the perception of violence the media, etc ascribes to us but more that the left, especially certain particular leftist groups, just dont know how to address normal people anymore it seems these days that's what I think our problem as radicals is); just that we shouldn't care one bit what the media thinks about us.

Another thing, I'm not saying this media-PR thing is a prevalent problem among the radical left, but it's a problem among broad activist movements like Occupy; a problem (besides the prevalence of "non-violence commitment") that I think the left should look into and see if they can counter it.

The police are outnumbered 5 to 1 at the very least. When you have the advantage of numbers, just go for it right? But what they do is tear at the crowd piece by piece, controlling their mentality by making examples of individuals, overriding the fact that the protesters still outnumber the police massively and can just make a beeline for the seat of power, police or no police.


While the number of actual doctrinaire anarchists in Greece is quite small, they do play a disproportianate role in some instances of political unrest in Greece. After the December 2008 riots, the US State Dept. drafted a report on the unrest, and one of the top reasons for the destruction, according to them, was the "the insular, hothouse atmosphere of Greece's few hundred ultra-radical 'anarchists'".

http://anarchistnews.org/?q=node/15298

Would you mind if I made a thread containing this information?