Yesterday was a bit of a blur and it seems to make more sense to focus on the experience of being in the square for 7 hours, rather than to describe it in terms of ‘what happened’ (there are enough reports out there that give a fairly good overall view, for example, Contrainfo). So, here is my experience...
Lazing in a peaceful but busy Syntagma square, recovering. Already quite exhausted from the first waves of tear gas (a few hundred of us began the day with a blockade of one arterial road to parliament. Faced with large numbers of riot cops, the blockade had turned into a march to Syntagma). The square is peaceful and a joke about how all revolutions probably begin with frappe coffees and cigarette breaks repeats in my head.
But firing begins. The sound bombs the cops use remind me of war movies. Nothing to see, but my eyes sting with gas. Unanimously, united, we all in the square put on masks and goggles (it would be impossible to be there without these things). The butterflies in my stomach return as we head in the direction of the booms. The next hour or so is ducking and diving, keeping moving, powerful from the adrenaline in my body. There’s nowhere to settle (pissing in the square’s portaloos feels like being in the toilet of a plane as it begins to crash). The desire to hide is vastly outweighed by the desire to resist the onslaught of chemicals. The kind of reactionary anger I feel when a fly won’t stop buzzing in my ear. It feels safer to be on the streets than it does to be directly in the square with the main crowds; more honest too. On the streets there is a kind of symmetry between the actions of the protesters and the cops that constantly repeats itself: the cops fire a volley of gas and bombs, advance down the street as the protesters retreat. Unable to hold their positions, the cops move back, ducking under a wave of stones hacked out of the facades of buildings.
We escape from the square for some respite, a few bananas and some water. Some people are sitting at the table of a cafe, leisurely eating a full lunch of various dishes. Like everyone, their faces are stained white with Maalox, an antacid that counters the effect of the gas. A hundred metres down the narrow street is more gas and confrontation, but they don’t pay any attention. And neither do we for a while. The rest calms me down, also replaces my adrenaline with fear. The rest of the day is a fight to turn my fear back to courage again. People say that occupying the square is courageous enough under such attacks, but it feels like doing nothing.
At around 5, the police launch an attack on all four corners of the square, enter the space itself, I think for the first time, and the place almost disappears in the gas. A mass exodus into the metro, and we are surrounded by people coughing, retching, being carried down below. The stampede and panic from the crowd is scarier than the attack itself. I can see little, in fact the whole day has been like wading through a thick fog; an internal misty environment created by wearing goggles nonstop, but I manage to control a shallow breathing that gets me out of the square to the shelter of the metro. I can’t bear to stay any more. We head home, to a ‘normality’ that seems bizarre, vacant and futile in comparison with the fight that continues a few miles away.
After the day, adrenaline fuelled jubilation for a while, but then exhaustion (there’s something in that gas that wipes you out). And some kind of feeling of dread; a fearful sadness that comes from sensing your own mortality. I lie in bed that night thinking it would be so easy to get unwell and die. And a real sadness too. The reports on the TV that evening were quite horrific. Many people injured and arrested, random attacks on bystanders and resting protesters in other parts of the centre.
It seems that much of the mainstream media focussed on the realities of the police repression (according to friends this was unique for the Greek press and something that is usually ignored). However, still the reports suggest that the violence was generated by an ‘anarchist minority’, with the police defending themselves. But their actions are a million miles beyond self-defence.
Who started it? Who cares. Out on the streets, people were attacking the cops, for sure. Of course. But when faced with that much repression, by a force so vastly more powerful, it’s the best defence. And without it, Syntagma would have been evacuated and over long ago.
I think that the anarchists – the ones using black block tactics - were doing what a lot of people wanted to do but were too afraid to. Out of all the thousands of people in and around the square, I felt that their response to the violence of the cops was the most positively proactive and also the most organised. Everyone in it seemed to work more instinctively as a group – a block. Aware of the necessity to stick together, acting in similar ways, watching and signalling each other, protesting the group. A stark comparison to the square itself, which seemed to interpret safety as escape. The movement of people in the square like a huge shoal of fish as sound bombs went off and gas came in.
I am left thinking what was the end result of the last few days. What was its value? What will come next? Today all is quiet (so far). People spent the day cleaning the square; re-erecting their tents, stands and banners. The massive energy and courage shown by thousands of people yesterday will need to grow and be repeated over and over as the austerity measures they were fighting against begin to squeeze Greece even harder. The people are united against the police now, and they have experience of being in the streets under their attacks. The last days in Syntagma were practice. I guess that was the value of it.
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