“The extreme deception of the modern epoch consists in the fact that today’s murderers have made the rhythm of history their own and that police-caused death operates in the name of democracy” (Hungarian Rising Sun, 1956)
What was already true more than half a century ago is especially true today. In Italy in 2001 as in Greece in 2009, people continue to die at the hands of the state’s lackeys: in the streets, in their houses, in motorway cafes, in the barracks, in prison. But the same happens throughout Europe and the rest of the world. Last week, Turkish police killed a Kurdish demonstrator; meanwhile a thousand kilometers away, in Berlin, a plain-clothes officer fired at a nineteen-year-old man, kneecapping him.
Fortunately, it sometimes happens that the murders, abuses and pompous arrogance of the state don’t just meet with consolidated resignation or sporadic opposition. It happened in Greece, where a year ago, a 15-year-old boy, Alexis, got killed by a police officer when he was found in front of a bar. For months, the whole country has burned with the fire of revolt, a generalized uprising that has rendered the politics of mourning and grief ineffective. No peaceful processions, no petitions to authority, no powerless indignation; only rage and fury against the state and its torturers.
Now the new leftist government gave orders to repress demonstrations organized on the occasion of the first anniversary of that murder, using any means necessary (including murder). On the eve of the anniversary, dozens and dozens of stops and preventative arrests were carried out throughout the country. During the anniversary demonstrations, hundreds of arrests were made in the streets, the setting of savage attacks. Broken bones and heads are no longer counted. One woman demonstrator was intentionally run over with a motorcycle of the police special corps and is in a coma.
But if the leftist Greek government of 2009, in imitation of the rightist Italian government of 2001, has thought that terror would be enough to pacify spirits, it has calculated badly. Magna Graecia is not the present-day drowsy Little Italy, where even state butchery seems to produce only ritual commemorations and implausible revisionism.
The demonstrations of Sunday, December 6, being repressed in blood, new demonstrations were called for the next day. The iron fist of repression also came down on these, with more butchery and another demonstrator gravely wounded. According to official estimates, in just two days, 823 people were stopped, and 159 of them were formally arrested and charged. It is not over… Because Greece burns, it continues to burn, with occupations of schools and universities, palaces and radio stations, with street blockades, with attacks against banks and police stations, with daily demonstrations in every city. Here State Terror isn’t able to impose any obsequious obedience, it only feeds new protests. In the cradle of civilization Eleutheria (freedom) is not the slogan of a party or association, it is a human passion to live, love and defend with force when it gets threatened. Anyone who isn’t willing to barter his or her dignity in exchange for a wage, a loan or a television, knows well that it is better to fight wearing a hood against the powerful and their stooges than to vegetate wearing a tie in their service.
This is the fiery ember that the revolt going on in Greece throws out into the world. To come out of the Great Chill of depression and resignation, of poverty and fear, of power and obedience, the fire extinguisher of politics is good for nothing. In all places, at all times, what we want is the Greek Fire, ancient and mysterious incendiary mixture, inextinguishable because impervious to water.
Some anarchists
Liber ignium ad comburendos hostes
Ignaem græcum tali modo facies: Recipe sulphur vivum, tatarum, sarcocollam et piceam, sal coctum, oleum, petroleum er oleum gemmæ. Facias bullire invicem omnia ista bene. Postea impone stupæ et accende, quod si volueris exhibere per embotum, ut supra diximus. Stupa illinita non extinguetur, nisi urina vel aceta vel arena.
[A relatively literal translation of the above:Book of Fire for Burning Enemies (by Marcus Græcus)
You make the Greek fire in this way: take natural sulfur, tartar,sarco-gum(? animal gum) and pitch, salt cooked from water, petroleum and germ (grain?) oil. Boil all together. Then immerse the oakum (fuse) and light it; if you want you can launch it with a piston, as said above. The flaming oakum doesn’t go out except with urine, vinegar or sand.]
What was already true more than half a century ago is especially true today. In Italy in 2001 as in Greece in 2009, people continue to die at the hands of the state’s lackeys: in the streets, in their houses, in motorway cafes, in the barracks, in prison. But the same happens throughout Europe and the rest of the world. Last week, Turkish police killed a Kurdish demonstrator; meanwhile a thousand kilometers away, in Berlin, a plain-clothes officer fired at a nineteen-year-old man, kneecapping him.
Fortunately, it sometimes happens that the murders, abuses and pompous arrogance of the state don’t just meet with consolidated resignation or sporadic opposition. It happened in Greece, where a year ago, a 15-year-old boy, Alexis, got killed by a police officer when he was found in front of a bar. For months, the whole country has burned with the fire of revolt, a generalized uprising that has rendered the politics of mourning and grief ineffective. No peaceful processions, no petitions to authority, no powerless indignation; only rage and fury against the state and its torturers.
Now the new leftist government gave orders to repress demonstrations organized on the occasion of the first anniversary of that murder, using any means necessary (including murder). On the eve of the anniversary, dozens and dozens of stops and preventative arrests were carried out throughout the country. During the anniversary demonstrations, hundreds of arrests were made in the streets, the setting of savage attacks. Broken bones and heads are no longer counted. One woman demonstrator was intentionally run over with a motorcycle of the police special corps and is in a coma.
But if the leftist Greek government of 2009, in imitation of the rightist Italian government of 2001, has thought that terror would be enough to pacify spirits, it has calculated badly. Magna Graecia is not the present-day drowsy Little Italy, where even state butchery seems to produce only ritual commemorations and implausible revisionism.
The demonstrations of Sunday, December 6, being repressed in blood, new demonstrations were called for the next day. The iron fist of repression also came down on these, with more butchery and another demonstrator gravely wounded. According to official estimates, in just two days, 823 people were stopped, and 159 of them were formally arrested and charged. It is not over… Because Greece burns, it continues to burn, with occupations of schools and universities, palaces and radio stations, with street blockades, with attacks against banks and police stations, with daily demonstrations in every city. Here State Terror isn’t able to impose any obsequious obedience, it only feeds new protests. In the cradle of civilization Eleutheria (freedom) is not the slogan of a party or association, it is a human passion to live, love and defend with force when it gets threatened. Anyone who isn’t willing to barter his or her dignity in exchange for a wage, a loan or a television, knows well that it is better to fight wearing a hood against the powerful and their stooges than to vegetate wearing a tie in their service.
This is the fiery ember that the revolt going on in Greece throws out into the world. To come out of the Great Chill of depression and resignation, of poverty and fear, of power and obedience, the fire extinguisher of politics is good for nothing. In all places, at all times, what we want is the Greek Fire, ancient and mysterious incendiary mixture, inextinguishable because impervious to water.
Some anarchists
Liber ignium ad comburendos hostes
Ignaem græcum tali modo facies: Recipe sulphur vivum, tatarum, sarcocollam et piceam, sal coctum, oleum, petroleum er oleum gemmæ. Facias bullire invicem omnia ista bene. Postea impone stupæ et accende, quod si volueris exhibere per embotum, ut supra diximus. Stupa illinita non extinguetur, nisi urina vel aceta vel arena.
[A relatively literal translation of the above:Book of Fire for Burning Enemies (by Marcus Græcus)
You make the Greek fire in this way: take natural sulfur, tartar,sarco-gum(? animal gum) and pitch, salt cooked from water, petroleum and germ (grain?) oil. Boil all together. Then immerse the oakum (fuse) and light it; if you want you can launch it with a piston, as said above. The flaming oakum doesn’t go out except with urine, vinegar or sand.]
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