General strike in Athens

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...

The London Riots and my idea of class

A few nights ago I went to a talk about the London riots by Martin Lux from the Whitechapel anarchist group. His talk was a little like storytelling; the benefits and limits of placing things in an order and making connections. He was clear this was his story; his opinion. It was a good opinion and worth hearing. And it made me make connections to my own story. Let’s start with his...

The connections begun last winter with the student protests against fees and cuts. Dismissing the student movement entirely (as being a lame bunch of twats, mainly from the middle classes that’s never actually mounted any real threatening movement to speak of), he focussed on the acts of school students in some of the London protests; how they were the ones behaving more unpredictably and wildly, sticking it to the cops the hardest and learning from these confrontations. It was through the violent clashes between the cops and the school students that the possibility and the space for the more violent clashes that happened in the spring and later that summer were created.

So with this as the backdrop, we move on the riots of July. Again, there’s been lots written about the events themselves, so here’s a little of his analysis... The riots were spontaneous, numerous and diverse expressions of violent anger. This anger came from the build up of generations of being fucked over, of being lumped together as some kind of deserving poor, and of the numerous individual experiences of being reminded of the fact (shit education; crap jobs with shit wages; a benefits system that expects gratefulness; regular and systematic violence from the cops in a prison system that makes it into all spaces in your life from street searches and tags, to curfews and asbos). As with most explosive public order situations, there were acts of anti-social behaviour and the rioters attacked their own neighbourhoods too. You might wanna do that too when you feel that your neighbourhood is more of a ghetto than a home and society thinks that you’re not even human. The rioters looted a lot of stuff too. Again, you might wanna do that when you live in a society that has index linked human value to your ability to buy stuff as completely as the british one, and you can’t get it. Not everyone can have the stuff. That what makes it socially valuable. So they took it and probably had a pretty good time in the process.

He talked about how the left and the anarchist movement failed to get involved with the riots. In the case of the left they didn’t recognise the rioters as even part of the working class (or the lower class or underclass), defining them as lumpen proletariat and hence devoid of a political dimension and agenda. In the case of the anarchist movement, they failed to see a political message in what was happening too; they didn’t see it as creating space in which they could also express their vision of the world. He criticised the UK anarchist movement for also being mainly middle class, totally alienated from the working classes and totally useless in this situation.

The main messages from of the talk: People. Stop talking your theory and get on the streets! The only way to radical change is through insurrection from the lower class. And, the middle classes suck

As the discussion progressed (and blimey was it a long one), it became clear that the Greek understanding of class is totally different. One thing that he explained was the fact that the british working class is made up of british citizens as well as immigrants and people of colour, and many different people were on the streets during the riots, for different reasons. In Greece, the idea of class ), like a caste, as some kind of birthright (or curse) means that social divisions within native society are less clear. At the same time though, mass immigration is a fairly recent thing, so divisions between natives and non-natives are extremely plain. The contemporary british working class on the other hand exists within this idea of class as birthright or curse. It could be defined as the class denied: in social, cultural and economic terms. It’s also the class that fights back. When defined as such, the british working class can be diverse in terms of race or nationality (perhaps this is also one reason why people quickly come to identify - at least to a certain extent and for some - as British, of any class. I have been in countries when people who have lived in a place for 10 generations still don’t identify as – or are accepted as - the nationality of the place they are living in).

As someone who is middle class, I don’t feel so comfy ‘defining’ the working class. But seeing as he defined me, as coming from the class that should fuck off and die, I wanna say something, cause I don’t think it’s so black and white. It’s not so black and white because class is more blurry than that, even in the UK. What class am I? Both my parents came from working class backgrounds. Inner city London, poor, immigrant heritage (and active involvement in radical politics too. As a 1^st generation eastern European Jewish man, my granddad was there on the streets of the east end fighting Oswald Moseley’s Fascists). But I was brought up with middle class values and aspirations. Social climbing was a big motivation for my dad; desire to do better than the working class roots he didn’t value. After my dad became ill and could no longer work, we didn’t have much money and I grew up on benefits. Financially, we were the underclass, but the rest of the middle-class stuff – the cultural stuff - remained. In fact, perhaps we strived even harder to assert the middle class status when we couldn’t back it up in financial terms. Because we were poor I got a scholarship to attend a posh school (nuns, silly uniforms, the works) and my education reinforced my identity as lower middle class; the class with the slight inferiority complex. So when I act, I come from this background. It makes me think of the definition of activism as ‘doing as much I can from where I’m at’. I can’t do more than that. Don’t define me and don’t write me off.

It’s also not black and white because being middle class and having radical politics is a constant process of struggle too. There’s truth in the fact that radical politics – the theory -  is mainly a privilege of the educated. This education comes to form some kind of protective barrier between words and deeds; the tools to see injustice, but an excuse not to act (these riots don’t express this or that theory, so they can’t be revolutionary, etc, etc). We talk the talk, but rarely really walk the walk. Our politics comes before the practice; of direct experience of repression and the struggle against it. So getting involved means becoming a class traitor; and this is our struggle; overcoming privilege – to live out a comfortable, secure life, being socially positioned to take advantage of the system. The challenge is in overcoming a fear of violence and conflict; rejecting and being rejected by our own class. This is the challenge of making the idea of a radical middle class not a contradiction in terms. This is really scary and difficult, partly because it comes from choice, so I can choose not to. I can choose to keep talking and not act on it and be a hypocrite. My challenge is always to stop using theory as a wall to hide behind.

Some Reflections on NoBorder Camp Bulgaria 2011

 

Last week saw 300 people gather for a long weekend near the border of Greece, Turkey and Bulgaria , on the Bulgarian side. The camp was situated on the edge of the small village of Siva Reka. From a distance, the camp looked like a mini festival scene. I don’t suppose the village had ever played host to such a thing. The people of the village were extremely positive to our presence, but there is still something slightly comical about 300 folks descending on them. It looked like the circus had come to town.

NoBorder Camp Bulgaria brought together people from across Europe for 5 days of discussions and demos. The main actions of the camp included talks and film screenings with local communities; a protest in the nearby town of Svilengrad, where the Border Police HQ is; carnivalesque protests at the border points of Turkey and Greece and a demo outside the detention centre in the nearby town of Ljubimec.

The location of the camp was partly a symbolic one. Situated 4 km from the border with Greece, and 11 km from the border with Turkey, Bulgaria (along with Romania) is soon to become the new frontier of the eastern-most Schengen zone. But the camp was also practical, aiming to make connections with the locals who’s lives will be affected by the changes. For the local people who visited the camp, they talked of their vulnerability in the face of decisions that essentially remain hidden from them. There was a sense of confusion; that their region could become the focus of huge flows of sans papiers, but also that little had changed so far. They know that change is coming, but so far it is hard to see, and this creates fear. No information, to consent, no power.

On a wider scale, with Bulgaria and Romania entering Schengen next year, the new imperialism of the militarised European border regime takes another step outwards; another zone is created from which Frontex attempts its dehumanising border crack down the name of bureaucracy and efficiency drives; another space from which Europe can project oppression through the discourse of protection and security. For people trying to enter Europe and who have to do so clandestinely however, the extension of Schengen is both an oppression and also a new opportunity.

There have been a number of accounts of what happened during the camp, and you can read them here. What I want to focus on are some of the themes that arose from camp discussions; some reflections on what the camp created that perhaps will last and enrich the movement. These reflections are based on a conversation between myself and a friend at the camp. They are only our thoughts and cannot be representative of the camp, but perhaps they offer up a little of the feeling of the camp.

Me: When I think about NoBorder camp Bulgaria, I feel that the camp itself was anarchist- it was DIY and it was people working through their ideologies together - but the actions of the camp weren’t. Actually it feels pretty unimportant to make this distinction, since the camp created an autonomous space. Ideologies didn’t matter in and of themselves. At least this is how I think it was by the end.

Them: I was trying to think about whether you can designate an action as explicitly anarchist or not. On the one hand you could look at the kinds of things anarchist generally do and say ‘OK, well they do these direct actions; they fight cops; they’re black block’. Then you could look at the camp and say that it didn’t do those things therefore it’s not anarchist. But I feel  there’s something wrong about this way of seeing it. I think what’s missing is an appreciation of the context in which those actions are done.

The idea of being an anarchist, I think, is to bring about anarchism, or to make an environment more anarchist. So you want to push for some change that might be far down the road. And just because the ‘end’ might be anarchist doesn’t mean that everything that leads to that point is also obviously identifiable as anarchist. Sometimes the definition of anarchist isn’t important.

Me: I can’t help feeling that a lot of what we achieved was very reformist and symbolic though. And I think that many people had a problem with that. Demonstrating outside the border police. Is such an act more than just symbolism? Perhaps the biggest and most positive outcome from our actions was the outreach to the local community and the positive press response. Perhaps this is the foundation for a movement in Bulgaria. That is something to be proud of. But much of the camp was symbolic. Its location was mainly symbolic too, in light of the fact that the changes that will affect the area have not yet come into full force.

Them: I still think the context needs to be understood. The fact that those organisers with local knowledge were saying that nothing like this had ever happened in Bulgaria before, even an action others might feel was ‘fluffy’, you could tell that the authorities were very nervous. There is no movement in Bulgaria. This makes it like special circumstances. A lot of it comes down to risk. If we had done something more radical and had been violently repressed, it could have gone in a way that would have undermined the possibility of establishing a movement in Bulgaria at all.

Me: The aims of the NoBorder network are incredibly broad though. There is a huge variety of understandings about how we should go about achieving a world free of borders. It makes for a lot of conflict within the movement when it comes together. It makes for some very long meetings!

For example, there was this conflict between those who wanted more individual autonomy to decide over actions and the wishes of the camp organisers to stick to actions that had limited chances of antagonising. I guess it came down to a divide between individual autonomy versus collective action, but also a tension in how collective actions can reflect the wishes and ideologies of 300 people. There were many who were not happy with the protests we made and were disappointed the camp didn’t create a space for more, radical, creative actions. At the beginning there were accusations of a break of trust. What do you think about this?

Them: I thought that people were missing the point. In these discussions it was pointed out that it was not trust we had lost. Rather a lack of clarity about where people were coming from; different perspectives. Because everybody seems to come to these things with the idea that everybody must have the ‘right’ and same idea immediately. People don’t give each other the benefit of the doubt. And it can quite easily and quickly escalate into a conflict. We don’t give each other the benefit of the doubt. We are not gentle with each other as a movement!

There’s something going on here about lifestyle anarchism and the idea that you can just go to another country, a different context where you don’t speak the language, and you just have to do your thing, which often becomes a kind of acting out of how you see your identity. To me this is saying ‘this is about me’ and it’s not about looking far down the road and thinking ‘what’s it gonna be like here in a years time or 10 years time?’ There were things about the protests I didn’t like. But because of the location and context, we were limited to actions that were public relations exercises. This was a spectacle, but perhaps one with some lasting effects.

Me: I think many of these issues would have been solved simply if the camp had been longer. We were beginning to generate a flow. And then it ended! So many of the conflicts in the camp existed because we didn’t yet know each other, so there was this strange lack of trust between people. A kind of ‘why don’t you already talk in a language that I fully understand?’ If we had spent more time together I think we would have had the opportunity to develop a much greater understanding and solidarity between each other. And this gives me hope for the future. I don’t think we should be negative on this point, because I think there was a learning process throughout the camp. I certainly learned a lot about my own flexibility and understanding of the diversity in the network. You can come out of those conflicts aware of how to do things differently and better the next time.

Them: I have had lots of experience where anarchists are not forgiving and are judgemental. Will people continue to make these mistakes. I think there’s something in the mentality of anarchism that lends itself to judgement like we saw at the camp.

Me: I have great memories from our action outside the detention centre, when we were communicating with the people inside the centre.

Them:  Yeah there was a moment when someone shouted – in French – if anyone inside spoke French, and a guy replied ‘Oui’! and everyone roared a cheer. It was a connection.

Me: During that action all the cops were invisible really. They were simply standing there between a conversation they were not welcome to participate in.

Maybe we need to have more realistic expectations about what can be achieved in a camp. For me, the most useful thing is the chance to meet and share ideas with other people. To learn from each other. To make a temporary autonomous zone! For some this is not the point of the camp, but we are a diverse network. A NoBorder camp doesn’t exist in isolation. It exists as one type of strategic action in a whole series of actions by people connected to different networks. Perhaps there are scenarios where the local context, and the political situation and the targets exist in a way that means that other things are possible at a camp. For me Brussels was an example of when being so close to decision making powers was a perfect opportunity to really show our power. We were violently repressed but even that is a sign that we hit them where it hurt! In the context of Brussels, more antagonistic actions made sense. In somewhere like the border region of Bulgaria, there’s not those decision making powers. It’s site where decisions are acted, but not made, so the type of action in the context is different.

A large proportion of the camp came from western Europe. I think this generates a very specific way of conducting politics and making decision. A specific way of valuing, of keeping watch over racism and sexism that had a very distinct character to it. I think that if you already understood this way and were familiar with it, you would could feel very included within the camp, but if you weren’t familiar with it, it could have been very easy to have felt like an outsider in the camp, like you were doing it wrong.

Them: We also had the conversation about it being a privilege to go to a NoBorder camp and this is true in a lot of cases. But I definitely see the value in doing activism inside the borders. That’s where a lot of the power is. And then means that many people will be excluded. But I don’t necessarily think that this makes it a bad or valueless thing to do, because these camps are a part of a diversity of tactics. NoBorder camps are an opportunity to use our privilege. Some camps have been in the places of migrants and have generated a lot of solidarity. This location did not allow for that, but it was an opportunity for us to use our privilege to do something. Being aware that it is a privileged thing is important, but it is only one type of thing.

Me: OK, so we had some difficult conversations and pissed each other off a little, but in the end, a lot more was learnt and shared. What I love about camps like this is that, for a few days, everything you do is self-organised. From the showers to the dinners to the action of the camp, everything is DIY, collectively run and collectively agreed. Being a part of it is an experience which makes me feel that little bit more powerful. That little bit more positive about the future. Bring on the camp(s) in 2012!

Some thoughts on the UK riots

OK, this is nothing to do with migration and stuff but I wanna say something about the UK riots. I'm here in Athens. Everything I see, read or hear about the riots is second hand, so my perspective is partial.

I've just retured from a talk about the riots at a squat in Athens by Occupied London. We saw images and videos. We saw maps displaying where all the riots tok place and how they spread. Tottenham, Brixton, Croydon, Nottingham, Birmingham... poor neighbourhoods across the country. People venting anger on the streets, raging against the system (global capitalism propped up by states). Rage that comes from alienation. Alienation that comes from being treated as unneccesary to this sysem of ours.

And the general response from many sectors of the community is anger at the looters; at the disgraceful response. More distancing of 'us' from 'them'. As if we are not also alienated! In a system that values consumption like a religion; where having stuff is the equaivalent of being somebody. We are all alienated!

There is not a 'them' who loot and an 'us' who dont. We are all affected by the same system. Why are we also not angry? Cause we are not separate or disconnected from what has been unleashed by the last weeks acts. There is not an us and them. 

The strike of June 29th in Syntagma Square

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.

Pics of banners in Syntagma Square

 

Some of the organisation of Syntagma working groups

"End the apathy. Direct democracy"

Banner from one of the Greek as a foreign language schools

Long strike to victory¨The solidarity syndicalists and syndicate

We're not selling, we're not buying, we're doing

The great US circus last performance

You took 30 peices of silver. How much was for yourselves?

Is Syntagma racist?

Syntagma feels like something of a political sun. On the up side, the events in and around the square have fully entered the public consciousness. Everyone – everyone – is talking about it, and/or going there and framing their politics in terms of what’s going on  there. On the down side, politics and Syntagma seem to have become interchangeable, despite the scepticism. You get the feeling that if it aint connected to, or going on in the square, then right now, nobody has the time for it; nobody considers it politics.

Syntagma represents vast sections of Greek society, but its still a very white and Greek space. I don’t know how to participate there, and the only way that non-white migrants appear to be participating so far is in selling the green lasers that people are using to shine on the Parliament.

Since the decision was taken to cancel the annual anti-racist festival in the city, Saturday in Syntagma Square (day 33 of the occupation) was dedicated to a celebration of migration. I guess the logic was something like (for want for a better phrase!) if the mountain won’t come to Mohammed, then Mohammed must go to the mountain.

The migrants’ social centre (Steki Metanaston) had discussed ensuring a good turn out to the events and as I scanned the crowed, it was funny to identify half the people as steki Metanaston regulars. Like a ‘Where’s Wally’ with half the crowd made up of Wally’s. And it was nice to feel an affinity with them too. People gathered for some songs, performed by people from the steki. The warm up act equated to blasting the crowd with feedback, but the performance itself was nice, jovial, meaningful: the songs were songs of protest and rights.

Afterwards came a Syntagma assembly on migration issues. There was a panel of speakers: of Greek natives and people who had migrated to Greece. It amounted to an informed, impassioned and biased avocation of migrant rights (some spoke of their own experiences of violent exclusion as a result of their identification as ‘migrant’). The overall theme of the panel I think forms a pretty nice and concise response to anyone who comes at you with a variant of the argument: ‘I’m not a racist, but migrants have created the social/economic crisis here’:

·         Capitalism is a system that pits workers against each other, these days on a global scale

·         With this in mind, poor people/workers beating on poorer people/workers makes no goddam sense.

·         Actually it is doubly dangerous by a) creating and reinforcing exclusions and b) distracting attention from the real culprits: those that wield power in the global system of capitalism.

Apart from an occasional slanging match, or a few old gits shouting at the gathered crowd: “where are the Greeks to speak about the situation! I wanna hear from Greeks, not migrants” even as the assembly entered into an open discussion, the biased nature of the discussion remained unchallenged. The space created by the assembly did not – and was not intended to – create a space for a ‘gloves off’ discussion as some might have hoped. But in a space where the possibility of extreme racism is possible, what is wrong with that? Migrants have so far been given virtually no means and very little encouragement or motivation to join Syntagma. This day’s events essentially amounted to a vastly inferior gesture to open the space to other communities.

And the racism in Syntagma was present that day too: Firstly, one of the invited speakers, a woman representing a community of African women, had been phoned and threatened that if she attended the assembly she would be killed. She didn’t attend the assembly.

Secondly, as one of the day’s events, a cricket match had been planned between the Pakistan community and natives. The match had not gone ahead, because racists had attacked those who had gathered to play.

Syntagma has an active racist minority within it. Syntagma has formed as a space that can  not prohibit such behaviour. Indeed, I would suggest that people are so afraid of partisanship, that any restriction of political view – as long as it can be presented as personal, rather than party political – is deemed unacceptable; the ‘I will fight for the right to share a platform with racists’ kind of argument. In a space that is free for anyone – to the extent that Syntagma claims to remain free of political parties - it remains brim full of politics: Fascism, liberalism, anarchism, -ism, -ism, -ism; all alive and well.