I’ve a lot of work to do in the coming weeks, getting ready for my book release, another project I’ll be announcing soon, and working on Combustion Books and our debut at the steampunk worlds fair. And honestly, it feels absurd.
Because right now Greece is in trouble. In December 2008, anarchists and anti-authoritarians spurred a massive anti-capitalist uprising across the country, but what’s happening now seems to be the opposite. Organized fascists are running through the streets of Athens attacking migrants, challenged only by anti-racists. The police seem largely complicit in these would-be pogroms: here’s a video of the police releasing arrested neo-nazis, replacing them with migrants.
I get so angry at how the police and the state will attempt to paint most any conflict that happens outside the realm of the state as being by two equally “bad” groups. Anyone is bad who is in a street fight, they would claim. And yet these are people organizing to physically resist a bunch of fucking nazis who are randomly attacking every non-white person they see. Stopping them with chains and crowbars is appropriate and just, and I’m proud of my comrades there who are doing that work.
But some anarchists fucked up again. (In May 2010, three bank workers died in a fire started by a molotov cocktail at a demonstration in Athens, although it’s certainly arguable that that fire was started by nihilist/angry youth rather than the anarchists.) Anyhow, anarchists attacked the police station in Exarcheia, the “anarchist neighborhood” of Athens. And according to my friend, what happened is that the police pursued the anarchists, who ran into the market. A molotov was thrown at a police officer on a motorcycle (or a fallen bike) and the bike exploded in the market, injuring three bystanders. Here’s the Occupied London report on it.
Even in the midst of conflict, we need to be better at holding ourselves responsible for the ramifications of our actions. Molotovs are fucking dangerous.
But that’s easy for me to say. I’m in Queens, NY, editing stories about post-apocalyptic anarchists at the turn of the 20th century.
Sorry, but in a communique regarding the murdered bank employees the nihilist urban guerilla group “Conspiracy Of The Flames Of Fire” wasn’t finding any nice words about it, also not about the molotov attack at the bookstore opposite the bank seconds before.
It was translated in one of these PDFs on nostate.
Another thing is that the police announced just a few days before the last general strike that they found the murderers but can’t proof it because the people they identified were masked and had gloves.
If they put them into pre-trial detention write them a letter and ask them if they are nihilists.
Is it a fact that anarchists attacked the police(?)-bike?
btw: it wasn’t in the middle of the market-place!
o.k. the malaka from Astoria will scarze…
My apologies, I don’t mean to conflate all nihilists. But my impression from speaking with folks in Athens about the event was that people suspected that it was simply a group of people interested in conflict for the sake of conflict.
And no one is claiming that the people who set the fire at the bank were in favor of killing bank employees. Of course everyone (including the conspiracy cells of fire) would have nothing to say about the event. It was obviously something that shouldn’t have happened.
As for the location of the burning cop bike, the open-air market and the police station are both on Kallidromiou street. I think I’d misunderstood the initial information, so the initial attack was actually on the same street as the market. I can’t remember how far it is from the precinct to the market, but clearly three vendors were injured by a burning cop bike, so honestly, it was an irresponsible action.