IndyMedia - Vrij Media Centrum Nederland

Wanneer: 11/10/2023 - 09:45

Call for international solidarity, skill sharing, and political exchange from the comrades in Prosfygika of Alexandras Ave. in Athens to defend it against the state and capital

CALL FOR THE BARRICATION AND SELF-DEFENCE OF THE COMMUNITY OF SQUATTED PROSFYGIKA

The Community of Squatted Prosfygika is a horizontal self-organized social-political project of grassroots struggle. It embraces tools of the broader radical movement. Some of the key characteristics of the project as a whole are the communal ownership of resources, structures and infrastructure, collective responsibility - commitment as well as openness. It is a counter-proposal for life in the world of oppression and domination.

Historically, the Prosfygika neighbourhood has been a thorn in the skin of the state apparatus. They were built in 1933 to host a large number of refugees from Asia Minor after the Asia Minor disaster. Later in their history they were a refuge for the antifascist partisans who used them in 1944 as a base against the Greek and British state army. Today, it is one of the largest building complexes in the centre of Athens, which has not surrendered to the gentrification and exploitation of the big business and the state.

Within this social and spatial framework, some squatters in the neighbourhood took the decision to organise themselves. In 2010, they created the Community of Squatted Prosfygika, with the Assembly of Squatted Prosfygika as its main decision-making body. Today the project has resulted in a unified neighborhood, dozens of occupied apartments, autonomous community structures that ensure the needs of the people of the neighborhood, a continuous presence and participation in local and international class and political struggles.

More than in any other period, Prosfygika in danger. Along with the vibrant tradition of the community as it has developed through their history, the natural land that will be given over to businesses, whether state-owned or private, is at risk. Prosfygika are in danger now more than ever, because the so-called "Double Gentrification" with the Panathinaikos stadium is underway, because the violence of the economic elites and states is unveiled, because their rage for profits and more profits is merciless, because under the cloak of gentrification and development, they are devouring fields of land, beaches, parks, hills, houses.

We see them looting anything that can bring them profits and attacking anything that can resist their plans - almost all squats and social spaces are being attacked or evacuated. We are under no illusion that Prosfygika will be an exception to the state's plans of repression.

Prosfygika combines both: it is land for economic exploitation and it is also a centre of struggle that must be repressed. A "double crime".

It will not be the first time that the state has attacked the Community of Prosfygika. One of the most recent attacks was the one on 22 November 2022. In the early hours of the morning, police forces of all kinds entered the squatted neighborhood of Prosfygika on Alexandra Avenue and kidnapped - and have been holding captive ever since - our comrade Kostas Dimalexis. In the afternoon of the same day, the second phase of the operation began with a large-scale attack on the neighbourhood. The residents of the neighbourhood together with solidarians resisted the overwhelming police forces, but the dozens of cops managed to break into the 6th block. The result of the operation was the injury of 7 cops and the arrest of 79 neighborhood defenders.

The state is increasingly hardening its attitude towards militants, already applying to political prisoners what it is going to apply in the future to all social sectors that resist. It is a dangerous state for the whole of society, which will sooner or later be forced to defend itself from it, organising with class and social unity and perspective social self-defence against the onslaught of modern fascism in a democratic cloak that is spreading worldwide.

On this basis, we call for solidarians to help fortify the neighborhood, in material terms, so that the self-protection and self-defense of the community can be upgraded.

More specifically we call for:

- People with technical knowledge, to help the community protect its territory, by supporting the Technical Structure in the work of barricading the neighborhood.
- Comrades with such knowledge to transmit it to the community through daily work and through planned workshops in terms of collective experience. The purpose is to work together and ferment together, because through the practice of defending the liberated spaces we bond practically, politically and ideologically.
- In the gathering of building materials and tools for construction and technical work.
- In hospitality within the community, of a short or long term nature, to shield the neighborhood with people in solidarity, participating in the Community's program as an organic and active part of the struggle that is being fought every day.

We ask people who understand the vital importance of defending the liberated territories of struggle to respond to the call at the level they can.

By strengthening and protecting the Community of Squatted Prosfygika we strengthen the radical movement. We do not understand our spaces in terms of conquered property nor as independent of the social whole but as structures of the movement. It is a duty of the movement and society at large not to let the last territories that stand against repression fall into the hands of the state and capital.

SOLIDARITY WITH THE LIBERATED SPACES OF STRUGGLE

NOT AN INCH OF LAND TO THE STATE, CAPITAL AND FASCISTS

TO ORGANIZE OUR RESISTANCES

TO DEFEND OUR SPACES

SOLIDARITY IS THE WEAPON OF THE PEOPLE

WAR ON THE WAR OF THE BOSSES

Assembly of Squatted Prosfygika

sykapro_squat@riseup.net