CALL TO THE 2ND LIBERTARIAN FESTIVAL FOR INTERNATIONALIST, SOCIAL AND CLASS SOLIDARITY OF THE ANARCHIST POLITICAL ORGANIZATION IN ATHENS
Against the bleak prospect of the establishment of modern totalitarianism.
The generalized crisis of the world of states and bosses leads with mathematical precision -if a wide an international front of struggle and resistance is not formed- to warlike societies, to the generalization and escalation of geo-political antagonisms and to military operations until the brink of a big war and the stabilization of the emergency state, as a fortified complex of control and suppression of every form of social activity.
This attack at all fronts by the predominant class is waged with its ultimate goal being the total control of human societies, the imposing of supreme authority on them, the sacking of the natural world and of its natural resources. From Syria to the U.S.A., from Istanbul to western Europe and South America, the political and economical elite have been targeting the vast majority of the exploited and suppressed, foreshadowing the all growing crackdown, plunder and death.
On the other hand, at the same time, standing against the international anti-social collaboration of the global elites and to the wartime societies they’ve been cooking up, the inexhaustible liberating opportunities of the struggles that are waged all over the world have been emerging. From Rojava to Chiapas, from the Brazilian favelas to the Antifascist barricades of western Europe and the Balkans, the case of Social Revolution is still very much alive, blockading the attack of the state and the bosses, creating the terms of social and class counter-attack.
It is this social and class counter-attack that scares the rulers so much that they muster the most hideous things human history has to offer in order to intercept it. Due to the widespread crisis of the state-capitalist system the limits of it gaining consent for its main objectives are increasingly narrowing. That is why, on a global level, fascist and right-extremist groups – which form state’s militant reservoir- are being brought forth from the oppressors’ quiver, signing up in favor of Counter-Revolution, in order to pave the way to the fulfillment of the strategical objectives of Authority.
The state and capitalist restructuring in Greece the recent years has been shaping into a total and overwhelming attack against society and its resistance. The deterioration of poverty, the destructive looting of the natural world and of the local societies, the imprisonment of refugees and migrants in concentration camps under terrible conditions, the state suppression, the backing up of fascist mobs and the systematic persecution of all those who struggle are just parts of the larger offensive of the state and the bosses. The illusions of a better management of capitalism that the social-democrat version of modern totalitarianism orchestrated were totally effective. The state and capitalist offensive is carried on, imposing itself by exploiting and suppressing, striving at the same time to extend the lifespan of this corrupted system, by creating a decomposing environment for social and class resistance; an environment of national and class conciliation and cooperation. In the meantime, through a renewed rhetoric claiming “the exit from the memoranda agreements”, the extraction of social consent is attempted anew, paving the way for the future episodes of looting of the vast majority of the society that is being prepared, cultivating once more the illusions of the rectification of the system.
With the resurgence of the so called “Macedonian issue” and according to the dictations of the E.U. and the N.A.T.O., the government of SYRIZA proved itself to be the most effective promoter of the claims of the local bourgeoisie and the international financial organizations. A broad audience was concurrently summoned upon a nationalist and bigoted frenzy that has been advocated by the “deep state”, which is venturing to compose the fascist rearguard of the system, both due to the perspective of the collapse of the imposed -yet fragile- social peace in the interior, but also due to the escalation of the already tense competition in the fluid geo-political surroundings of the Balkans and the south-east Mediterranean.
In this reality of complete decomposition, it is necessary for the system to gain social consent for its machinations. Nevertheless, the brutality of the state and the capital cannot be accepted anymore nor can it be solved and altered. For the exploited masses the upcoming ballots have nothing more to promise than the worsening of the context of slavery by the refortification of the status quo that will emerge through renewed legalization of the its political representation.
On the one hand, the continuation of the already existing management of society will bring an even bigger disarray of the social and class resistance, disarming the movement, in a period when the broadening of collective struggles of the society -and especially of those organized by the oppressed- is a constantly at stake, so that a barrier is put against the advance of the state, the capital and the fascists. On the other, the re-emergence of the neo-liberal version of the system will declare a new round of war against all those who are currently targeted by the political and economical prevailing system; the poor, the outcasts, the struggling people. It is the obvious goal of this system to subdue them in order to facilitate the imposing of the monkey business of the political and economical elites who want to inflict social circumstances similar to those of labor camps.
Regardless of which the final outcome of the elections will be, it is certain that the aftermath will result in the beginning of a new harsh round of suppression of the social and class movements, and especially of the anarchist-antiauthoritarian one, against which a total and complete subjugation is being prepared for years, aiming not only to confine it but to totally annihilate it. The political presence and action of the anarchists all the previous years, the call for a self-organized resistance from the basis, the vision of a Social Revolution as the solely true realistic alternative for a society facing the allegedly inescapable capitalist and institutional decay, having to deal with the obscurity of fascism and the dead end of reformist illusions, qualify them as a genuine threat for the authority and that’s exactly why they have been at the front of its suppressive strategy.
Libertarian Festival for internationalist, social and class solidarity in Athens, 4-5-6 July 2019
In contrast to the bleak perspective of Modern Totalitarianism the sole hope for a social and class resistance emerges, the struggle of people all around the world to throw off the brutality of the state capitalist system. In these struggles we -the anarchists- live and breathe. Through the organized political presence and action in the existing fronts of the struggle and through the creation of new ones, we fight in order to build bridges between real social needs and desires and the anarchist worldview and practice, so that the resistances can become springboards for the social and class emancipation.
The organizing of the 2nd Libertarian Festival by the APO-OS is striving to create an open and public political and cultural meeting place, to connect and generate the social and class struggle that is being constructed from below and to transfuse to them the anarchist and libertarian ideals.
The themes of the political events and presentations will have to do with the whole range of social competition: labor struggles and major strikes, struggles of internationalist solidarity, anti-fascist struggles and solidarity with refugees and immigrants, resistance to the state’s repression and the state of emergency, the struggle against patriarchy and gender violence, the struggle against the pillage of nature. At the same time, we aim to create a space where as many people as possible will have the chance to come into contact with the anarchist struggle for a society of equality and freedom through discussions, book presentations, photo and documentary exhibitions, theatrical performances and concerts.
Thus, we will have the opportunity to highlight the perceptions, practices, struggles, political proposals and positions of the anarchists on a series of issues of the political and social reality of our time; to create a public forumwhere we will get to know and to present struggle experiences and political conclusions from resistances that break out both in Greece and internationally, far from each other, but they really are fronts of struggle against common enemies, with a common perspective of social liberation.
Against the barbarism of war and modern totalitarianism on a global scale (restructuring, state of emergency, exception regime, pillage of nature, ongoing war operations and constant preparations for new ones), we as anarchists have to propose the weapons of social, class and internationalist solidarity, recognizing that now more than ever is so important for the social strugglers to communicate internationally and to organize our common struggle against the attack of the common enemy. In every open front of the social and class struggle, against the aggression of the state and capital, we have to attempt to radicalize the struggles through their connection with the universal social vision of social and class emancipation, proposing the only realistic way out for the oppressed, the organization of the struggle for social revolution, anarchy and libertarian communism.
THE STRUGGLE FOR GLOBAL SOCIAL REVOLUTION WILL PREVAIL!
