And I reject the idea that those people should be called "non-political" just because they're NOT anarchists.
What they're doing is deeply political, and there's more to political ways of thinking and acting than just anarchy.
I feel the anarchist community should stop thinking themselves at the centre of the world?
Anarchists aren't the only ones who make things happen.
I recognise my way of thinking and organising as anarchist, but that doesn't mean I give myself the right to call "non-political" anyone else.

It would have been better to say "those that do not identify as anarchists"

why it should be 'political'? if people refuse parties, politicians, representation and whole apparatus of democracy, shouldn't it be called deeply anti-political? not non-political (whatever...) but anti-political (consciously against the treacherous world of politics)...

No, no, let's not confine our political thought or activity to the limited confines of the parliamentary and party kindergarten

"if people refuse parties, politicians, representation and whole apparatus of democracy" why is their position non-political or anti-political? It is clearly a political position. To deny that is to collaborate with the attempt to narrow political thought to a few state-approved channels, everything outside them being deemed somehow "illegitimate" or "non-political" or nowadays even "terrorism".

What if you think parties and politicians don't represent you or anything your strive for and wouldn't recognise democracy if they found it in their soup? What if you think they are the antithesis of democracy?

I don't like cabbage. Does that make me "anti-food"?

The headline and quotation is not a particularly good attempt at spin.

The survey doesn't ask people - as your headline suggests - whether they think the "riots" were caused by anarchists. The surveys questions are posited on the much more oblique, generalised "disturbances".

Obviously there have been riots, and those quite clearly have been co-ordinated by hard core
anarchists, fuelled by the puppetmasters in the Stalinist Greek Communist party sitting in the background. When push comes to shove, we all know who'll end up taking most of the blame and the flak, the anarchist patsies and not the the politicos.

Perhaps one or two students have joined in on the more extreme actions rioting and so on. Perhaps a few have misguidedly thrown the odd petrol bomb or two. As for workers and migrants figuring large in destroying the businesses they get their livelihoods from and where they support themselves and their families, I highly doubt it.

With a state crackdown and mass arrests and imprisonment probably looming for many in the Greek anarchist community, I can understand they might want to try - in a show of betrayal and lack of solidarity - to get other less blameworthy communities to take some of the blame and the flak in the hope that it will water down their sentences etc.

But it really is a lamentable shame though to see the original poster resort to thinly veiled racist scape-goating of migrants for recent events in Greece.

> No, no, let's not confine our political thought or activity to the limited confines
> of the parliamentary and party kindergarten

Of course it matters how we define 'politics'. I see it as a distinct sphere of decision making outside of our daily lives and being.

> "if people refuse parties, politicians, representation and whole apparatus of democracy"
> why is their position non-political or anti-political? It is clearly a political position.

I made a clear distinction between non-political (not giving a shit) and anti-political (conscious stance against politics). Of course it can be argued that anti-political is political in itself.

> To deny that is to collaborate with the attempt to narrow political thought to a few
> state-approved channels, everything outside them being deemed somehow "illegitimate"
> or "non-political" or nowadays even "terrorism".

Of course if we start from a supposition that political should be framed as 'legitimate' and good thing.

But I think it's quite important to make a distinction between anti-politics, non-politics and politics. Especially usually people who define themselves as 'political' do it in a left-right framework, and I think that for truly libertarian change there is a need to drop the whole framework and act outside it. Now if we go insisting that those 'non-political' people, lots of whom probably didn't give a shit about politics before insurrection, nor frame themselves as 'political', are now 'political', it feels like we are drawing them to 'our politics' (whatever that is for everyone) and our concepts for it, usually that goes with leftists, who want to take people in their framework of politics, instead of abandoning their framework...

> What if you think parties and politicians don't represent you or anything your strive
> for and wouldn't recognise democracy if they found it in their soup? What if you think
> they are the antithesis of democracy?

What if, if you keep it in a democracy and insist keeping it on framework of politics, then it's probably political?

> I don't like cabbage. Does that make me "anti-food"?

Quite a different context.

Most of the mess has been made by secondary school teenagers angry because of the death of theri friend Alexis, followed by the anarchists, another anti-authoritarians, some sectors of the "average people", migrants and so on and eventually the oportunistic puppets at the orders of Leninists and reformist cliques in the mainstream left political parties.

The Greece uprising is a popular revolt, not just an anarchist one, although the role played by the anarchists and the antiauthoritarian movement, not only during the rebellion but over the last 2 decades at least has been undeniably important. Only that can explain trhe antiauthoritarian and anti-police emphasis made by nearly all the insurgent people during the whole length of the revolt.

The anarchist groups would have never been able by themselves of triggering such a revolt in the whole country, but have been the instigators behind many affaires going on in that country for many years.

I only have one thing to say to that; BLOODY WELL DONE. GOOD JOB MY FRIENDS.

To those who are accusing them of using racist arguments to ensure the release of their own prisioners by blaming anonther sectors of the Greek society that also stood up: The only thing you need is to have a look at the news coming frm there in the last years... Would you call the uprising of Thessalonikki in 2007 before the murder by the police of an African migrant. The anarchists have been constantly attacking police stations where it emerged that tortures had been commited against Kurdish, Albanian and other migrants over and over again suring the last years as well. They have always managed very well to protest and put pressure on the authorities to get their prisioner and arrested comrades back on the street as well.

So nameing them as racists can only come from the mind of a complete ignorant.

If you are an anarchist then by definition you are apolitical. If an anarchist acts politically then they should be treated like a human with rabies. Politics are power structures that anarchist disdain.

Seems a lot of confusion. Probably because Anarchists don't follow journalism ethics. This just leads to people doubting everything they read.

Originally posted: 16.12.2008 11:12 and deleted

What the newspaper reported and you failed to mention was that Greeks recognise there was in real terms two events around this death. The legitimate family and friends protest which lasted about 24 hours and consisted of a protest march and calls on the chief of police and local mayor to resign. The second event was very different, this was the mindless violence and destruction of working peoples homes, business's and cars by a mob fuelled by drink and a lust for a fight.

Political fascists whose failure to win electoral support now results in them using violence to try and win power even though the majority of Greeks want nothing to do with them

I hope when the Indymedia enjoyment of the riot porn is over a rational look can be taken at this and the reality of the situation confirmed. The only losers here were the ordinary working people of Athens and other cities who have seen their communities destroyed by those who care nothing for them.

There has been a lot of flowery language emanating from the rioters, which I found somewhat reminscent of the manifestos of the crypto-fascists of Italian futurist movement. A lot of attempts to paint events through rose-tinted spectacles. But I believe amidst all the rubble and in the cold, stark light of day, a sober analysis of events will record that the whole saga ended up being ultimately hijacked and directed by the power hungry, something I thought anarchists eschewed.