Below we are publishing two statements of solidarity with sister squats Ano Kato and Zizania in Athens that were evicted on the 25th of August. First statement was promoted and written in the context of structures of the Organizational Assembly of Balkan Anarchist Bookfair 2023 and the second one by the anarcha-queer squat mačjak in Ljubljana that was also evicted this days. Mačjak squat was one of the spaces that was hosting people and events of the Balkan Anarchist Bookfair 2023 and also comrades from Ano Kato and Zizania.
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Solidarity with Ano Kato and Zizania
– greek state – a killing machine, every state – a killing machine – ΚΑΤΩ ΤΟ ΚΡΑΤΟΣ –
Two autonomous social and community spaces of struggle, squats Ano Kato Patision and Zizania, were violently evicted by the greek police in the morning of the 25th of August 2023 in Athens. We express our full solidarity with comrades from both spaces and with everyone else, who is facing similar attacks in Athens and elsewhere. With this statement, we are joining a global call for solidarity actions.
In recent months alone, the greek state commited a series of brutal, violent and murderous atrocities. Train disaster in Tempi caused the death of more than 57 mostly young people. They commited a mass murder of at least 600 migrants in Pylos. Just recently, they were responsible for the death of 20 migrants in the wildfires at Evros, not to mention the murders by the racist cops in Athens. The attack on the two social spaces is merely the latest example of their systemic policies of brutal state violence.
This attack is part of a larger political context, in which fascist vigilantes are mobilizing at the borders against the migrants under the protection of the rulling classes and the state. While the devastating wildfires are raging all around greece on a scale that we have never seen before, those responsible for these attrocities are now trying to put a blame for them on the migrants. Evictions therefore come in a context of a greater ideological attack against society by the state – merely to distort the image of reality and distract people from their real enemies.
This evictions also come in a context of continuous and intensified attacks of the state and capital against the people and society under its occupation. This is an attack, specifically directed at the part of the society that is actively organizing and resisting this occupation. It is directed against those, who are revealing and protesting all of the the state’s and capital’s atrocities and are organizing solidarity and struggle together with other exploited and oppressed, who are its targets. They attacked spaces that cannot be subordinated, co-opted or otherwise neutralized. This is an attack against the very idea that abolishing this hell on earth is possible. The state is working hard to establish and promote conditions of social cannibalism. At the same time it is defending itself by trying to cover up the fact that the state of war is its inherent feature. And it is hitting hard against those that dare to point out the possibility to organise our lives differently.
Attacks on migrants and on our comrades are not events that are unfolding far away from our communities in some parallel universe. Greek state is doing the systematic dirty business of white Europe.
War on migrants, evictions of squats and expensiveness of living are tactics of continuous internal war that states are waging on its occupied populations. Be that in the fires of Evros, on the streets of Athens or wherever we can observe how an imaginary line between the external and internal war is blurred. As long as we dare to breath, we are the state’s prospective targets.
Squats all over the world, including Ano Kato and Zizania are cracks in the bloody pattern; a possibility of freedom and solidarity in the middle of the capitalist deserts of exploitation, domination, violence and destruction, ruled by modern totalitarianism. And to add further insult to the state wounds: these are also places of joy.
Weather it is called democratic or not – greek state is no different from any other state in the world. As we write this, one of the autonomous spaces of Ljubljana – anarcha-queer squat mačjak (that hosted comrades from recently evicted squats in Athens during the Balkan Anarchist Bookfair 2023) – is being evicted. The only reason for that is to make space for the capital’s new investments that will result in further destruction of social, communal and neighbourhood life in the city. Their only intention and goal is to extract more profit and change the social architecture of the city in accordance with the interests and needs of the capital and the rich.
Another example of before-mentioned attack against the basic values that bond our societies together in resistance, were recent actions of local fascist groups, politicians and state structures (like police and military) in Slovenia. After the disastrous floods they tried to subjugate the efforts of self-organized solidarity with affected people, while continuing to propagate their hate, centralize relief efforts and push their crisis-management agenda further on. While the state tries to expand working days of the workers in the name of solidarity, new weapon deals are made and war spending is rising.
Our solidarity is a part of the global people’s alliance, composed of movements and initiatives that are resisting the normalisation and banalisation of capitalist devastation everywhere. It is a part of the global struggle for life and dignity, whose main pillar is the necessity to create an alternative, emancipatory vision of the world. We understands that in order to create it, we need to self-organize and build autonomous structures of counter-power and resistance everywhere.
RESIST THE OCCUPATION OF OUR CITIES AND SOCIETIES BY THE STATE AND CAPITAL!
SOLIDARITY WITH ANO KATO AND ZIZANIA!
LET’S OPEN 10-100-1000 NEW SQUATS EVERYWHERE!
TO LIVE MEANS TO ORGANIZE AND RESIST!
Organizational Assembly of Balkan Anarchist Bookfair 2023
AF Posavje
Anarchist Initiative Ljubljana
črne mačke
In Ljubljana, 27th of August 2023
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solidarity with zizania and ano kato from the ruins of mačjak
FROM THE CONCRETE THE SEEDS OF OUR SOLIDARITY WILL SPROUT 10-100-1000 NEW SQUATS
the claws of capital and gentrification are already seizing every last space in every city, settlement and piece of nature in the world. every smallest environment is already polluted by the global system of exploitation. But the market-world keeps turning and big companies are still managing to gain profit through investments and sales, while because of their predation and lust for capital, we, the inhabitants of the world, are the ones facing natural disasters as a result of environmental destruction and global warming.
we the people and the anarchists are struggling to withstand this system aimed towards the oppression of the poor, the under-priviliged, the nature – the others. we stand against exploitation and discrimination of any kind and build communities and resilience opposing the global capitalist system. we stand with the people fleeing their countries because of war and destruction of their living environments. we fight borders and homelessness. we build spaces where violence and discrimination of any kind are not accepted. for this, we are an obvious enemy of the state and capital and the system of domination, they want to maintain.
these weeks we are facing attacks on our autonomous spaces once again. as we are carrying our things out of what used to be mačjak, before heavy machinery runs it down and builds luxuary apartments and offices, we are hearing about the evictions of two athenian squats, zizania and ano kato that happened on friday morning. while there are fires burning through the country and people dying on its borders, the state of greece decided to destroy two social centers, where marginalised people could feel free. we reflect similar struggles we face around imaginary borders tied together in reality by the oppressive capitalist and statist order that is deeply afraid of solidarity, of mutual care, of free spaces where people from all walks of life can get together and identify their real enemy.
RESIST THE OCCUPATION OF OUR CITIES BY STATE AND CAPITAL – STOP EVICTIONS OF SQUATS EVERYWHERE!
mačjak
28th of August 2023
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Solidarity with comrades from Greece was expressed also during the Adriatic Climate Camp on the island of Krk in Croatia.
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Read also the statements from the evicted squats: