DECLARATION OF THE 4TH CONFERENCE OF THE ANARCHIST POLITICAL ORGANIZATION
The 4th Congress of the Anarchist Political Organization was held on December 21st and 22nd in Athens, on the occupied territory of Lelas Karagianni 37, amid the state’s escalating attack on society and its resistances. On the morning of the first day, there was an open discussion on the social and political situation, and the statements of an open political review, concerning the heretofore experience of the function of this organizational attempt. In this process, except for the collectives that are members of A.P.O. (anarchist collectives “Circle of Fire” and “Omikron 72” from Athens, collective for libertarian communism “Libertatia” and collective for social anarchism “Black and Red” from Thessaloniki and an anarchist group “Dysinios Ippos” from Patras), the conference was also attended by the anarchist collective “Peloto” from Xanthi and the collective “black red coalition for the social emancipation Nessun Potere” from Orestiada.
The conference continued with an account of the ongoing collective and decisive body of A.P.O, the working groups (counter-information, translation and international contacts), the editorial team of the anarchist newspaper “Land and Freedom” and the special thematic groups (group against patriarchy). There was also an assessment of the initiatives taken by the organization the previous months and the formation of our strategy up to the next conference.
The congress’s processes ended with the validation of our decisions on tactical and strategic issues and with setting up our next meeting which will be held in the summer of 2020 and our next Conference in a year’s time.
The political statements of the groups – members of APO start from the perception that the organization is part of the wider movement against state and capitalist brutality, its references lie there and interacts with it, highlighting the realism and effectiveness of the choice of organized struggle of anarchists and attempting to form the ground in order to overcome the partial and reflex protest, with the aim of creating an overall anarchist revolutionary proposal inspired by today’s struggles. The experience and years of involvement in this struggle show that the organization is an important precondition for its development, with the aim of formulating, as fully as possible, a comprehensive political revolutionary program, not only for the ever-increasing needs of the struggles in the present but also in order to bring to society a realistic proposal that places at its core the vision of a future emancipated and self-directed social organization. Just as life is not possible without cooperation and solidarity, in the same way struggle and revolution are not feasible without a pre-existing revolutionary organization.
The neoliberal-far-right government of New Democracy succeeded the political administration of SYRIZA, which on one hand designed and implemented a series of anti-social-anti-labor measures and on the other hand sought the incorporation and political neutralization of movements. At the current juncture, the government announces the transition to the period of much-needed “growth” and the return to “normality” of the state-capitalist way of organizing life. The modern working “dark ages” is once again being renamed ‘development’ and ‘modernization’ in the ‘new language’ of modern totalitarianism. “Development” marks a new round of anti-social attack on behalf of the state and the bosses. The continuation of the guardianship by supranational mechanisms and the commitment to meeting high economic objectives are inciting that the plundering and destruction of social wealth, the increasingly violent impoverishment of the social base and the unhindered destruction of the natural world are going to be renewed.
The imposition of development, of law and order means, for the large social majority, shortages in basic medicines and the closure of more and more health units, hunger wages and the continuous degradation of labor rights, home seizures and university tuition fees. It means destruction of mountains, rivers and forests, the further contamination of seas and air, the privatization of the natural world in order to plunder it intensively.
The spearhead of the state the bosses’ generalized attack the against society, nature, the working class, is the destruction of social and class resistance. Without it, their plans to impose the bleak reality of ever-increasing exploitation and oppression remain precarious. The targeting of squats and the invasion in them are an integral part of the overall operation of the state and the bosses in order to impose working camp conditions. The operations of SWAT and riot police forces against squatted spaces, the persecutions, the pompous proclamations-“ultimatums”, the occupation of Exarcheia by repressive forces are targeting those forces that could function as initiators of generalized social and class resistance, and through their example to discourage the rest of society. The use of torture in public as a tool of intimidation is the most characteristic example of this practice.
On one hand, the state attempts to demonstrate its strength in order to intimidate the large masses affected by impoverishing policies and to prevent social and class rage from becoming a generalized conflict. On the other hand, it seeks to unite the most conservative parts, which are subjugated to the power of the most powerful and by being identified with a state that is rapidly moving towards the imposition of modern totalitarianism, are fascistized.
At the same time, all governments so far have promoted intolerance and racism, while state mechanisms kept on using and arming the hands of Nazi strike groups. The Golden Dawn trial began five years ago, in a climate of widespread social anger from the successive fascist attacks, aiming mainly to intercept the expression of social discontent and to launder the Nazi gang, but also the state itself, being the main orchestrator and instigator of the fascist/para-state attacks, using them as a reserve in the direction of terrorizing society and repressing all those who struggle. Today, the trial is coming to an end, with the majority of the accused already freed, while the head of state prosecutor, Adamantia Oikonomou, proposes the acquittal of those accused for the murdering of Pavlos Fyssas and their dismissal for the charge of setting up a criminal organization, putting an end to any illusions of the “regime’s anti-fascism”.
The simultaneous attack on the university asylum and on the ability of class organization in the workplace, and also on the possibility of demonstrating through legislation that seek to restrict them, and the staged persecution against people of the struggle, are part of the same repressive machine which aims, through this blatant attack, to permanently change the social and class balance of power. The war against all those who struggle is part of the systematic effort of the Greek state to subdue social and class resistance and impose submission. It is the battles that are being fought in every front of this attack that will ultimately determine the outcome of this war that aims at restructuring the terms of social existence.
“Son of man, say or guess, you can’t, because you only know a stack of broken images where the sun hits. And the dead tree doesn’t give you roof.”
The first victims-prisoners of this war, which is conducted jointly by local and international rulers, are those imprisoned in concentration camps, the immigrants and refugees. The drownings, the deaths caused by cold and malaise, the mass confinement, are a constant crime against humanity that one can historically find on the darkest pages of colonialism and the great wars. And the same interstate formations that forced millions of people to leave their homes, their friends and families, through the warfare and economic looting, that are now keeping them in captivity, depriving them of any prospect of a decent life.
They are the same transnational formations that are working to extend their power by military means, with devastating consequences first for the peoples of Africa and Asia and then for every people who stands in their path. The western coalition of states and its local allies, having already made military attacks on Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Yemen, Palestine and Syria, plundering most of the planet for centuries, are preparing the next step. The transition from regional conflicts “via proxy” to generalized war in order to preserve the blood-painted “status-quo” of their declining empire. The Greek State, as an integral part of NATO and the European Union, not only acts as a base for the professional murderers, by constantly providing new ports and new bases for the US and NATO war machine, but also seeks to upgrade its role by sending military forces, warships and missile systems and operators in order to participate directly in the preparation of a new massacre of the peoples of Middle East. It unreservedly supports the apartheid in the state of Israel and has embarked on a contest of aggression with the Turkish state, where geopolitical and economic influence in the Southeast Mediterranean is at stake. The policy of increasing competition leads to a single path, the path of war, which means only death and misery for the people on both sides.
The land is shared with the rifle. Villager, don’t expect, the light that is real from your sweat, that in front of you the sky will kneel.”
Against the attack of the decayed world of authority and the dystopia of modern totalitarianism, where the great majority of the people is being impoverished and subjugated, class and internationalist solidarity between the people is rising as the only prospect. The organization of anti-war, internationalist mobilizations in order to stop the path towards destruction that the international political and economic elites are imposing is a main objective for the next period.
The promising popular uprising in Chile, the popular protests in Ecuador and Colombia, the struggles all over Latin America, the strong resistance in revolted Rojava, the ongoing protests in Greece, France, Turkey, Palestine, and the great and small points of resistance around the world fill us with optimism and strength. They prove that the enemy might be strong but is not invulnerable! The strength and connection of these struggles can change the course of history.
“We do not look at the immediate and the ephemeral. Our gaze goes further.
Up to the point where any man or woman who has just got up from bed can be seen fresh with the tender anxiety of knowing that they have to decide their own fate, and that they will walk all day with the uncertainty imposed by the responsibility of giving meaning to the word “freedom”. Up there we look, up to the time and place where one supports the other.”
The social and class movements, the anarchist-anti-authoritarian movement, their survival and their empowerment locally are valuable to continue to be the sand in the gears of the rulers. In Greece, where the intention of uprooting them has been proclaimed in every way, there can be no waiting. Every resistance front is a fortress, every struggle is a trench, every combative action is another sabotage against the condition of political, economic and military occupation that they want to impose on everyone.
The mass demonstrations that started since August, with the demonstrations of September 14, November 17 and December 6 with the participation of many thousands as its high peaks, the fighting attitude towards the repressive army, with the re-occupation of the evicted squats and actions of counter-attack, the persistent actions of resistance on the streets, in the universities, the worker strikes are bearing fruit. They have acted objectively, as a factor of halting the state aggression.
In order to be able to withstand over time, to enable the social-class and the anarchist movement to survive and develop from a bulwark to a raid on the sky, to continue to exist and to transform our struggles from defensive ones into revolutionary preludes, we need the organization of all those who struggle. At a social, class and political level, the strengthening and the creation of grassroots unions, neighborhood assemblies and anarchist collectives is the only condition that can set against the power of the state, that offers nothing more than an impoverishing, individualistic survival in a regime of exploitation and fear, the strength of the revolution for a society of solidarity, equality and freedom.
Social and Class resistance is alive and will win!
INTERNATIONALIST SOLIDARITY, ORGANIZATION AND STRUGGLE FOR SOCIAL REVOLUTION, FOR ANARCHY AND LIBERTARIAN COMMUNISM
Anarchist Political Organization-Federation of Collectives
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