Via Athens Indymedia, Translated by Act for freedom now!
Athens, Greece: For smashing Polyamorous flower shop on 10/2/2024 by Anarchists
In Exarcheia – for decades now, but with particular intensity in recent years – a war is being waged on the part of the state.
A neighbourhood inhabited for many years largely by proletarians, immigrants, women activists, students and youth, a neighbourhood that has always been the “centre” of all kinds of radical movements, has long been part of a coordinated and centrally planned operation of aggressive and violent mutation. The Greek state has invested a lot in achieving a double goal: on the one hand, in handing over to capital – big and small – an important piece of the metropolitan centre for profitable investments mainly in the field of real estate, tourism and the entertainment industry that always connects this kind of “development” and, on the other hand, the all-out attack on the world and the structures of the movement that for decades have arisen, rooted in the neighbourhood of Exarcheia, with the aim of closing its historical accounts with the internal enemy in the heart of the city.
The state planning includes securing the necessary infrastructure (such as the Metro), the regeneration of key but also historically and politically charged points in the neighbourhood (e.g. the Polytechnic, the Museum, the Square, up to the former Strefi hill), as well as the deployment of powerful repressive forces of all species to ensure the discipline and security of this violent plan’s unfolding. It is this planning that is creating an absolutely fertile ground for the onslaught of investments of all kinds and sizes – and the skyrocketing property values they bring – which are increasingly changing not only the image and character of the neighbourhood, but also the constitution and class structure of the world that inhabits and moves in it.
The war that State and Capital have unleashed in Exarcheia is a war with clear class characteristics. The poor are displaced, unable to meet the cost of living, and the rich – foreign and local – are taking their place.
From this violent restructuring, some – otherwise modern, liberal, alternative – businessmen have decided, even if they make an uninformed choice, to also benefit alongside the great profitability of the big investors.
The multi-faceted struggle that is already being waged by many people in Exarcheia, against the police occupation, the redevelopment, the Metro, the hotels, has in its sights – to the extent that it belongs to them – all these businesses that are aimed at the neighbourhood’s. new wealthy visitors and residents.
So what is this “small alternative” florist? It is nothing more than a cyrillic shop with expensive drinks, aimed at every frigging “alternative” and is part of violent gentrification. A gentrification that is attempting to turn the entire neighbourhood of Exarcheia into a theme park for tourists, hipsters and the rich, displacing those who do not fit into the houses with unaffordable rents, the squares with sheet metal and the hipster amusements.
At the same time, this particular shop, in addition to expensive wines, also sells “sexual liberation”. A “sexual liberation” that not only limits itself to the confines of a store, but constructs a limited condition of its consumption exclusively as a product.
The demolition of this particular “multi-florist” is a small response to the plans they are making for the neighbourhood of Exarcheia, a message that they will not just send us away, that the centre of Athens is not for sale. A message that “alternative” and establishment media, extreme right-wingers (including a minister) along with modern/liberal businessmen tried to dispel, presenting this specific shop as a neighbourhood small flower shop run by some distressed subjects without any political content, thus attempting an absolute reversal of reality. The jovial businessman/owner of “P” (who is even preparing, it seems, to open a new business a few metres away), the “resident of Exarcheia” with connections to all the trash fliers/entertainment guides that systematically advertise him, is well aware that his expensive drinks are not addressed to those who have lived in and frequented Exarchia until now. He is well aware that shops like his presuppose the destruction of the social diversity of the neighbourhood, the increase in rents, the conversion of houses into AirBnB and vice versa.
They are trying to tear down (and rebuild) the neighbourhoods of the centre and mutate Exarcheia to the standards of either Kolonaki or another Berlin. To scan through the propaganda of their pamphlets the collective memory of the places where we live, work, meet, struggle.
It is no coincidence that another product for sale in Exarcheia is their radical libertarian character, which they seek to assimilate, sometimes as live spectacle and sometimes as postcards in shop windows. At the very moment when gun-wielding cops stand a few metres away harassing and beating, protecting bosses and tourists, while the people who have lived in the area for years face violent state repression for resisting the degradation of their lives.
So, for those who envision a “pure” Exarcheia with expensive “alternative” storefronts, AirBnB and cops, the answer is given by the daily actions of those who resist. We hope our acts will be a small sign of resistance to the multifaceted struggle that is taking place in the neighbourhood of Exarcheia. A neighbourhood that we will defend with the militancy and solidarity we learned in its streets.
Anarchists
via: https://athens.indymedia.org/post/1629262/
Translated by Act for freedom now!
