Twenty two anarchist political prisoners in Greece began a hunger strike on 2nd March demanding the abolition of type C high security prisons, the abolition of "antiterrorist" laws, the abolition of concentration camps for migrants, the abolition of the so-called "hoodie law", a radical change in the process of taking and identification via DNA samples (which can then be used to plant “incontrovertible” evidence), the release of the seriously sick member of the 17N Movement, S. Ksiro as well as the release of relatives of two of them who have no connection to any organisation. For a full list of their demands see: en.contrainfo.espiv.net

Since then some have come off hunger strike whilst others have joined it. The latest bulletin says that

“A total of nine participants in DAK (Network of Imprisoned Fighters) are currently on hunger strike: the imprisoned anarchists Antonis Stamboulos, Tasos Theofilou, Giorgos Karagianidis, Fivos Harisis, Argyris Ntalios (since March 2nd), Grigoris Sarafoudis (since March 9th), Dimitris Politis, Andreas-Dimitris Bourzoukos (since March 16th), and Yannis Michailidis (since March 23rd).”

The lives of these hunger strikers are in a grave danger and the supposedly radical Syriza Government is following exactly the same policies of its predecessors in continuing repression.

We are publishing here a statement of class solidarity by our comrades of the International Comrades of Greece (website engymo.wordpress.com). We and our Greek comrades share many criticisms of anarchism and many Greek anarchists are amongst the most individualistic and nihilistic to be found anywhere. As one comrade from Greece recently wrote

_“Traditionally, all Greeks are generally against the State (from the far Left to the far Right - the State is seen as a legal robber and oppressor of the individual).

On the one hand there is an important part of the anarchist milieu in Greece composed primarily of dedicated libertarian communists who seriously try to get involved with the class struggle. However, there is another side. Anyway, if you have read Jacques Camatte’s ‘On Organisation’ (the ‘party-sects’ as ‘gangs’ and ‘rackets’), Murray Bookchin, ‘Social anarchism or lifestyle anarchism: an unbridgeable chasm’ and… ‘The Iliad’ you would have a very good overview of that side of Greek anarchism. Add to that the political tradition of National Resistance against the Axis (antifascism, anti-Rightism, martyrdom, heroism) and the values of the Greek War of Independence (bravery, clan values, guerrilla warfare, craftiness, foxiness, ‘manhood’, brigandage) and you get the picture. Maybe Greeks are close to the Irish (the late Bobby Sands is famous here as a model of a political hero).”_

However as the document states when it comes to class repression it is our common enemy we fight. As our Greek comrades concluded

“A state of silence in the bus maybe is a natural condition in Norway. Apathy over a public attack maybe is something normal in New York. Here it is a question of depression and asphyxia; something abnormal that people have to get accustomed to, and they astonishingly are starting to make a habit of it. So, you have the young people of the Conspiracy of Cells of Fire*[1], who have adopted a modern anti-social kind of nihilism and they are ready to die for it, and a variety of very young rioters who play the ‘anarchists’. They simply can’t stand a situation that is completely foreign to them. They need to dress up their abhorrence and their indignation through an ideology. The Left is obviously a part of the system. So, they find their way to … Renzo Novatore[2]* (‘we, alone against the System. We cannot change the world, but we can live and die as fighters’). Anarchism, as Lenin correctly said, is the price that we pay for opportunism of those who claim to be socialists. Many of these young hunger strikers would be communists if they had grown in the ’20s, Stalinist fighters for national liberation in the’40s and perhaps devoted Left Communists today if we were stronger …

STRENGTH, COURAGE AND VICTORY

TO THE STRUGGLE OF POLITICAL PRISONERS

Today [1st April] the hunger strike of 22 political prisoners, which began on March 2nd, is in its 30th day. It is clear that not only the health but even the lives of the hunger strikers are at a critical juncture, at a critical limit.

This is confirmed by the medical statements. The same fact has already been pointed out by the resolution of the General Assembly of Physicians of the General State Hospital of Nicaea (Athens), which in a recent resolution (30/3) calls for the immediate satisfaction of the demands of the hunger strikers.

In this struggle they stand with the political prisoners from Turkey who are incarcerated in the prisons of the Greek bourgeois state, and have begun a rolling hunger strike as a demonstration of international solidarity in action.

We want to state publicly, adding our voice to the solidarity movement, our support for the just demands of the hunger strikers and political prisoners and to express our whole-hearted solidarity with the ultimate form of struggle that they have chosen.

It is true that ideologically there is a real historical and political gulf between our views and the views of the hunger strikers, as well as with the anarchist milieu in general. As for the tactics of ‘individual terrorism’ we have expressed our explicit opposition in our programmatic theses and in texts that we have published.

However, this gulf can be perfectly bridged in our common radical opposition to the bourgeois state and capital, the project of the abolition of the exploitation of one person by another and the creation of a society without classes; not to speak about their demands, which are just and completely interwoven with the necessary aims of the proletarian class movement.

In any case, unconditional solidarity with the enemies of the bourgeois state is for us a question of principle; a position that expresses the historical interests of the working class and a conquest of the revolutionary movement.

We denounce the attitude of the social democratic Syriza government, which as a backbone and administrator of the system has proved in just two months, after its anti-Memorandum and anti-authoritarian rhetoric, to be just another servant of the interests of capitalism and continuator of the bourgeois authority.

And its wretchedness is shown outright by what it hypocritically claimed when it was in the opposition over Nikos Romanos’ hunger strike when it denounced prisons, state repression and the ‘anti-terrorist’ legislation. This is just what it is now doing against the current hunger strikers, who at the very end demand nothing more than the immediate and real implementation of the relevant pre-election promises of Syriza as well as the essential demand of non-criminalisation of … anyone just because of who they are related to.

Finally, shame on the ‘far left’ pro-Syriza supporters who have pretended not to understand for such a long time.

Athens, April 1, 2015

Internationalist Comrades

[1] Since this appeal first reached us it seems that the hunger strike of the imprisoned members of Conspiracy of Cells of Fire (eight of them were hovering between life and death) was victorious. Today they decided to stop it, because the State was forced to satisfy their demands. The hunger strike of the other anarchists (Network of Fighting Prisoners and Nikos Maziotis) continues. See: interarma.info

[2] Pen name of Abele Rizieri Ferrari an individualist anarchist in the style of Max Stirner (“The Ego and His Own”) and influenced by the likes of Frederick Nietzsche. He was killed by the Italian carabinieri in 1922 (age 32) and is most famous for his book “Towards the Creative Nothing”.