WEDNESDAY 27/6, 7:30 P.M, ARIS VELUCHIOTI SQUARE DISCUSSION- VENUE ABOUT SOCIAL STRUCTURES OF SOLIDARITY AND MUTUAL HELP

The open assembly of Brahami is organizing an open discussion on Wednesday 26/6/2012, at 7:30 pm, on Aris Veluchiotis square. The discussion will be about social structures of solidarity and mutual help. In particular we will discuss the startup of a social pharmacy and a supply cooperative. After the discussion we will have a give-away bazaar and collective eating.
The leaflet about the event follows:

NOBODY SHOULD BE LEFT ALONE AGAINST CRISIS

LET’S GET ORGANISED COLLECTIVELY IN OUR NEIGHBORHOOD ASSEMBLIES

Who we are

The open assembly of Brahami (Agios Dimitrios) residents is an effort in which people from Agios Dimitrios neighborhood meet to share and shape ideas, take initiatives and make activities. We operate more than 3 years (December 2008). We pursue to be with other neighbors in regular basis and decide about every theme that is of our concern.

Our mission is to implement procedures of direct democracy in our neighborhood

Our activities are based on face to face contact, respect of our differences or choices, change opinions without fragments and take action at themes in which we all agree. The equal participation of what we say and what we do is one of our beliefs.

We don’t want any kind of leaders and we don’t accept that we need any kind of experts to decide for our life. We undertake to materialize these decisions.

In our assembly we want everyone who feels that is suppressed from the power’s upper decisions to participate (boss, mayor of neighborhood, ministers and parties)

We don’t recognize any differences between genders, races or personal decisions

FACE TOGETHER OUR EVERYDAY NEEDS

STRUCTURES OF SOLIDARITY AND MUTUAL HELP

During the last 3-4 years we experience a merciless attack which as result has our relatives, friends and ourselves to lose our jobs or to be unable to control our lives. The direct and indirect taxes are being increased. We have to pay hundreds of Euros for medicines and medical examinations at public hospitals.

Our salaries and pensions are deducted continuously. The number of homeless people gets increased. Schools cannot afford heating and cleaning up costs, public kindergartens and music conservatories (odeums) deduct their benefits.

These are only some examples of what is happening to our lives.

Against all this we choose two different reactions: Resist and fight for all these that we deserve to have (with our work, our taxes and charges, was allowed to build all these).

On the other hand we investigate practical ways to face our needs altogether, through structures of solidarity and mutual help.

For the coming period we plan to operate 3 of these infrastructures

Give-Away Bazaar

Change clothes, toys, books, CD, household utensils and everything else. Give things that we don’t need.

This way we help to cover our fellows’ and our needs. At the same time we extend and make longer the time things are used.

Social Pharmacy

From most of us it is demanded to pay for our medicine needs on our own. For those who are uninsured or with low-salaries, this practically means that they can not afford to have the necessary medicine.

We seek our medicine to social pharmacies with the collaboration of other neighborhoods. Through them we desire to ensure the access of this medicine to everyone.

At the same time we will generally concentrate to the health issue, accessibility to hospitals and other welfare structures.

Supply Cooperatives

We choose to be supplied with foods straight from the producers avoiding merchants and traders.

We try to build relations of trust and solidarity between consumers and producers away from short term valuations of the market laws.

We concentrate to what we produce totally us employees, what is necessary and what is not. We focus on the working conditions and on how our activities affect the environment and what is the relation between countryside and city.

Also, we search the possibility of changing and start producing some products by ourselves.

About all these issues we invite you to our assemblies, to discuss and co-shape our ideas and needs.

We will for sure continue all the other issues that we have selected or will select (e.g. Electricity Taxes, Pawnbrokers, Support employees of ENEKA PAIDEIAS, Asyrmatos Park etc)

WEDNESDAY 27/6, 7:30 P.M, ARIS VELUCHIOTI SQUARE

DISCUSSION- VENUE ABOUT SOCIAL STRUCTURES

(social pharmacy, supply cooperative)

GIVE-AWAY BAZAAR AND COLLECTIVE EATING

WILL FOLLOW

BRING CLOTHES AND FOOD PROVISIONS

OPEN ASSEMBLY EVERY WEDNESDAY AT 7:30 P.M at ARIS VELUCHIOTI SQUARE

Open assembly of Brahami Residents

http://katadimadim.blogspot.com/

AGAINST PROSECUTIONS AND DETENTIONS

SOLIDARITY WITH ALL WHO HAVE BEEN ARRESTED AND ARE PROSECUTED FOR THEIR PARTICIPATION IN THE POPULAR INSURRECTION

The events that have taken place so far, both inside and outside of Greece, following the murder of 16-year old Alexandros Grigoropoulos from the special guard Epaminondas Korkoneas, show clearly that we are in the midst of a popular insurrection. Ever growing segments of society (high school and university students, workers, unemployed, immigrants, detainees, poor,…) decide to come out in the streets and transform their rage for whatever oppresses them in every _expression of their lives into action (dynamic mobilizations during which there are mass clashes with the forces of repression and attacks on government and capitalist targets, occupations of public buildings, open assemblies, counterinformation actions,…).

Within the frame of this insurrection, the City Hall of Aghios Dimitrios has been occupied since the morning of Thursday Dec. 11, so that it may become a place of counter-information, meeting, and self-organizing of the residents of the wider region and for the collective formation and implementation of actions. A main component of this occupation is the daily popular assembly with participation of up to 300 people, a process that functions in contrast to the entrusting of the management of our demands as well as of our struggles to whichever "representatives," elected or not. A process that tends to be implanted deeply into the consciousness of its participants on their role as political beings.

Without a doubt, this popular insurrection is clearly turning against the very structure of the current regime. Therefore, it follows that the subjects of this insurrection will face the repressive fury of the defenders of the system (the state, the businesses, the comfortable, …). Already there have been about 200 arrests around the country (often accompanied by violence and trumped up charges). Some of the charges, misdemeanors as well as felonies are: resisting arrest, disobedience, disturbing the peace, attempting to free detainees, use and possession of tools and explosives, attempt to inflict serious bodily harm, etc. In some instances, the state has prosecuted minors under anti-terrorist statutes (Larissa). Nevertheless, for us it is obvious that all these charges are political in nature. And of course the "not at all" predatory state (in conjunction with the "not at all" profiteering business people) has the audacity to prosecute so-called "looters".

By participating in the popular insurrection both inside and outside of the now liberated City Hall of Ag. Dimitrios, we express with our deeds our solidarity with those arrested and procecuted for their actions in this social struggle. The struggle for their release and the cessation of prosecutions is absolutely connected with the very insurrection and must constitute a main demand.

A few lines above there was a reference to the defenders of the system. Unfortunately this category also includes those segments of society, which, while objectively belong on the side of the oppressed, whether by their opposition to the social struggle or whether by their silence (a result as much of the brainwashing from mass media as from the growing tendency to abandon collective claims and pursue individual solutions) end up playing the game of their oppressors. It is necessary that we realize what is the source of our problems and that all of us "below" are already on the crosshairs of the system, therefore it is to our advantage to join this insurrection.

DROP ALL CHARGES FOR THE EVENTS OF THE LAST SEVERAL DAYS

IMMEDIATE RELEASE OFF ALL DETAINEES

THE SOCIAL STRUGGLES ARE NEITHER LEGAL NOR ILLEGAL – THEY ARE JUST.

RALLY – MARCH

Tuesday December 16, 2008, 7:00pm

at the liberated City Hall of Ag. Dimitrios

INVITATION TO THE OPEN POPULAR ASSEMBLY
OF THE LIBERATED CITY HALL OF AGHIOS DIMITRIOS

On December 6^th, 2008, the special guardⁱ Epaminondas Korkoneas pulled out his gun and murdered a citizen, a 16-year old kid. The rage that everyone feels is huge, despite all the attempts by the government and the mass media to disorient public opinion.

It is now certain that this insurrection is not only homage to the unjust loss of Alexandros Grigoropoulos. There has been a lot of talk since then about violence, thefts and pillages. For those in the media and power, violence is only what destroys the proper order.

For us however:

Violence is to work 40 years for crumbs and to wonder if you will ever retire.

Violence is the bonds, the stolen pensions, the securities fraud.

Violence is to be forced to take a housing loan that you will pay back through the nose.

Violence is the managerial right of the employer to fire you at will.

Violence is unemployment, temporary employment, 700 euros a monthⁱⁱ.

Violence is the "industrial accidents" because the bosses cut costs at the expense of worker safety.

Violence is to take psycho-medications and vitamins to withstand the exhaustive work schedule.

Violence is to be an immigrant, to live with the fear that you can be thrown out of the country at any time and to be in a state of constant insecurity.

Violence is to be simultaneously a wage worker, a housewife, and a mother.

Violence is to be worked to death and then to be told "smile, we are not asking that much of you."

The insurrection of high-school and university students, of temporary workers and immigrants broke this violence of normality. This insurrection must not stop! Syndicalists, political parties, priests, journalists and businesspeople do whatever they can to maintain the violence we described above.

It is not just them, but we too are responsible for the perpetuation of this situation. The insurrection opened a space where we can finally express ourselves freely. As a continuation of this opening we went forward with the occupation of the City Hall of Ag. Dimitrios and the formation of a popular assembly open to all.

An open space for communication, to break our silence, to undertake action for our life.

Saturday December 13 2008, 7:00pm, open popular assembly at the Ag. Dimitrios city hall.

NO PROSECUTION – IMMEDIATE RELEASE OF ALL THOSE ARRESTED

OCCUPATION OF AG. DIMITRIOS CITY HALL

iΕιδικοί Φρουροί , Special Guards, an elite force within the police department.

iiAverage salary in Greece, approx. US$930.00, not nearly enough to survive on.

THE STATE MURDERS

The evening of Saturday December 6, 2008, a murderer pulled out his gun and executed in cold blood a citizen, Alexandros. What is most tragic about this murder is that the murderer, police office by profession, killed a 16-year-old kid.

The incident occurred at Exarhia, at the intersection of Tzavella and Mesologgi Streets. At a place where any one of us could have been. At a place that could have been at any neighborhood. The eyewitnesses of the incident state that the murder was precedent by a simple verbal incident. But the Macho Greek Murderer could not stand the insult and pulled the gun. And he executed. In cold blood.

This murder is neither an accident nor an isolated incident. It is one more link in a endless series of murderous attacks of the various departments of the police. Let us not forget the murder of the Pakistani immigrant at Petrou Ralli Street[1], while he was waiting in line to apply for asylum (in a line that the state itself had told him to wait). Let us not forget that recently a woman was murdered in Leukimmi[2], from actions of the MAT[3] against the XYTA[4] establishment in their area. The list, unfortunately, is endless. Let us not forget the torture by police officers in police stations and prisons. Let us not forget the in effect murderous behavior of the instruments of order, with infinite chemicals [tear gas, etc.], flash and stun grenades, shootings, beatings, in every instance when people get out in the streets, during strikes, during student and local actions (it has not been very long since the police drowned the entire area around the KYT[5] of Argiroupoli and beat up mercilessly neighbors of ours). This is their function. Let us not delude ourselves. To beat up and murder so that their message gets through “we and the bosses are the the law, whoever resist will be beat up mercilessly, and then some.”

And who are their bosses? Is it maybe the stockholders of the banks? Is it maybe the stockholders of the chain stores? Is it the president of EBEA[6]; Is it maybe all those who demand more work from us, for less money and less security? Is it maybe all those who get rich charging interest while thousands despair? Is it maybe those who profiteer, both against us and the producers, with the prices they set in the supermarkets for basic goods? Is it maybe those who during the periods of fat cows make huge profits and when things get rough they lay off workers and cut wages? Well then, it is logical for the popular rage to be directed at them. They talk of material damages while there is one more death. If private property is the only thing that interests them, then those who rebel are justified. We must comprehend than when the horror doesn't wake up consciences, then unfortunately the smell of the burnt is necessary.

In the midst of all this and the developing uprising, is it possible to not take a stand? Can we stand with those who always ask for “order and calm”? Who even during the [Nazi] occupation and the junta the only thing they wanted to do was to “mind their own business and live their lives”? Who always see “provocation” and “known-unknowns[7]”? Who see conspiracies behind every social movement they don't control, accustomed to being "leaders" behind closed doors? Let us not be deceived that every time the events concern the “strikers”, the “students”, the “youth”. These days it is the people who are in the streets, without “central administrations”, “instructors” or “enlightened vanguards”. The means used are decided freely by each participant in the insurrection. This concerns us as much as the residents of Exarhia, who faced with the so called “cat and mouse vendetta between anarchists and police”, took a stand. Over the weekend they were throwing flower pots from their balconies and demanded the removal of the MAT squads and the cessation of the use of chemicals [i.e. tear-gas]. They took a stand, they didn't look the other way. They took a stand against state repression. All of us therefore must take a stand. We must counterpose in action our refusal to the imposition of the regime of terror and the police state.

NO STATE MURDER LEFT UNANSWERED

FREEDOM TO ALL THOSE ARRESTED

SILENCE IS COMPLICITY

Initiative of anarchists and anti-authoritarians from the southern suburbs

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[1] At an Immigration Office. Police attacked immigrants standing in line under the pretext of “maintaining order.” A 24-year old Pakistani was fatally injured. At least 14 others were injured.

[2] During a demonstration against the local landfill police clubbed a 16-year old who was driving his motorcycle. He crashed into a 43-year old pregnant woman who died days later of head injuries.

[3] Μονάδες Αποκαταστασης Ταξης , literally Units for the Restoration of Order. They are the Greek Police's riot units

[4] Χώροι Υγειονομικής Ταφής, literally Places for Sanitary Burial, aka the landfill.

[5] Κέντρο Υπερυψηλής Τάσης, Super High Voltage Station

[6] Εμπορικό και Βιομηχανικό Επιμελητήριο Αθηνών, Athens Chamber of Commerce and Industry

[7] “γνωστοί άγνωστοι” Media, state and police reference to anarchists and other militant protesters. Implying that they are known to the police but are not arrested for unknown reasons. Similar to the phrase “usual suspects” but it refers specifically, and conspiratorially, to anarchists.