Today was the second day of a 2 day general strike across Greece. Both the largest public and private sector unions called for it, in response to the vote in parliament this week for a further wave of measures that will impoverish Greeks in order to pay off the Troika (the name given to the IMF, EU and World Bank together). An estimated million people were on the streets in Athens alone yesterday; a demo the size of which few people had seen in their lifetime. People were together; and angry. It was a full day of protest; space to fight the cops or stand behind flags and banners; the movement was in enough of a shared direction to make ‘solidarity’ not seem totally ridiculous. The act of being on the streets united people, but ideas on what should come next divided them. Ideology came along and kinda fucked things up.
Cause after the beautiful, violent expression on the streets yesterday, today has been marked by clashes between protesters. PAME, the stalinist union, were on the streets in force, and, ehem, decided to make a human wall surrounding the front of Parliament, which looks out onto the square. So, from the beginning, the idea of all on the streets together was undermined with a laughable show of force and oppression, separating other protesters from the target: parliament.
What came next was just ludicrous. Being in among it, I’m not sure exactly how it happened, but it was very quick and went something like this...
The black block formed a front on the north-western side of the square, opposite the PAME ‘wall’. Fighting broke out between the block and the ‘wall’. The fighting took over one of the streets running down the western side of the square, and the police looked on. Estimates say 20 people were hospitalised. The fighting created a space for the cops to fill and occupy the square, with thousands of protesters fleeing to other streets and some stuck in the crossfire between the 2. 5 minutes and everything was over. The square was cleared. What the fuck?
The reaction of most is cynicism. This clash has happened before and. and the radical left and anarchist movements have a long history of hatred and antagonism. Now stalinism and anarchism are totally NOT the same thing. But in this scenario – on the streets of Athens during a mass protest – the things that they share must surely be of more importance than the things about which they disagree. Things in common: a desire for radical change, possibly through revolution? However, where anarchism is about acting as if the state doesn’t exist, the stalinitists of PAME acted like protectors of the state, standing guard outside parliament against the black block and others, and sending a big fuck you to them all.
Who gives a shit about how it started. The fact that these clashes are possible and regular indicates how much work must be done before any kind of movement big and strong enough to form a revolutionary power can emerge. Surely the fight over ideologies is what comes after the revolution, not before? Before, and you’re just making the cops lives a whole heap easier; and undermining your own cause as a result.
One of the reasons PAME made this ridiculous wall was to keep ‘trouble makers’ out of the protest. Standing in front of the parliament, like the rightful owners of the demo is such provocation. And divisive. But the tactics used by the black block makes me question their motives too. Something is tactical when the situation is assessed and the best response is found, collectively. Black block fighting cops seems to happen at every demo. Its predictable and this weakens its effectiveness to go beyond just provocation, if the aim is revolutionary.
Anyway. The day is not yet over. As I left the square people were slowly filling it up again. And now a man has died (53 year old guy from inhaling gas), who knows what’s coming next...
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