Some practical thoughts ahead of the February 23 general strike demonstration – or better even: let’s turn Syntagma into Tahrir Square!
(translation from a very interesting conversation on Athens IMC, here)
February 23: some practical thoughts…
…or better even: Let’s Turn Syntagma into Tahrir Square
Comrades, our interventions in neighbourhoods and on a local level are all well and good but they are appropriate for other days in the year, not for the February 23d. On that day all local, labour issues need to meet up on a central level.
All everyday resistance, struggles at Mass Media, in Keratea, the struggles over health issues, the “I won’t pay” movement, the migrants’ hunger strike, the neighbourhood movements, the academic struggles, the occupations, the struggle for land and liberty, political prisoners must all meet-up in a crucial day, right in the centre of the city.
February 23d is a day of general strike: on that day production is paralysed.
All of us, workers, unemployed, students, pensioners, must join up in a huge human river that will head to Parliament.
All of us, workers, unemployed, students, pensioners, must join up in a huge human river that will head to Parliament.
There should be local gatherings already from 9 am; shops and organisations must shut in the neighbourhoods of the city. However what is most important is for everyone to head to the demonstration together, for people to join up in a monumental demonstration toward the city centre.
Strategic points for the day:It is important is for the size of the crowd to become visible, for everyone to see the size of the demonstration and the rage of the people in front of parliament.
This is something that did happen on May 5th but was not shown on December 15th because the demonstration only held up at Syntagma for a very brief period of time.
This is something that did happen on May 5th but was not shown on December 15th because the demonstration only held up at Syntagma for a very brief period of time.
On December 15th we had many people out (more than 100,000) and we had the rage, but the premature clashes in Syntagma allowed the cops to push back the people with tear-gas and so, the size of the crowd never became fully apparent.
Afterward, the police could talk of only 30,000 people demonstrating and the government with its journalist lackeys degraded the importance of the events and of the mobilisation.
Afterward, the police could talk of only 30,000 people demonstrating and the government with its journalist lackeys degraded the importance of the events and of the mobilisation.
What we need on February 23d is patience and organisation.
The masses will be out there, the rage will exist and the local, everyday resistances of the past weeks and months can turn into an explosive mix that will shaken the regime to its core.
The masses will be out there, the rage will exist and the local, everyday resistances of the past weeks and months can turn into an explosive mix that will shaken the regime to its core.
Everyday people are much more enraged and uncontrollable than parts of the anarchist tendency and the anti-capitalist left (perhaps also because of a lack of sensing the dangers that the clashes carry with them).
What is very important is for that day not to become another simple march in front of parliament.
What is very important is for that day not to become another simple march in front of parliament.
The blocks and people that arrive at Syntagma should not leave, they should stay.
Patiently (to a masochistic degree) they should protect themselves and do not respond to the provocations of riot police, delta force, undercovers and so on and so forth.
When eventually Syntagma square fills up with 100,000 and more people, that’s when the party begins.
First of all this will be an immediate moral victory of the movement, because we will then be talking a major part of the society protesting and not about some quaint minorities.
The government and head of the police will start sweating since it is completely different to break up a demonstration of a a few thousands and it is different to start throwing tear-gas to an enraged sea of 100,000+ people.
They will understand for themselves that they henceforth have no political legitimacy for their policies and the only thing holding them standing is the brute force of the regime.
The government and head of the police will start sweating since it is completely different to break up a demonstration of a a few thousands and it is different to start throwing tear-gas to an enraged sea of 100,000+ people.
They will understand for themselves that they henceforth have no political legitimacy for their policies and the only thing holding them standing is the brute force of the regime.
Cops themselves will start shaking when seeing the crowds lining up in front of them, decisive and enraged.
Then the people, who of course know themselves exactly where the enemy lies, will make the first move. It is at that point that the appropriately equipped tendencies of the movement can do their part in creating events we have never seen before.
Such a gathering can become the beginning of the fall of the regime, the fall of the Junta of Government-IMF-EU. If they fall, everything becomes possible – not in order for another government one to come… But precisely because it won’t be easy for another one to come and to have consensus to apply the same policies against the People.
The supranational elites and the local bosses won’t have any easy solutions to replace this government. The people will say “Everyone must go”, just like in Argentina. The ability of the people from below to overturn the order-receiving government of PASOK will be a victory of the global movement, it will be equivalent to the revolts in Tunisia, in Egypt and other Arab countries.
Let’s turn Syntagma into our own Tahrir Square.
PEOPLE YOU ARE HUNGRY, DO NOT BOW DOWN TO THEM
REVOLUTION PEOPLE, REVOLUTION!
Δεν υπάρχουν σχόλια:
Δημοσίευση σχολίου