Sociologist Zaire Zenit Dinzey-Flores discusses how the concentration of class and racial privilege in gated communities takes place alongside the spatial concentration and confinement of the poor. She argues that gates help sort and segregate people, physically and symbolically distinguish communities, and cement inequality.

“You drive to the gate. The community is in the shape of a U. You come in one gate and leave through the other. When you get to the gate, you will have a dial pad. You have to dial my number. Here is the number. Wait for me to answer. I will ask you who you are. You will tell me. Once you talk to me I will push the button to open the gate and let you in. The gate will open. You will be allowed in. You will drive to my house. I will be outside waiting for you.”

Following Ramiro’s careful directions, I entered Extensión Alhambra a subdivision of colorful, concrete, one and two-story single-family homes located in Ponce, Puerto Rico’s second largest city, in the southern part of the island. Extensión Alhambra which looks like a mid-century American suburb, was intended to be an exclusive community for middle- and upper-middle-income families, its name evoking Spain’s famous Moorish castle, the Alhambra. When it was built in the early 1970s, Extensión Alhambra was open to all. But in 1993 residents took advantage of a 1987 law (Ley de Cierre, or “closing law”) that permitted communities to build gates for protection. With that law, many previously open and private middle-class housing subdivisions were gated—part of the vast array of communities worldwide that form neighborhood associations, erecting fences and fortresses, and taking protection into their own hands.

Less than half a mile from Extensión Alhambra is a very different kind of gated community. Here, in a development called Dr. Manuel de la Pila, twenty low-rise multiple-dwelling buildings, totaling 906 units, comprise the largest public housing community in the city of Ponce. Dr. Manuel de la Pila is one of 337 public housing projects built in Puerto Rico as part of the massive post-war U.S. federal public housing push that by the second half of the twentieth century had furnished Puerto Rico with more public housing units than any U.S. city—after New York.

Like Extensión Alhambra, when it was first built Dr. Pila was an open community. But early one November morning in 1994, two years after a private firm had taken over its management, three helicopters carrying national guards and police descended upon the project, officially occupying it. Operation Centurion, popularly known as Mano Dura Contra el Crimen (Strong Arm Against Crime), had dictated that the largest, presumably most dangerous public housing projects should be gated in order to reduce crime. Over the course of four years, nearly a quarter of
Puerto Rico’s 337 public housing developments were “rescued” or “occupied,” leading to arrests of residents, the establishment of police outposts, and the erection of fences to control movement. Dr. Pila became a gated public housing development.

Gates and guards have typically been ways for privileged communities to “defend” themselves, creating secure residential environments. In their quest for security, gates symbolize “withdrawal [from the city]” and they also produce fear, according to
Teresa P. R. Caldeira, professor of city and regional planning at the University of California. Promising to protect residents from crime, as well as from fears of declining property values and loss of prestige and exclusivity, gated communities enable affluent residents to imagine that they can leave the unruly, dangerous spaces of cities behind.
The concentration of class and racial privilege in suburbs, fortressed enclaves, securitized buildings, and private islands takes place alongside the spatial concentration of poverty in ghettos, favelas, and barrios. Residential gates for the rich have also led to the rise of gates for the poor—in favelas in Brazil, South African townships, peripheral urban migrant settlements in China, and even in some public housing developments in the United States. The built environment sorts and segregates people, physically and symbolically distinguishing communities from one another. Whether one is locked inside or kept outside is determined by one’s race, class, and gender. In both kinds of gated communities, controlled access points restrict movement in and out. However, living in gated communities of the rich and poor are vastly different experiences.

The privileged gates of Extensión Alhambra offer a retreat into a secure, idyllic community; newly privatized street and sidewalks are restricted to sanctioned, paying community members, who can decide who is allowed inside. In the impoverished community of Dr. Pila, in contrast, government and private overseers control the movement of residents. So while the gates of Extensión Alhambra permit their affluent residents to exert greater political and social influence over their home turf, in Dr. Pila they have the opposite effect, diminishing residents’ power. In privileged communities, gates lock undesirables out; in poor communities, they lock them in. In both cases, gates are erected to serve the interest of the upper classes, who are primarily white. In other words, gates reproduce inequality, and cement or—to use Michel DeCerteau’s term—“politically freeze” social distinctions of race and class.

In And/Or Out

Ramiro greeted me warmly. To enter the well-appointed homes and interior gardens of Extensión Alhambra, where he lived, I had to find people who would vouch for me and arrange for me to gain entrance. Once inside the gate, I had to justify myself and answer their interrogations about who I knew, what I was doing, and why. I came to understand that the residents of Extensión Alhambra were suspicious or confused about me because of my brown skin, which contrasted with the light-skinned people depicted in the photographs sitting on Ramiro’s living room coffee table. According to the 2000 Census, most residents of these privileged communities racially identified as “Caucásico” (Caucasian) or “Blanco” (white)— “race symbols,” in the words of economist Glen Loury, which are enlisted to help navigate these newly privatized community spaces. Negotiations of membership and belonging occur; outsiders and insiders are sorted and profiled.

The residents of Dr. Pila know that they are the ones affluent Alhambra residents wish to keep out. “The controlled access in Extensión Alhambra allows people from that area to enter,” one woman explained. “They think people from public housing want to go there to rob them. For them, we are society’s scum.” Another Dr. Pila resident agreed: “When they put up that gate in Extensión Alhambra, it was so that the people from public housing would not go there, so that the vermin would not enter.” Residents of both private and public communities told me that a race credential was required for someone to enter community spaces. A resident of a nearby private upper-middle class community that had been unsuccessful in putting up gates said that her whiteness prevented her from entering Dr. Pila: “I would be in a panic,” she said, “because I feel different even physically [as a] a blonde woman!”
Gates separate adjacent neighborhoods, freezing race, class distinctions, and demarcating social distances; they segment identities and mark the “unmarked.” Gates position and remind specific bodies of their rightful place, delineating identities and neighborhood limits, and discouraging movement. They also remind people that public housing is dangerous. Together with media representations of crime, they reinforce the idea that dark young males, in particular, are unemployable, dangerous, and criminal.
Rafa, a dark-skinned, bored young man who lived in Dr. Pila, explained, “You go and ask if they have [any work] and they say they don’t. And then they give the job to the favorites.” Residents of public housing projects often spoke about being turned down for jobs, which they saw as related to their place of residence. Don Ramon, an employer at a job fair organized by the social workers in Dr. Pila, said he was there to offer job opportunities that were typically denied to residents of public housing. Dinora, a resident, described a job interview. When she got there, the supervisor asked her where she was from. “When I told him I was from Dr. Pila,” she said, “his attitude changed to ‘I’ll call you if anything comes up.’ He went from an attitude that the job was for-sure to an attitude, once I said where I lived, of ‘I’ll call you later.’”
The physical and symbolic meaning of the gates were obvious to public housing residents. As one woman told me: “By putting up our gate,” they’re not interested in “protect[ing] our community, or its residents.” What they are doing, she said, is “isolat[ing] public housing from wealthy people. They have no reason to think they’re better than us. We’re all people.” The gates cement physical separation. Public housing residents resent not being able to take their children to trick-or-treat during Halloween in the more privileged areas. Opportunities for engaged contact are practically nonexistent.

Getting Inside The Gates

Getting inside Extensión Alhambra takes careful planning. Ramiro’s screening interrogation gave him decisive control over my entry and presence in the public streets and sidewalks of the community, much like the power he and his neighbors wield to make decisions about who enters their private home spaces. With the Closing Law that allowed private communities to gate themselves in the interest of safety, security technology came to facilitate the control rich people exercise over private spaces. Private guards follow orders through telecoms or telephones; electronically-powered gates allow owners to exert control through remote beepers, security spikes and electric currents, administering entry and exit as they see fit. In private communities, residents and visitors are welcomed into safe havens protected from outside perils. Whether one is welcome depends on who is seeking entry, and who is doing the credentialing. This credentialing is done by residents; in public housing, in contrast, the government makes such decisions, seizing control from residents. The gate in Extensión Alhambra “is private,” a resident of Dr. Pila told me: “here it is controlled.” When a temporary fence was first built, residents of Dr. Pila thought their own gate would function similarly to that of Extensión Alhambra, with residents controlling entry either through remote access or granting approval to the guard. But in time, their ability to control entry diminished. Rather than work in the service of residents, a police sentry with a one-way mirror came to control residents, federally inspired zero-tolerance regulations demanded that residents be screened, and the government appointed social workers to organize community activities. Residents, not visitors, came under scrutiny. As one woman explained: “I have been stopped, and asked what building I am going to, what am I going to do. They see the face of a crook in me.”

To enter the gated caserío (public housing) was, as one resident said, to lose the capacity to “move freely,” and instead to be controlled, isolated, and actively barred from freedom of contact both inside and outside. Just as residents’ movements were restricted, so were mine. Upon entering Dr. Pila, visitors and residents are signaled to stay out or wait by a sign in front of the guardhouse that reads: “Residential zone with controlled access. Any resident or visitor without identification must identify himself at the entry. Visiting cars are subject to search. Housing Administration.” The sign is a reminder that entering public housing makes one suspect.
As they block access to outsiders and turn public spaces—the street, the sidewalks—into private community property, these gates expand the power of privileged insiders over urban space and development. The gates that lock some in and others out hand control over the city to the privileged, giving the poor little recourse, little control, and less and less power.

Cemented Distinctions

Puerto Rico illustrates the ways social inequalities are physically and symbolically articulated in residential urban built environments throughout the world, underscoring differences in power and agency. Throughout the world, security policies have become a popular way to address feelings of insecurity in urban areas. Gates in residential areas and public spaces, security guards, security cameras, and metal detectors sort and divide city residents. In China, for example, new urban migrants are being locked in enclaves in the city’s periphery. There, as in Latin America and the rest of the developing world, as well as in the United States, grave social inequalities are spatialized in residential neighborhoods, new technologies delimit insiders and outsiders, and the rich exert power over the poor.
Community gates signal and reconstitute deep social inequalities, both imagined and real. For the rich, the public is increasingly privatized; for the poor, the private sphere is increasingly subject to public surveillance. For both, social activities are limited to the family unit and to intimate and exclusive spaces. Those who can afford to do so “bowl alone” and live alone. Those of lesser means are subjected to monitoring, control, and surveillance in their places of residence. This bunker mentality diminishes the spontaneity of public life.
Although the gates of Puerto Rico’s public housing are not in operation today, the fences are still there. The police no longer patrol the grounds, and only a boarded-up guardhouse remains. Entry and exit is no longer formally monitored, but the remains of the public gates continue to interfere with everyday routines, segregating and re-inscribing social inequality. Meanwhile, the gates around the private enclaves continue to be fortified by technology. The gates of the poor and the rich face each other, turning residents away from the city and its salutary social promises.

Recommended Resources

Atkinson, Rowland and Sarah Blandy. Gated Communities: International Perspectives (Routledge, 2006). Provides a wide array of gated community case studies.
Blakely, Edward J. and Mary Gayle Snyder. Fortress America: Gated Communities in the United States (Brookings Institution Press, 1999). The first book-length work on gated communities, it provides an account of how gated communities emerged in the United States.
Caldeira, Theresa P. R. City of Walls: Crime, Segregation, and Citizenship in São Paulo (University of California Press, 2000). Examines gated communities and their relationship to crime and class segregation in Brazil.
Costa Vargas, João. “When a Favela Dared to Become a Gated Condominium: The Politics of Race and Urban Space in Rio de Janeiro,” Latin American Perspectives (2006), 33(4): 49–81. One of the few examinations of gates in poor communities, it explores the relationship of gates to urban poverty and race in Brazil.
Low, Setha. Behind the Gates: Life, Security, and the Pursuit of Happiness in Fortress America (Routledge, 2003). Provides a historical background of gated communities and uses ethnography to see how privilege is contained behind gates.
Safa, Helen I. The Urban Poor of Puerto Rico: A Study in Development and Inequality (Rinehart and Winston, 1974). The first and only book-length study examining life in Puerto Rico’s public housing.

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Zaire Zenit Dinzey-Flores is in the sociology and Latino & Hispanic Caribbean studies departments at Rutgers University. She is the author of Locked In, Locked Out: Gated Communities in a Puerto Rican City, from which this article was adapted. 

source: American Sociological Association 
http://contexts.org/articles/fall-2013/gated-communities-for-the-rich-and-the-poor/
 

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As the far-right government in Greece is preparing a new law that allows the destruction of Greek coast-line by private interests and all kinds of capitalist’s investments we publish here a serial of photos from Spain where anyone can see clear the destructive effects of capitalistic development in Mediterranean environment. We are asking all people of Europe to fight for the defense of Greek coast-line and the paradesiac Greek beaches from destructive Greek government and private interests.

To understand what they try to do in Greece you can see the total destruction of coast-line in Spain.

Καθώς η ακροδεξιά κυβέρνηση στην Ελλάδα ετοιμάζει νόμους που θα επιτρέψουν την καταστροφή της Ελληνικής ακτογραμμής από ιδιωτικά συμφέροντα και κάθε λογής καπιταλιστικές επενδύσεις δημοσιέυουμε εδώ μια σειρά από φωτος από την Ισπανία έτσι ώστε να γίνει ξεκάθαρο στον καθένα το απόλυτα καταστροφικό αποτέλεσμα της καπιταλιστικής ανάπτυξης στο περιβάλλον της Μεσογείου. Ζητάμε από τους ανθρώπους όλης της Ευρώπης να υπερασπιστούν τις παραδείσιες Ελληνικές παραλίες από την καταστροφική Ελληνική Κυβέρνηση και τα ιδιωτικά συμφέροντα.

The destruction of Spain’s coastline / Η Καταστροφή της Ισπανικής ακτογραμμής

In the past two decades the once-beautiful Spanish coastline has been ravaged by the construction of hotels, apartment blocks and second homes. Here are some of the worst examples.

Τα τελευταία 20 χρόνια αυτό που κάποτε ήταν οι πανέμορφες Ισπανικές παραλίες και ακτές έχει κακοποιηθεί από την κατασκευή ξενοδοχειακών μονάδων, συγκροτημάτων διαμερισμάτων και εξοχικών. Εδώ μπορείτε να δείτε κάποια χαρακτηριστικά παραδείγματα:

2005: The Azata del Sol complex on the Algarrobico beach in the Cabo de Gata park in Almeria, southern Spain

2005: Το οικοδομικό συγκρότημα Azata Del Sol στην παραλία Algarrobico στην Νότια Ισπανία

 

The post S.O.S Greek coastline is destroyed by private interests and Greek government. The paradigm of the destruction of Spain’s coastline / Η Καταστροφή της Ισπανικής ακτογραμμής παράδειγμα για το μέλλον των Ελληνικών ακτών! appeared first on Void Network.

The French political theorist, activist and poet Ivan Chtcheglov 
was following his Ukrainian father as a revolutionary of his time. His father, Vladimir Chtcheglov, was sentenced to two years imprisonment following the 1905 Revolution. After he was released, Vladimir Chtcheglov left the Russian Empire. In 1910, Vladimir and his wife moved to Paris where he worked as a taxi driver. He took part in the 1911 driver strike.

Ivan – the French born son – became as a young man member of the Situationists International and as such he was the inventor of the “dérive”* (drifting) with his manifesto “Formulary for a New Urbanism”, before he tried to blow up the Eifel Tower because its reflected light was shining into his attic room and was keeping him awake.

Chtcheglov’s unforgettable line was that ‘dreams spring from reality and are realized in it’. His work was an experiment in the avant-garde. his technique echoes the improvisation that is evident in his working methods.

His text has a wonderful lyrical quality to it.

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*DERIVE or …Drifting:
One of the basic situationist practices is the dérive or drifting, a technique of rapid passage through varied ambiences. Dérives involve playful-constructive behavior and awareness of psychogeographical effects, and are thus quite different from the classic notions of journey or stroll.

In a dérive one or more persons during a certain period drop their relations, their work and leisure activities, and all their other usual motives for movement and action, and let themselves be drawn by the attractions of the terrain and the encounters they find there.

Chance is a less important factor in this activity than one might think: from a dérive point of view cities have psychogeographical contours, with constant currents, fixed points and vortexes that strongly discourage entry into or exit from certain zones.

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New Urbanism

In 1953, at age nineteen, Ivan Chtcheglov wrote the manifest “Formulary for a New Urbanism”, outlining how a city and modern city life has to be in order to achieve the most quality of life.
The “Formulary for a New Urbanism” illustrates how he envisioned the perfect city life:

 “Everyone will, so to speak, live in their own personal “cathedrals.” There will be rooms more conducive to dreams than any drug, and houses where one cannot help but love. […]”

“The districts of this city could correspond to the whole spectrum of diverse feelings that one encounters by chance in everyday life. […]”

“The main activity of the inhabitants will be CONTINUOUS DRIFTING. The changing of landscapes from one hour to the next will result in total disorientation.” […]

“Couples will no longer pass their nights in the home where they live and receive guests, which is nothing but a banal social custom. The chamber of love will be more distant from the center of the city: it will naturally recreate for the partners a sense of exoticism in a locale less open to light, more hidden, so as to recover the atmosphere of secrecy.” […]

Due to these elaborations, he is considered the founder of the dérive.
The manifest served as inspiration for many artists, urbanists and architects worldwide.

The Haçienda

The “Formulary for a New Urbanism” included the phrase “The Haçienda must be built”, and became somewhat of a pop culture phenomenon, which in the eighties influenced the British music and television personality Tony Wilson in naming his Manchester acid house and rave nightclub “The Haçienda”…

Blow up the Eiffel Tower
 
In 1959, Chtcheglov was sharing an attic loft in Paris with his friend Henry de Béarn, and every night the light from the Eiffel Tower would shine in their eyes. Instead of opting for curtains, they decided to blow it up – not as a political act, not as a nihilist affirmation, but simply because it kept them awake. They were arrested on their way to the Eiffel Tower as they stopped at a billiard bar on Rue Mouffetard, with backpacks full of dynamite they had stolen from a nearby construction site. He had told everyone around him about his plan, and while some did not take his attempt too seriously, his wife arranged for him to be committed to a mental institution following his arrest, where he was subdued with insulin and shock therapy, and remained for five years. He died in April 1998.


source:
http://www.inenart.eu/?p=13830

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A History of Collective Joy.
By Barbara Ehrenreich.
320 pp. Metropolitan Books/
Henry Holt & Company. $26.

“Take me out with the crowd,” goes the old baseball song. “I love this crowd,” repeats the classic stand-up comic. Every lecturer knows: the larger the group, the more they become an event for themselves, heightening the attention, the laughs or the emotions. At our national political conventions, people wear silly hats and bob up and down to music so stupid it is a parody of music, in order to “demonstrate” a political feeling. Participating in a demonstrative crowd gives joy, as being a mere spectator cannot. Even in a culture where recorded performance has become central, people crave the live event, largely for that group joy.

Barbara Ehrenreich wants to affirm the value of ecstatic group celebration. She aligns it with the old precolonial, precapitalist, pre-Christian religions, and with Carnival. The dancing meant by her title has ancient roots; it precedes streets. It also goes beyond them in the modern stadium, where sports and music, watching and performing, all merge. The kind of celebration Ehrenreich celebrates is communal though ungoverned, and anti-hierarchical though ancient. In the god Dionysus she sees a liberating force needed but resisted by modern Western society. She finds Bacchic group joy in carnivals and maypoles, in the dancing rituals of Africa and the Americas, in the French Revolution and in the face-painting of sports fans.

This is an important subject: how much will the human traditions of ecstatic dance, group celebration and Carnival preserve autonomy and help preserve the dignity of individuals? How much will those traditions and our universal, intuitive response to them, be manipulated and co-opted in the interests of uniformity or corporate profit or authoritarian control? Is culture already crippled by a dearth of free communal joy? How much is the celebrating crowd a release valve for energy, how much a potential focus of energy? And what sort of energy?

Ehrenreich identifies these issues, and is ardently on the right side of them. A research journalist, not a thinker or artist, she doesn’t much illuminate them. Her strength, as demonstrated by previous books about low-paying work (“Nickel and Dimed”) and war’s emotional appeal (“Blood Rites”), is her reporter’s nose for subject and information. She assembles juicy quotations, like Martin Luther on dancing: “I can’t bring myself to condemn it, unless it gets out of hand and so causes immoralities or excess. … So long as it’s done decently, I respect the rites and customs of weddings … and I dance, anyway!”

The double-chinned Luther of Cranach’s portrait, cutting a seemingly incongruous peasant jig, harks back to prehistoric forces. Similar forces helped drive the eclectic Hau-hau cult of the Maori in 1864. The Hau-hau resisted colonial injustices under British rule. Deconverting from Christianity, they also incorporated bits of it into their rapturous pole-dance. Ehrenreich quotes a description of their songs as “an extraordinary jumble of Hebrew, English, German, Greek and Italian.”

On the other side — as Ehrenreich sees it, continuing the voice of Dionysus’ antagonist Pentheus, the young king who resists the god in Euripides’ “Bacchae” — here is a Nazi directive for Third Reich dance bands, dug up by Michael Golston (presumably not a pseudonym for Mel Brooks): “On no account will Negroid excesses in tempo (so-called hot jazz) or in solo performances (so-called breaks) be tolerated; so-called jazz compositions may contain at most 10 percent syncopation; the remainder must consist of a natural legato movement devoid of the hysterical rhythmic reverses characteristic of the music of the barbarian races and conducive to dark instincts alien to the German people (so-called riffs).”

This comical passage helps support Ehrenreich’s distinction between the costuming, shouting, dancing, ritual behavior, atavism and collective exultation that she approves of and similar elements in Hitler’s Nuremberg rallies. The fascist event, she says, is a “scripted” spectacle and those attending “did not assemble spontaneously but were rounded up.” A spectacle audience is passive, unlike the rapturously participating crowd at the maypole or the slave revolt (or at Ehrenreich’s preferred parts of the French Revolution). Carnival mocks authority, and is spontaneous. Thus, fans who wear costumes or dance and sing at contemporary sporting events are “carnivalizing” the event.

Such pro-carnival distinctions, with their good-hearted sympathy for the demotic, the colonized, the neglected, the repressed, are extremely vulnerable to counterargument. Even a reader eager (as I am) to prefer carnival over hierarchy will wince at Ehrenreich’s blurry, prefatory disclaimer: “Not every form of ‘irrational’ group behavior will be considered here; panics, crazes, fads and spontaneous ‘mob’ activities do not fall within our purview. Lynchings — or, for that matter, riots — may generate intense excitement and pleasure in their participants, but the focus here is on the kind of events witnessed by Europeans in ‘primitive’ societies and recalled in the European carnival tradition.”

Quotation marks suggest the writer’s need for a straw man who misuses words like “irrational” or “primitive.” The passage continues to defend the ecstatic group events: “These were not spontaneous outbreaks of ‘hysteria,’ as some Europeans tended to imagine; nor were they occasions for the suspension of all inhibitions and a general ‘letting go.’ The behavior that seemed so ‘savage’ and wild to Western observers was in fact deliberately planned, organized, and at all times subject to cultural rules and expectations.”

For fascist events, people “did not assemble spontaneously”; but in another context it is the authentic carnival events that “were not spontaneous outbreaks.” Ehrenreich’s absolute separation between kinds of crowd behavior — the brutal utterly unlike the benign, the fascistic utterly unlike the anticolonial — wobbles.

Nevertheless, she effectively evokes the evils of colonialism from this cultural viewpoint. There is a world of shame and sadness in the African expression she cites for conversion to Christianity: to have “given up dancing.” And ordinary good sense acknowledges her general point: the Nuremberg-style rally is not a peasant wedding, and the maypole is not the lynching tree. But good sense also recognizes that the two kinds of crowd cannot be utterly different in psychology.

This is not a scholarly treatise, but a book to read for quotes, examples and anecdotes. Ehrenreich’s project may be limited, but it is not wrecked, by a warmed-over quality in borrowings from Max Weber, or a breezy equivalence of Wahhabism and Calvinism. Conceptual and logical matters are not the main problem. Style is. How should one write about wild, mass ebullience?

Here is a sentence from Ehrenreich’s chapter “The Rock Rebellion”: “A good part of the frisson of early rock lay in the rhythmic and often sexually suggestive movements of the performers — grinding their hips, thrusting their pelvises, rolling their shoulders, leaping and falling on the floor — ‘rocking,’ in short, as a way of announcing that the ‘new’ music was inseparable from creative, free-form, heat-driven motion.”

And this: “Rock’s contribution was to weigh in decisively on the side of hedonism and against the old puritanical theme of ‘deferred gratification.’ ”

Or this, from her chapter on sports: “In a stadium or at an arena, the audience has been expected for decades to leap up from their seats, shout, wave, and jump up and down with the vicissitudes of the game.”

This language — having rock “weigh in,” phrases like “ ‘rocking,’ in short” and “vicissitudes of the game” — fails to evoke its subject, except maybe by contrast.

Sometimes an interesting idea collapses into a puddle of dead metaphors and weary cadences: “The rise of social hierarchy, anthropologists agree, goes hand in hand with the rise of militarism and war, which are in their own way also usually hostile to the danced rituals of the archaic past.”

This pop anthropology lacks fizz. There’s a yearning, wistful gap between Ehrenreich’s celebration of inebriated dance and her term-paper prose. In that yearning, she disregards the double, ambiguous nature of Dionysus, the deity she calls “the first rock star.” Possibly, her writing indicates a flinching, less than complete apprehension of that shape-shifting Lord of Misrule.

Dionysus seems to embody a force rightfully needed and rightfully feared. Is the abandon of his worshipers humanizing or dehumanizing — or human? Bacchic energy can overthrow tyranny, and it can tyrannize. In her pages on rock, Ehrenreich just barely mentions the Dionysian landmark of Woodstock — and says nothing about the calamity a few months later of Woodstock’s evil twin, Altamont, where an 18-year-old black man was killed. He was kicked and beaten, as well as stabbed multiple times by a member or members of the organization contracted to keep order and guard the stage: the Hell’s Angels, a name that suits the double nature of Dionysus. Which is to say, the double nature of us humans.

In the “Bacchae” of Euripides, Dionysus leads the queen Agave to join the Bacchae — and in a frenzy of delusion, she tears her son Pentheus into bloody pieces, then carries his head as a trophy. After Agave has come to her senses, and realizes what she has done, Dionysus speaks. “I am Dionysus. I am Bacchus,” he says (in the C. K. Williams translation). He proclaims that the horrors he has brought Thebes could have been prevented “if you had understood your mortal natures.” “Dancing in the Streets” takes an honorable, faltering step in that direction.

Robert Pinsky is the author, most recently, of “The Life of David.”

source: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/14/books/review/Pinsky.t.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

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Asheville Fm radio, based in western North Carolina, aired a fascinating interview with an anarcho-syndicalist named Denys, from the Autonomous Worker’s Union in Ukraine. In the interview, Denys debunks many of the myths surrounding the Euromaidan protests in Ukraine, and explains motives behind the stories and propaganda being circulated around the protests.

Why is the Free Association Agreement with the EU (which would mostly benefit the ultra-rich oligarchs of Ukraine) deliberately being construed as actual integration? Ukrainian leaders backed off from signing it at the last minute. Meanwhile, Russia is trying to pull Ukraine into her Customs Union by offering Kyiv a deal for promised purchases of billions of euro of Ukrainian products, and a 30 percent discount on Russian Natural Gas.
Denys explains that when the protests broke, the political class of Ukraine was taken by surprise. However, the opposition, a coalition leaning towards far-right (with fascist Svoboda being the most visible of them all) quickly regrouped and turned the street into their PR machine. The opposition had massive demonstrations in their plans, as fascist Svobodas leader declared in an interview in March 2013. Evidence emerged of the opposition leaders plans to overthrow the current government with the financial and political support of Germany’s conservative Angela Merkel, the EU leaders from Brussels, and with visible support of the United States, whose envoy, conservative John McCain was the guest star of the Euromaidan.
Two months after they started, Euromaidan protests started to wane, despite being forcefully encouraged by the conservative political elites and governments of Europe and the United States. These protests have been controlled by the politicians who took over the Kyiv City Hall, and in this video, we can see a neo-nazi white pride Christian cross, proudly displayed by the opposition in their “Revolutionary HQs,” the City Hall of Kyiv which they occupied earlier in December.

 
It’s hard to say who is more desperate – the government or the opposition, but the latter announced they would focus on the upcoming presidential elections, due in 18 months, though it’s not quite clear what candidate they’ll support. Fatherland sided with the ruling Party of Regions of the current president Viktor Yanukovych in backstabbing Vitali Klitschko, most likely to make room either for their man, Arseniy Yatseniuk, or for the leader of Svoboda, Oleh Tyahnybok (or maybe for Tymoshenko for whose release from prison, the West makes huge pressures).
Klitschko, already promoted by the conservative leaders of Europe as their favourite, announced he would run in the March 2015 presidential elections, a month before the Euromaidan.
However, Svoboda’s leader exposed their plans to take over Kyiv in a March 2013 interview which a month later was followed by street protests which failed to call for early elections for the mayor of Kiev, which would have led to the ousting of one of the allies of President Viktor Yanukovich from a powerful post.
7 months later, the opposition used the street protests against the government to gain power in Ukraine. The results have been very fruitful for the Svoboda party. On January 1st, the Svoboda party led a march of over 15,000 nationalists to celebrate the birthday of long dead nazi collaborator Stepan Bandera.

 
 Klitschko attempted to disassociate Euromaidan from the Bandera march, but this lacks meaning as he has allied with Tyagnybok and demonstrated his willingness to collaborate with the Svoboda party. Many participants in Euromaidan have expressed their disapproval of the Bandera march, yet many of the same people have expressed their desire to not split the protests, meaning they will still willingly collaborate with nazis. This has essentially allowed Svoboda to establish hegemony among Euromaidan attendees as well as the capital.
In this interview, Denys explains what are the real facts and how are they reflected in a labyrinth of deformed mirrors, which one must remove from their way to understand the reality of life in Ukraine, a country where “people are ill because the State is a Ministry, Court, Oligarch, Scoundrel and non-accountable Parliament all at once, with all the same personalities over and over again.”
The transcript of the interview with Denys has been slightly edited from the spoken language into the written one, for more clarity. The edited parts are in brackets. You may also listen to it here.
Denys: You must distinguish between the two Euromaidans. (In) the first one which (took place) on November 21st, middle class people (participated), who mostly wanted the signing of that European Union agreement. However, today (our note – two months later), most of the people who are on the streets are concerned with rather more practical issues, such as police brutality, which was shown on the night of December 1st, and generally they are not happy with the government and the president. So the European integration remains a wider issue, but today it’s kind of the second place.
(As far as) the pro-government protests (are concerned): the people (who participated in them) were taken by the government on busses and (brought) to Kyiv for the weekend. (These) protests were not honest. Many people who work for the government, like teachers, doctors and so on, were told by their bosses that they have to do it. So, it was like mandatory for them. I would not say this (was) a real protest. But (regarding) the people who support the Union with Russia and Belarus and Kazahstan, yes, there is such an opinion and, as a whole, the country is divided more or less 50-50 regarding the integration into the European Union or the Customs Union.
The problem is that the second position is just not very represented in mass media which lean towards the other direction (pro-EU). And generally those people (who support the Customs Union) do not have the habit of protesting. They live in smaller towns and therefore they are not (represented in the media as much as those who live in the capital).
Also (the supporters of the Customs Union) have very stupid political leaders, for instance the main political force, which had organised those protests (in favor of) the Customs Union, (had) as their main point of anti-EU propaganda (the claim) that the European Union will bring about the same-sex marriage, and non traditional things which supposedly would not be welcomed by the Ukraian population. They even invented the term “Euro-sodom,” like (in) Sodom and Gomorrah.
And the other political force which supports the Customs Union is the Communist Party of Ukraine, which for many years has had nothing to do with communism, its political programme and agenda (can be) rather described as conservative, just like a regular social conservative party. If you compared (them) with Marie Le Pen, you would not find much difference between them.”
Asheville Fm radio: Is in their wording and imagery a sort of call back towards the Soviet era and rejoining with other Eastern European countries?
Denys: “Yes, of course they speculate about it, because the bonds between regular people are still very strong. You know many people have relatives (in Russia), (not to mention things) like the common mass-culture. Many people watch the Russian TV channels, so that is much more common in the regular lives of people in central, eastern, and southern regions.
People in the Central and Southern region have many things in common with the Russians, in their lifestyle, and they don’t feel they are the same as the European people.
But at the same time, a large part of the (Ukrainian) population is now currently living abroad, in the European Union, especially in Spain, Italy, Poland and Czech Republic and Portugal. Mostly these are people from Western regions, but not exclusively.
Asheville Fm radio: With the supporters versus the detractors of the EU inclusion, I can see a dividing up according to social norms, as you mentioned, so people who are maybe more social liberal (are) maybe leaning towards the West with its more progressive laws and same sex marriages, and then on the right side you have more conservative, more orthodox leaning – it will be a different orthodox church than the Russian orthodox – I’m sure that, depending on where you are in the country or what industry you’re in, you’re going do more business generally with the East or the West. But would you say that both the positions are basically more towards liberalizing the economy and weakening workers’s rights within Ukraine, or is it sort of a false bind for workers in Ukraine?
Denys: First of all you talked about the prevailing social liberalism among the pro-EU (Ukrainians). I would not really agree with that. There is such an impression because the pro-EU protests are headed by the educated middle class people who do have a (sort) of more social liberal agenda.
But still it’s more like cultural right versus cultural right.
So, for example, regularly, people at the Euromaidan pray publicly like together, all together. Then again, (regarding) the same sex marriages (issue): most people who stand for the EU integration would never accept it.
(Indeed) the social issues regarding the workers’ rights are not on the agenda at all. The working class, as a class, does not take part in these events at all. The workers naturally do take sides, but they are not organized in class-like organisations, in unions, as such they just don’t participate in these events. And they have good reasons for this, because both sides just talk about the cultural, political issues, which don’t have any direct connection to needs of an average worker.
The protesters who support the EU have the utterly false impression about Europe as some paradise where everything is all right, everything is much better than in Ukraine or anywhere else. It’s useless to tell them about the protests within the EU, about the austerity programs. They just don’t listen and they would say, “Ah, so you would better join Russia, wouldn’t you!”
So this false choice is just overwhelming and I think the same could be said about the opposite side. The leftist agenda, the workers’ rights agenda, is just not present at any of these squares (where people protest).
Asheville Fm radio: That must be a rather a frustrating position. All right, I guess, as an anarchist, it might open all sorts of possibilities and questions, (when they say) “Well, you must be pro-Russia if you’re against this”, (could you say) “Well, actually there’s another way.” Do you find that opens up a lot of conversations for you?
Denys: “No. The people are very hyped-up, they are very nervous. Today and maybe all the other days of last weeks, you could be in real physical danger, if you start saying something like this because you’d be immediately considered a provocateur from the ruling party. Actually, there were a couple of such incidents at the Euromaidan, when people from different leftist groups were trying to do exactly what you’re saying, and some of them were beaten quite harshly, others were just pushed out. (This is) because regular people do show some interest sometimes, but the other problem is that the whole situation in the rank and file in the euromaidan, the security and the local managers (organisers of the protests), who do stuff, they are heavily infiltrated by the far right groups that actually have their own things to say to the left. And they have the trust of the normal, the political people, so if some new Nazi whom we know says, “Oh my god, look, these are communists, these are like provocateurs, I think they just support Yanukovych,” nobody would listen to you anymore. You’d be like pushed away.
This is the mass hysteria in which I do not think it is possible to do much agitation, although I think during the next year we’ll have much more possibilities, because given the awful state of Ukraine’s state finances, I think during the next couple of months, the protests could be transformed into something (closer to a) more of a social economical agenda.”
Asheville Fm radio: Let’s hope so. 
Can you talk a bit more about the Ukrainian political system, and what the spectrum looks like? What kind of parties should our listeners know about to get a basic understanding about the dynamics, and what the stances are on the Ukraine joining the EU or the Custom’s Union?
Denys: “The Ukrainian parliamentary politics basically consists of two large (political) parties – these two parties have pretty identical social, political and economical agendas. They both can be described as centrist-right populists. One party is the Party of Region, which is the ruling party, president Yanukovych is their chief, and the government consists of the Party of Regions’ members. The opposition consists of a bloc of three parliamentary opposition parties, which are basically the same, the only difference is that they speak Ukrainian. (These opposition parties) have their electoral base in the Central and Western Ukraine, while the Party of Regions (people rather) speak Russian, and they speculate on these cultural differences, since their voters live in the South and in the East. These are the parties which gather perhaps 60 percent of all votes. Also there is the “Communist” party of Ukraine, which I already told you about. And one of this so-called National Democratic Opposition is the Svoboda (party), which is translated as “freedom”, but actually is a far-right party, identical to the other far-right populists from the European countries actually. Most of the political parties which I described do support the integration into the European Union, including most of the businessmen who support the Party of Regions (the ruling paty of president Yanukovych).
Actually, during this year, there emerged an opposition, based on pro-Russian conservative grounds, inside the Party of Regions, but it was very severely suppressed. The would-be leader of that opposition, a member of the parliament, was expelled from the Parliament, on grounds that he rigged the elections in his constituency.
Up until the end of November everything said that Ukraine would sign that Association Agreement (with the EU) because everybody is interested in it.
Then things changed rapidly, as far as can be understood, when the president and the prime-minister looked at the figures and they just realized that they can’t do it because the trade was with Russia and because (of the situation of) the State’s finances – we don’t have money and the budget is just empty and we can’t afford the losses which would be brought about by that association Agreement. Obviously nobody read that agreement at all (until at that moment), because (until the moment they backed off), the prime-minister and the president were the main euro-optimists in the country.
Overnight then they became the main euro-skeptics.”
Asheville Fm radio: Was the International Monetary Fund’s restructuring plan a part of getting into the European Union, or was that a separate thing that suddenly came up about the same time for the Yanukovych’s party? 
Denys: “These are two separate things, which are united by the fact that the Ukrainian government badly needs money. So they’ve decided to press the European Union in order for them to help Ukraine negotiate for better conditions of (getting) a credit fund from the IMF.
This is because the IMF demands (the same measures) as they usually do for many countries. (They impose) very harsh conditions, such as rising the gas price for the population, and the devaluation of the national currency. And the government refused to do that that over the past years, and it would be certainly political suicide for any politician who would try to do that now, when there is one year left before the presidential elections.”
Asheville Fm radio: From what I understand the IMF demands a 40 percent increase of the price of natural gas in a country that is quite cold, right? 
Denys: Yeah.
Asheville Fm radio: That seems like political suicide. I can see that for sure. 
Denys: “The main political force in the far right scene in Ukraine today is undeniably the Svoboda party, if I would have to seek some comparison I would compare them to other eastern european far-right parties such as Hungarian Jobbik party (more on Jobbik: documetary, news report, and article) which I think American listeners may be aware of. There was a huge scandal when they got lots of votes a couple of years ago in Hungary. Svoboda (is) pretty much the same thing, it’s a political party which has its own project of a so-called “national constitution” (which would bring about) many awful things, such as the death penalty for the so-called “anti-Ukrainian activities,” without further comment. Basically anything contrary to that parties spirit could be considered “anti-Ukrainian.”
Today in the Euromaidan they are calling for a political strike, but actually what most people just don’t realize is that, in the Svoboda’s project of (a new) Constitution, the political strike is a criminal offense.”
Asheville Fm radio: It’s a state of exception for them, I’m sure. 
Denys: “Yeah. The paradox is that they’ve become extremely popular among the educated liberal middle class in urban areas, especially in Kyiv. So today Kyiv votes for Svoboda, as the Western regions of Ukraine do, because they just say, “Well, I don’t know what is their program like. I did not read anything (about it), but they look so harsh, they are such cool guys, and I’m sure that at least they would break the necks of those corrupt people who are now in the party (holding) power.”
This is, of course, very much reminiscent of the historical situations in other countries in 21st century.
I don’t want to sound too much in panic, but there are some similar traits, because regular bourgeois people from the middle class just don’t see anything wrong with it. And, to some extent, they are right, because, if the far-right wins over the country, these people would not feel any major difficulties (in their life). The main difficulties would be directed towards the far left, towards all the left parties and movements, and towards the ethnic minorities and racial minorities.
But normal people would not feel anything for some time (at least), and that’s the problem.
Also another interesting fact about (the Svoboda) party: they (went through) a rebranding, and now (they) call (themselves) “freedom”.  This is a generic word for the European right, but up until 2005 or 2004, they called themselves the Socialist Nationalist Party of Ukraine.” (our note: Actually the current Svoboda leader said at one point that every Ukrainian must become a Socialist-Nationalist.)
Asheville Fm radio: Do you have anything to say about the Ukraine National Assembly party?
Denys: “They’re not very influential now. They used to be a very powerful far-right party (back) in the `90s, when they really had their own para-military soldiers, and even a semi-army, and their fighters (participated in) the war in Chechnya, and in other Caucasus wars and in Transnistria, and, yeah, they were very scary. But today they are just mostly a club for the nazis who don’t like Svoboda.
Asheville Fm radio: I came across the website of Dimitrov Kutchinsky, that guy is crazy. There are also references to national-anarchism.
Denys: “Are you familiar with that concept at all?”
Asheville Fm radio: Yeah there are some idiots claiming to be that in the United States. In San Francisco, and New York and Chicago. Are they much of a thing in the Ukraine?
Denys: “Yes, actually yes. Because unfortunately this is a very popular trend – to mix with the leftist things, like (in adopting an) anticapitalism (narrative). The anarchist (position) is very trendy, cool and gives you some points immediately, but people mix it with national things, which also look very trendy and cool with the youth, mainly with teenagers who just don’t see any problem in trying to combine these things. And it’s especially funny in Ukraine because we have a very big myth about Makhno.
Today he’s an integral part of the national myth, he’s considered a nationalist, actually, because, well, he fought the Bolsheviks, therefore he must be for Ukraine, for independent Ukraine, and for the rule of the nation and so on. Obviously this is total bullshit, but this mythology is very popular and it adds to the popularity of that left-right synthesis, the third position actually, like Terza Posizione, (which is) the Italian fascist tradition.”
Asheville Fm radio: Yeah that’s the same phrasing that they use in the United States: third positionists. There’s also a lot of overlap of nationalism and regional bio-centric ecology, so that they seem to make invasions into Green Anarchism before they start to make it into the mainstream or before a lot of people became aware of who they were and what they were doing. 
Denys: “I understand that, but here in Ukraine, apart from the New Age things, they are also very fascinated by the proper fascists, such as Mussolini, for example. They somehow are trying to mix it with anarchism.
Also you may be aware of the split in the Russian anarchist movement recently?
Asheville Fm radio: No, I’m not actually.
Denys: “Well there was a big split and that is repeated in Ukraine too.
It’s the split between the anarchists who support the minority rights, the feminist struggle, they pay attention to general issues, to the minority rights to the ethnical minorities, and the other macho-anarchists who don’t like all this ‘feminist b….t.’ They say, ‘We are cool guys, we do lots of sports and we are the proper anarchists, we don’t want anything to do with those pussies.’
Unfortunately, this manarchism is also gaining a lot of popularity lately.”
Asheville Fm radio: Is that a phrase you use in Ukraine, manarchism?
Denys: “Oh, we know that it’s originated in the United States, but for the lack of better word, yeah.”
Asheville Fm radio: It was quite surprising to hear it, I mean your English is very good but also the colloquial, the subcultural terms that you’ve pulled, they’re quite good. It seems in the United States that that’s always been a trend, that’s a possibility and that’s happened over and over again where people split off and say, “Oh, we need to have action now, no, these other ideas will happen after the revolution, we can wait to talk about race or sexism after the revolution and we’re gonna make the revolution right now so that we’d get on to those conversations,” and it seemed to a lot of people, starting about 10 years ago maybe in the United States among insurrectional currents of anarchism that that was a thing that people were tending towards, but I don’t think that there was actually a split in the United States, thankfully, I think there are people who have that perspective but usually they get put in their place by other people pretty fast. 
They get called manarchists, and then internet videos are made about them and they are made fun of in public and then they don’t want to be that person anymore, hopefully.
Denys: “The difference is you don’t have such developed fascists, do you?”
Asheville Fm radio: No. 
I mean we have a lot of far-right leaning groupings in the United States, some of which are para-military such as militias, or the KKK, though they’re not very big anymore, there are large pockets of neo-nazi subcurrents, but for the most part these groupings are at the political fringes, and the mainstream of America would not listen to them, although there have been large upsurges in anti-immigrant perspectives over the last 10 years that have led to armed groups on the border with Mexico for instance that have been deputized in certain states. In a way that kind of reflects from what I understand the Kozaks as an armed civilian militia that’s trained and armed by the state in Russia? 
But, yeah, the integration of rasist and fascist elements, as (openly) fascists is not really a thing although people make the argument that the United States is a fascist State it’s definitely not Mussolini’s Italy and definitely not Hitler’s Germany. 
Denys: “We have an additional pressure from the right and more people just tend to confuse these things. You know, all these things are against the power, against the government and, yeah, (they are like), “I’m too lazy to read anything about it yeah, so I should go into the street, and not even go into the street, but merely go into the gym.” There is a (Denys told Revolution News that this is a true story) joke, (about) the Kyiv manarchist (and it goes), “The day before yesterday they’ve issued a call of unity among the Kyiv left in the face of the Euromaidan like “We should be united and go together and do something social to raise some social issues and so on, but that call for unity contained one note: that if we see people with a black violet flag they would be considered provocateurs and all the necessary measures will be upon them.”
Asheville Fm radio: And black and violet being the color spectrum from the anarcha-feminist?
Denys: Yeah, right.
Asheville Fm radio: To bring you back to the protests initially as it is the Euromaidan began November 21st with 2000 people gathered in occupying Kyiv’s Maidan, it is the Independence’s square, right?
Denys: Yeah.
Asheville Fm radio: And Maidan means square? 
Denys: Yeah.
Asheville Fm radio:  Can you talk briefly about the Orange revolution and the comparisons that have been made between the protests that are going on right now and the scale of these protests and maybe the lack of scale in the demands of the people on the streets?
And compare that to the Orange revolution?
Denys: “Well, one thing which was prominent in the Orange revolution events was (the focus) on one person.
Everybody was shouting, “Yushchenko” the name of the candidate for the presidential position and at that time all the left were criticizing the Orange revolution for this, (because) they did not pay any attention to other vital problems, they just shouted “Yushchenko” and they thought that he was the Messiah who’d get things done.
But today they don’t have even this and still they don’t pay any attention to the bread and butter issues. Large masses of people just have the illusion about the fairytale of Europe, which they want to join, like personally. And nobody says anything about the actual content of that (EU) Association Agreement.
Yes, now the mobilization of what I understand is already larger than in 2004 events, so potentially the opposition holds a vast resource, but the problem is they don’t really know how to use it.
We can read in the interviews of their politicians who took part in the Orange revolution, at that time, (how) the politicians controlled the crowd much more tightly.
For example, one politician recently gave an interview, and he said, “Do you know why at that time the euromaidan was entirely orange and now they have different flags of different colors? Well, that’s not a coincidence. It’s just because everyday (back in 2004) we brought there 300 fresh orange flags.”
They’ve controlled the crowd, they were giving them the flags and doing their organisational work more efficiently than now. Today the parliamentary opposition was just responding to a spontaneous mobilization, they did not order it and then they just did not know what to do, in the first few days. In this situation, then, again, the most prepared party turned out to be the Svoboda. Which is the only party that has its own rank and file activists, who can do things in the field. So they get the most benefit as for today, as it looks now.
Asheville Fm radio:  How has the media in Ukraine dealt with, interacted with the Euromaidan movement and what is the ownership structure like with the media in Ukraine. What sort of influences do different stations have?
Denys: Oh it’s a very interesting story because in 2004, during the Orange revolution, all the media were heavily censored in that regard and all the people were watching Channel 5. (This) was the only TV channel (broadcasting) all these events, because its owner was Petro Poroshenko, an opposition politician. Today the ownership structure is not any better for the opposition, but still all the main TV channels and generally all the main mass media are covering the story very closely. When it was that bloody crackdown all the main channels belonging to the richest oligarchs covered it almost live, showing these riot police beating up people and saying how awful this is and so on and so on.
This shows that the owners of the media are really not happy themselves with the current president, and this was a big news for most Ukrainians as well. Because there is a popular (belief) that all the oligarchs are behind the (current) president, but, as we can see now, recently, the business advisers of the Ukrainian President Yanukovych have really irritated the media moguls, who are the owners of large portions of the Ukrainian GDP. They are not really happy about the president’s family doing things they should not do with their business.”
Asheville Fm radio:  Talk about the group that you’re with, or the organisation. 
Denys: “It was founded two years ago, and it’s still not super big. But I would say that we really have had some development in quality as well as in quantity, because today we have two local (branches), one in Kyiv and one in Harkov – (this is) the second largest industrial city in Ukraine.
We have about 20-25 people in Kyiv and maybe like 15 people in Harkov.
These are not astronomical figures, but they are larger than they have been initially and I think we are growing. We see ourselves not as a political propaganda group, more as a class union.
We are guided by the revolutionary syndicalism principles, although lately our group is becoming more and more just anarcho-syndicalist. Earlier we had some trotskysts and some marxists but now I think that most of them are already anarchists.
But unfortunately we still don’t have any workplace organisations, because, according to the Ukrainian law, you must have at least 3 people at every local workplace. We have people from different areas who often don’t work anywhere officially at all, like seasonal workers or construction workers and so on.
That’s the problem and today we function in actuality more like a propaganda group, although we want to be an actual union more like IWW, that’s the model we look up to.”
Asheville Fm radio:  For any listeners who are not familiar with anarcho-syndicalism, would you lay that down, briefly, and how it compares and differs from revolutionary syndicalism?
Denys: “Syndicalism as a method (stands for the) negation  of parties and parliamentary politics, as an instrument of reaching any political goals. The main accent is laid on direct action instruments, such as strikes, demonstrations, occupations and so on.
The main issue of syndicalism per se is the strategy, which lies in connecting the political and economical struggle in the struggle of syndicates, of unions.
So, unlike trade unionism, the labor movement, or laborism like in Britain, syndicalists believe that unions should pursue political goals together with the economical goals, they should fight, for example, for high wages and together they should keep in their mind that they are fighting eventually for communism, for the downfall of capitalism.  In the syndicalist theory, this is called revolutionary gymnastics.”
Asheville Fm radio:  I’ve never heard that phrase before.
Denys: “The revolutionary gymnastics is everyday struggle for similar reformist things which at the same time develops the muscles of the working class. After these struggles, the workers come out of them more organized and higher level of class conscience.
During strikes and demonstrations, the working class consolidates and sort of trains itself for class battles, and for more important and more vital political battles which will come.
The revolutionary syndicalism unites basically any left anti-capitalist, while anarcho-syndicalism also implies that all the members of the movement share anarchist views.
Personally, I don’t think that anarcho-syndicalism is contradictory in any way to other forms of social anarchism.
Anarcho-synthesism is a school of thought which combines anarcho-communism as an ideal, anarcho-syndicalism as a method of reaching that ideal and anarcho-individualism as a base from which you evaluate your actions.”
Asheville Fm radio: Criticism that people might come up with is that it’s difficult to keep doing reformist work in the short-term even though it can get you better working conditions or less repression from the state, and keeping an eye towards conducting a revolution or not, just buying into the system you have to make better. 
Is that the criticism that you hear?
Denys: “Well, our answer today is putting forward unrealistic demands. For example, one of our program’s points is to demand the lowering of the retirement age for men and women equally to 50 years, making longer the yearly vacations (pensions), and shortening the working hours to 35 hours a week.
These demands are postulated in the social context in which the government tries to raise the pension age and (increase) the working hours.
But still it does not look as utopian to most people because they can sympathise with this – everybody wants to have longer vacation. This helps us to get in a situation, into a zone where our demands are not considered some lunacy while at the same time obviously if our government would try to make them real any government would collapse.
Another example is our current campaign for free communal transport in Kyiv.
It was a response to the Kyiv government’s decision to raise the price of metro and buses (fares) (by) 50 percent. Nobody is willing to protest, the left groups who want to capitalize on this they just say, you know, the regular stuff, “We are against the raising of the tarifs, we don’t see it as a necessary step.”
I think our tactic was better because we put forward the offensive demands, not the defensive ones. We said, “Actually, we want free transit.” And here is the budget of the Kyiv government and we can see that here and here are the money which can be redirected and spent so that it can grant all the inhabitants of this city free transit.
Of course, this demand is still “unrealistic” in terms of real politics.
But it creates some space where you can be revolutionary and reformist at the same time.”
Asheville Fm radio:  Your explanations have reminded me of the IWW’s push for the 4 hour work day, which they’ve played with for a long time. It’s like you say that to someone and they say, “That’s totally unrealistic, it’s not going to happen.” But then you break down the numbers and if everyone was actually working and profit would be redistributed in a certain way then that could work and that begs the question of what’s wrong with the system that makes us have to work so much.
How can anyone of the listeners outside of Ukraine support the work of the Autonomous Workers’ Union and support the people struggling against the EU and the Ukrainian government and Russian intersession.
Denys: “I think the most useful thing would be to actually do what you’re doing now – to try to dispel the myths about our current situation because as far as I can understand most of the anarchists in the Western countries are just super optimistic about the protests, they see it as the right path to the EU and (they think) we shall overcome. But, as I’ve tried to explain, the situation is not that simple, so I think first and foremost everybody should try to learn as much they can about every other struggle in the world. This is what I’ve tried to do and of course it’s not an original answer but the international solidarity can help. We know from our own experience that when some groups from other country stage solidarity protests however small it can be and it is very helpful. Our group has also staged lots of actions, demonstrations in solidarity with Greek comrades, Polish comrades and not only it raised up spirits, but it is a useful thing for building up networks and organisational cooperation. There is a thing called Red and Black coordination, I think it only unites Western Europeans in libertarian movements, but still it is potentially very useful and our union I think it’s going to join, by the way.
It would be good just to start communicating with each other directly and seeing the needs of each other.
Asheville Fm radio: You yourself just got back from a solidarity protest. Can you talk about that cause I was not aware of this massacre either. 
Denys: Two years ago, in 2011, all workers in several oilfields in Kazakhstan staged a strike. Their first demands were just higher wages and better working conditions. But after they were totally ignored by the government and by the employer, they were radicalized by the local trots and they’ve started organizing a national network of militant collectives, demanding the nationalization of the whole oil industry and the workers’ control, and putting forward some political demands as well. Anyway they were still largely ignored until August after their strike has lasted for half a year, the government started repressing them. First they’ve beaten up some activists, they’ve locked up behind bars the woman who had given them legal advice, but still they were holding on the main square of Zhanaozen, which is a small workers’ town, in the West of Kazakhstan. But on december 16th there was a huge celebration of Kazakhstan’s independence day. And exactly on that day the strikers were attacked by a group of thugs obviously financed by the governor of that region who opened fire on the crowd. And 17 people were dead, several dozens were injured. That’s the perfect example of the unity of the capital and the state. If an anarchist wanted to talk about how the capitalists and the state support each other there can be no greater example in the recent history.
Especially since it was the main state holiday, Independence day.
After that the government started closing even the liberal media and repressing even the established bourgeois opposition. (more on the massacre)
Also this massacre was just the starting point for the Kazakhstan’s regime to turn into something much more brutal than it was before that. Also in the sphere of workers’ rights just recently the Kazakh government has come up with new proposals. They want to ban all the independent trade unions, so if you have a union cell in a factory, this cell should be controlled and governed by the National Federation of Trade Unions, the relic from the Soviet state, which is obviously heavily controlled by the government. If you don’t have any relations to that federation, your union is just illegal.
The other “great” initiative is that they want to raise the pension age again for women to make it 63 years, and to put a legal ceiling on the wages – not of top managers, but on the wages of relatively well off working people in such sectors such as oil and gas, where the wages are on average higher than in other sectors.
And the funny thing, but of course nobody cares in the West about it, no capitalist democracy can be bothered by this at all, the Kazakh state owns companies that are listed (at the western stock exchanges, like the London SE).
and they have huge success on the stock markets, then again it shows that there’s no big difference between the capitalism in the West and the capitalism in the former second world, because this point is often made by liberal experts here in Ukraine. They say something like, “You have a wild capitalism in Ukraine, but somewhere in the realms of Western paradise there is a true humanist capitalism.”
As you can see this is all the global unified system.”
Asheville Fm radio:  If people want to learn more about you what website should we send them to?
Denys: It’s avtonomia.net.
http://avtonomia.net/
More reading: Euromaidan: The solution to Putin, or another fascist political coup?

Other earlier interesting interview of Dennys:
http://pratelekomunizace.wordpress.com/2014/02/19/maidan-and-its-contradictions-interview-with-a-ukrainian-revolutionary-syndicalist/

For those interested in listening to archived episodes from Asheville Fm radio, check them
out at thefinalstrawradio.noblogs.org. You can contact them with
content suggestions at thefinalstrawradio@riseup.net

source: 

The post Ukrainian anarchist dispels myths surrounding Euromaidan protests, warns of fascist influence appeared first on Void Network.

For years the U.S. government allowed racist white lynch mobs to murder Black men, women and children for practically nothing. The lynchings were so absurd one could argue that Black people’s lives were little to no value at all.  In fact, between 1882 and 1930 in just the 10 southern U.S. states of Florida, Tennessee, Arkansas, Kentucky, North Carolina, Mississippi, Georgia, Louisiana, Alabama, and South Carolina, 2,500 black people were lynched. That is an average of nearly one hanging every week.
Below are 10 unbelievable  reasons Black people were lynched in American history, according to Jana Evans Braziel, Assistant Professor at the University of Cincinnati.  Some of them are so startling they are similar to the modern-day killings of Black children by white men,  like in the recent cases of Trayvon Martin, wearing his hooded sweatshirt, Jordan Davis, playing loud music at a gas station, or Oscar Grant, simply hanging out at the train station on New Year’s Eve.

Unpopularity

The post 10 Outrageous Reasons Black People Were Lynched in America appeared first on Void Network.

This is the transcript of a public lecture by Italian philosopher Giorgio Agamben delivered to a packed auditorium in Athens on November 16, 2013 and recently published by Chronos e-magazine.

A Permanent State of Exception

Governing the Effects

The De-politicization of Citizenship

Rise of the State of Control

From Politics to Policing

Rediscovering a Form-of-Life

The post The talk of Giorgio Agamben in Athens: “From the State of Control to a Praxis of Destituent Power” appeared first on Void Network.

PLEASE SPREAD IT WORLDWIDE !!!
(english,spanish,french .greek.italian)

~On the night of January 19 a boat with 28 refugees was caught by the Greek Coast Guard as it was trying to approach the shore of Farmakonisi, a Greek island. The Greek Coast Guard vessel instead of towing them ashore started to push them back towards the Turkish coast. As a result the boat was sunk and 12 of them – 9 children, 3 women – were drowned. This is a picture of one the survivors explaining how he lost his family. The Greek government has an official policy of “making Greece unhospitable” for refugees, These deaths are murders. Murders by the Greek government. Murders by the EU and its ‘Fortress Europe’ strategy. were drowned. This is a picture of one the survivors explaining how he lost his family. The Greek government has an official policy of “making Greece unhospitable” for refugees, These deaths are murders. Murders by the Greek government. Murders by the EU and its ‘Fortress Europe’ strategy.

~Marinos griegos de la guardia costera hicieron voltear apropósito un barco con inmigrantes de Afganistán y Siria y no salvaron las personas que estaban ahogando. 11 personas de los cuales muchos niños de 1 hasta 10 años de edad ahogaron. Solo después salvaron los demás. Difundan la noticia para que el mundo se entere de los criminales comportamientos de la marina griega, que están cumpliendo con los ordenes del gobierno fascista griego.
Dans la nuit du 19 janvier ,une barque avec des refugies venant d’Afganistan et de Syrie,fut decouverte par une patrouille maritime grecque pendant qu’elle essayait de se rapprocher de l’ile grecque de Agathonissi..La patrouille maritime grecque,au lieu de les amener sur terre grecque,a essaye (contre toute loi internationale) ,en attachant une corde reliant la barque au navire maritime,de les trainer vers les cotes turques..tout ceci en grande vitesse,et le resultat fut que la barque a commence a prendre l’eau et malgre les cris des immigres qu’il y avait des enfants a bord,12 personnes ont ete noyees ,9 enfants et 3 femmes..il y a le temoignage des rescapes qui parlent de meurtre volontaire car les gardes maritimes ont ,semble t-il,empeche les gens qui se noyaient,a monter a bord.
Ceci est une photo d’un des rescapes de cette tragedie.
Tragedie-meurtre qui a pour responsables ,le gouvernement fasciste grec ,mais aussi l’ Union européenne et sa politique de ”forteresse d’Europe.”
===================
Video with the refugees arriving at the port of Piraeus
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QRnT0l2ZOrI#t=59
=============
This is not the only case, as regularly we hear news of boat-people “disappearing”, “accidentaly drowning” etc.
Please share this photo
P.S. There are 24 concentration camps in Greece where thousands of immigrants are jailed, without them being accused of anything, while the Greek Junta receives more than 200 million euro every year from Europe to cover their expenses and/or repatriation. “Nobody” knows where this money goes”
===================
GREECE /The Coast Guard “drowned” the migrants in Farmakonisi
http://www.x-pressed.org/…
The Coast Guard “drowned” the migrants in Farmakonisi
January 21, 2014
video with the survivors arriving to Piraeus
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QRnT0l2ZOrI#t=59
Eyewitnesses accuse the Greek Coast Guard of drowning migrants off the coast of the island of Farmakonisi.
As UNHCR reports: “According to survivors’ testimonies, the Coast Guard boat towing their vessel was heading, at high speed, towards the Turkish coast, when the tragic incident happened amid rough seas. The same witnesses said people were screaming for help, since there was a large number of children on the boat”.
International organisations have condemned, several times, the refoulement policy against migrants entering Greece without papers.
UNHCR has requested explanations in the past from the Greek authorities about the mysterious “disappearance” of dozens of migrants by the Greek police, under circumstances that caused an international outcry against the Greek government.
In other cases, residents of peripheral islands have denounced that migrants surrendering to the port authorities, in order to be transferred to reception centres, never arrive there.
The full announcement of the UNHCR:
“UNHCR expresses its concern for the continued loss of human lives at sea, on the occasion of the incident in Farmakonisi.
A fishing boat with 28 people onboard (25 Afghans and 3 Syrians), including many women and children, was overturned and sank in the early hours of Monday, Jan. 21, 2014, in the sea area of Farmakonisi. 16 of those on board were collected by the Coast Guard. A woman and a 5 year old child were found dead near the Turkish coast, while 10 more people (2 women and 8 infants and young children) are missing.
A UNHCR team went on Tuesday, Jan. 22, to the island of Leros, where the survivors had been transferred by the Coast Guard, and talked with them as well as the Port Authority.
According to information from the Port Authority, the boat had been detected by the Coast Guard at midnight, Sunday, January 20, immobilised and without navigation lights and, taking into account the situation and the bad weather conditions, a salvage operation was launched to tow it towards Farmakonisi. During the operation, a large number of those on board were gathered on one side of the boat, which resulted in its overturn and sinking.
However, according to survivors’ testimonies, the Coast Guard boat towing their vessel was heading, at high speed, towards the Turkish coast, when the tragic incident happened amid rough seas. The same witnesses said people were screaming for help, since there was a large number of children on the boat.
“UNHCR urges the authorities to investigate the circumstances under which the incident occurred, and how lives were lost in a boat under towing”, Laurens Jolles, Regional Representative of the High Commissioner for Southern Europe, said.
The UN Organisation for Refugees has made an appeal to European and other countries’ governments to work together in order to reduce casualties, when dangerous passages in the Mediterranean and other key maritime borders are followed.
The Organisation notes the need for further strengthening of the rescue operations at sea, and the creation of channels for legal migration so that dangerous, irregular movements are avoided.
Source: Infowar Translator: Eleni Nicolaou

======================

 ”Ο λιμενικός τη κλωτσούσε, την πέταξε μέσα στη θάλασσα και πέταξε και το μωρό από την άλλη πλευρά της βάρκας”
Ο Νασίμ Λομανί , μέλος του Δικτύου Κοινωνικής Υποστήριξης Προσφύγων και Μεταναστών μεταφέρει σοκαριστικές καταγγελίες για το λιμενικό απο τις μαρτυρίες των διασωθέντων προσφύγων.
Τα γεγονότα:
Η βάρκα των προσφύγων είχε σχεδόν φτάσει στις ελληνικές ακτές όταν τους εντόπισε το ελληνικό λιμενικό.
Οι λιμενικοί έδεσαν τη βάρκα πάνω στο σκάφος προκειμένου να τους επαναπροωθήσουν παράνομα πίσω στη Τουρκία.
Όπως προκύπτει τα σκάφος έτρεχε με τόσο μεγάλη ταχύτητα που έσπασε το σκοινί που κρατούσε τη βάρκα.
“Ο κόσμος σχεδόν σκορπιζόταν στη θάλασσα. Στο πρώτο χτύπημα τρύπησε η βάρκα των προσφύγων και γέμισε νερό και τότε άρχισαν να πέφτουν τα παιδιά στη θάλασσα” λέει ο Νασίμ Λομανί επικαλούμενος τις μαρτυρίες των διασωθέντων που έφτασαν στο Πειραιά.
«Τους απωθούσαν και δεν τους άφηναν να μπουν μέσα στη βάρκα του λιμενικό.
Μια γυναίκα είπε πως ενώ κρατούσε το πόδι ενός λιμενικού για να μπει μέσα στη βάρκα, αυτός τη κλωτσούσε και την πέταξε μέσα στη θάλασσα και πέταξε και το μωρό από την άλλη πλευρά”.
Οι λιμενικοί “έσβησαν το προβολέα που είχαν αναμμένο εκείνη την ώρα για να μην φαίνεται από τις τουρκικές ακτές τι συνέβαινε μέσα στη θάλασσα”
λέει ο κ. Λομανί.

======================

Italian

Grecia – Naufragio Farmakonisi. La Guardia Costiera ha ucciso 12 migranti
Secondo l’Unhcr i testimoni accusano la Guardia Costiera greca di aver affogato alcuni migranti vicino l’isola di Famakonisi
Si ringrazia Atenecalling.org per la segnalazione e la traduzione da x-pressed
Secondo l’annuncio dell’UNHCR: “i testimoni sopravvissuti raccontano che la nave della Guardia Costiera stava trainando una barca piena di migranti a grande velocità verso le coste della Turchia, quando è accaduto il tragico incidente in mezzo al mare agitato. Gli stessi testimoni hanno detto che la gente gridava chiedendo aiuto, visto che nella barca c’erano molti bambini”.
Le organizzazioni internazionali hanno condannato diverse volte la pratica delle autorità greche per obbligare i migranti a tornare in Turchia.
L’UNHCR ha chiesto spiegazioni alle autorità greche sulla “sparizione” misteriosa di decine di migranti per colpa della polizia greca, su casi che hanno causato proteste internazionali contro il governo greco. In altri casi, i residenti delle isole periferiche hanno riferito che i migranti che dovevano essere trasferiti nei centri di accoglienza dei porti non sono mai arrivati.
http://www.meltingpot.org/Naufragio-Farmakonisi-la-Guardia-Costiera-ha-ucciso-12.html#.UuJaohBYmM8
Il comunicato dell’UNHCR
L’Alto Commissariato delle Nazioni Unite per i Rifugiati (UNHCR) è costernato per il naufragio di un’imbarcazione a largo delle coste greche nelle prime ore di ieri, che è costato la vita ad una donna e a un bambino. Sono ancora 10 le persone scomparse, tra loro bambini e ragazzi.
In base alle informazioni ricevute da alcuni dei 16 sopravvissuti e dalla Guardia Costiera Greca, l’imbarcazione aveva a bordo 26 afghani e 2 siriani ed è stata intercettata nel Mar Egeo del sud poco dopo mezzanotte a seguito di un guasto meccanico, apparentemente diretta dalla Turchia alla Grecia. La barca, con tutte le 28 persone ancora a bordo, si è capovolta mentre veniva scortata da un vessillo della Guardia Costiera. I sopravvissuti, che ora si trovano nell’isola di Leros, hanno riferito all’UNHCR che al momento del naufragio, l’imbarcazione era scortata verso la Turchia.
“L’UNHCR esorta le autorità a indagare su questo incidente e sul motivo per cui queste vite siano state perse su un’imbarcazione che già era a rimorchio”, ha dichiarato Laurens Jolles, Delegato UNHCR per il Sud Europa. “Inoltre i sopravvissuti devono essere rapidamente trasferiti in altre località, così da poter rispondere in maniera più adeguata alle loro necessità.”
Quello di martedì è il primo incidente di questo genere nel 2014, e l’ultimo di una lunga serie di tragedie nel Mediterraneo, che coinvolgono persone in fuga via mare verso l’Europa. Il 3 ottobre 2013, in Italia, più di 360 persone sono morte in un naufragio a largo dell’isola di Lampedusa. A questo sono seguiti diversi altri incidenti mortali nelle settimane successive.
Le traversate irregolari del mar Mediterraneo generalmente coinvolgono flussi migratori misti di migranti e richiedenti asilo, tuttavia, a causa dei conflitti in Siria e nel Corno d’Africa è stato registrato un aumento delle morti di persone in fuga da guerre e dalle persecuzioni.
Nel 2013, circa 40.000 persone sono arrivate irregolarmente in Italia, Malta e Grecia via mare. Nel 2011, durante la crisi in Libia, gli arrivi erano stati più di 60.000. Le traversate irregolari del Mediterraneo si verificano in genere tra marzo e ottobre, nei mesi primaverili ed estivi, ma quest’anno stanno proseguendo anche durante l’inverno, nonostante condizioni meteorologiche estreme. Finora, solo in Italia, sono arrivate via mare oltre 1.700 persone.

SOURCE: http://risinggalaxy.wordpress.com/2014/01/25/farmakonisi-crime-against-humanity-englishspanishgreekitalian/

The post Farmakonisi: Crime against humanity by the Greek State [english,spanish,greek,italian] appeared first on Void Network.

When US Senator John McCain dined with Ukraine’s 
opposition leaders in December, he shared 
a table and later a stage with the leader 
of the extreme far-right Svoboda party 
Oleh Tyahnybok.

This is Oleh Tyahnybok, he has claimed 
a “Moscow-Jewish mafia” rule Ukraine 
and that “Germans, Kikes and other scum” 
want to “take away our Ukrainian state.”

This is the party’s logo, it can be seen on 
flag throughout the crowds in Kiev every day. 
Svoboda is Ukraine’s fourth biggest 
party holding 36 seats out of 450 in parliament.
 They’re also part of the 
Alliance of European National Movements along 
with the BNP and Jobbik. 

This is their old logo, a Wolfsangel rune, 
a common symbol for European neo-Nazi 
organizations. It was also the symbol 
of the Patriots of Ukraine,
a paramilitary organisation that Svoboda 
went hand in hand with until 2004. 

A typical crowd shot of Kiev’s protests, 
Svoboda and their fellow travellers have been 
present throughout the protests.

Here we see a battalion of Patriots of Ukraine 
paramilitaries tooled up in the midst 
of the protests.

Pro-EU protesters took over the town hall, 
we learned from  international news reports 
in December, demanding the government resign. 
While it is a broad movement, 
mainly of the right, it’s hard to see 
a BNP or Golden Dawn led takeover 
of a town hall getting quite the same publicity. 

Here a white power flag takes pride of place 
centre stage, black  circle with a plus sign 
through it. You can always check the top 
of stormfront.org if you don’t buy it.

Here protesters clash with riot police, one 
carries a homemade  shield painted with 
a white power symbol and the numbers 
14 and 88. These numbers are common 
neo-Nazi slogans;
with 14 standing for David Lane’s slogan 
(We must secure the existence of our people 
and a future for White Children) and 88 
as code for HH, or Heil Hitler.

Patriots burn flags, while white power flags 
are flown throughout the crowd. 
In almost every action shot from these protests 
far-right symbols are clearly visible. 
National socialist group Wotan Jugend 
has described the experience they are gaining 
from the protests; “Leaderless resistance. 
What is happening now in Kiev – is a lesson, 
a lesson to all those who so eagerly watching 
national revolution taking place in Ukraine, 
blowing drool with envy at the keyboard.” 

Originally posted on imgur.com

The post Neo-Nazis and far-right protesters in Ukraine appeared first on Void Network.

This article was written shortly after the occurrences in Hamburg. We cannot bring in all of the impressions this day has left us with and maybe others will draw different analytical consequences, which we look forward to reading and discussing. Our main aim is to try to explain the events from our antinational, anticapitalist perspective here in Germany, especially for our international comrades, who asked about information and who cannot follow everything due to language barriers.

A report from the working group “International Affairs” from Antifa AK Cologne
Greek version (ελληνική μετάφραση)

On Saturday, the police attacked and stopped a big autonomous demonstration called in defence of the social centre ”Rote Flora”  in Hamburg. The heaviest riots we have seen in years lasted the whole day and night, hundreds were injured or taken into custody. The organisers speak of a “political scandal”; the media discuss violence, the meaning of the constitutional right to assemble and violations against it by the police; for the radical movement, this further criminalisation of vital social struggles (coming after Blockupy 2012 for example) show that the front lines against state and capital might be hardening.

Who was calling for what?

Several organizations and initiatives called for demonstrations on Saturday which were all politically connected. The initiative for the asylum right of refugees, the “Lampedusa-Group“, called – as they have done frequently in the last few weeks – for an antiracist demonstration. This initiative has to be seen in the context of the refugees struggle, which has been taking place in Germany for a few years now. In Hamburg, it has created a large and vibrant political dynamic and drawn the supportive attention of various section of society, from the autonomous milieu to students and liberals.
A “right to the city”-initiative also called to gather and to protest, in particular against the eviction of the so called “Esso-Houses“, an old housing complex in Hamburg-St.Pauli with a few over 100 housing units, stores, clubs etc. This housing unit was sold to investors in 2009 who directly said that they wanted to bulldoze these buildings and create new, more profitable estates. The houses were evicted only six days before the demonstration, last Sunday (15th December)! The slogan of the protests that day was “Right to city does not know any borders”, this made clear the link to the antiracist struggle.
The biggest demonstration was expected by the initiative for saving the Rote Flora, the legendary autonomous centre in the gentrified district “Schanzenviertel” in Hamburg. The Flora has been threatened by eviction for some years now. Occasionally the owner clarifies how hardline he is and that there is now a discussion about the need for eviction. The situation of the Flora – one of the autonomous centres which refused to negotiate with the city administration and chose a strategy of resistance – is one of the most important symbols of the “right to the city” initiative not only in Hamburg, but in Germany. Furthermore, refugees around the Lampedusa-Group are in intense exchange with the alternative-autonomous scene around the Flora. All the issues for the day can be seen as being crystallised in the Flora demonstration (racism, exclusion from city development). The other demonstrations and assemblies wanted to join the Flora-Demonstration, which was set for the Saturday afternoon. Important to mention is also a strong support from the mobilization by antifascist groups.

The days before

The mobilisation had massive effects. Not only because of the traditionally large representation of the autonomous movement in Germany that comes together at the Flora-demonstrations, but because of the links between the topics described above, which are at the moment most relevant to the radical left in Hamburg. But the mobilization did not stay German wide. Many people from Europe, mostly from the autonomous scene, travelled to Hamburg. An aggressive demonstration was expected.
Politicians, local press and the police built the ideological groundwork for its total-escalation strategy in the days before the demo by playing on people’s fears in the media; Hamburg should be “worried about the city, which is in danger of being burnt down completely“, local press said.. The large crowds of christmas shoppers had to be protected. The police expected 6000 demonstrators, amongst them 3000 “ready for violence”. The eviction of the Esso-Houses in the days before heightened the tension. The police mobilized aggressively, including bringing in specialist riot police units from all over Germany.
On Friday, the police declared the zone of the inner city (St Pauli is not strictly in the inner city, so it was not included directly) as a “danger zone”. You can understand it as a temporary “state of exception”: anybody can be stopped, controlled and taken into custody with little reason needed. This “danger-zone” method is unusual in Germany and its last large use was during the Blockupy-protests in 2012 in Frankfurt. Last time this provoked huge amounts of popular outrage. With tensions rising, the organizers of the antiracist demonstration feared violent dynamics, especially provocated by the cops and replaced their demonstration with a rally instead.
Also on Friday, after an FC St.Pauli football match, a group of about 300 persons organised a spontaneous demonstration to the Reeperbahn (in the “Red-Light-District” close to Flora) and smashed the police station there with stones and paint bombs. The building and several police cars were damaged

Saturday: Warzone Hamburg

This added even more wood to the fire. Hours before the Flora demonstration started, the police had a massive presence in the area. Helicopters, riot police everywhere, 12 water cannons and a lot of tanks against barricades. People were stopped and taken into custody even before they could demonstrate. In the public many have said that this was necessary, especially because of the attack on the police station the night before. Most of the local media did not see these arrests as being a problem.
At about 2:30 pm the first speeches began, but the demo did not move yet. The police say 6000, press about 8000 and the organizers 10000 came together in the end. The demonstration only walked some meters (most people did not even start moving) before the front rows were stopped by the police brutally and without any warning. First there was some skirmish, and then the police fired the water cannon directly into the front rows. After that, stones, bottles, and fireworks were thrown at the police. All in all, after 30 minutes the police said the demonstration was now over.
The “official reason” varies between two versions. The first being that the demonstration started violently and too early. This is as ridiculous as it sounds, so another version popped up: just at the beginning some people threw stones from a bridge at the police. This is more realistic. Or is it?

Take above video, which documents how the demonstration was stopped. First it shows that there was no attack from the demo till the cops stopped it. In this image from the bridge, where the stones were supposed to be thrown, it becomes clear, that the train traffic is still rolling and with the exception of some photographers and spectators no people (I.E. possible stonethrowers) are to be found on this bridge.
The official reason for stopping this demo is extremely poor and it hints to the fact, that this early stopping was pre-planned. As well as attacking the front of the demonstration another riot police unit stormed the back of the demo, where the creative Right to the City bloc was situated. The police co-ordinated attacks on both sides.
The demo was over even before it started properly. Heavy rioting began, barricades were built. The Police used batons, pepper spray and a lot of water from those cannons, which were said to have been filled with chemicals. Even if not, the cold water, combined with the freezing weather and the high pressure with which it is shot make them extremely uncomfortable and dangerous. The cops kettled some thousand people in a big area close to the Flora.)
Even people living in the houses nearby who were not part of the demonstration could not get in and out of their homes. After two hours the police opened the kettle and people were free to go. The big group dispersed, a lot of smaller groups were trying to reach the Esso-Houses, which were seen as one destination to go to. Spontaneous demonstrations of many groups and further fights occurred on many
spots. The inner city was not reachable, but many areas, including the large Reeperbahn avenue were completely blocked by the police.

During the day, about 500 demonstrators were injured, some badly. Probably 300 were taken into custody, 19 charged. The police reported 117 injuries to their officers. We know about how these numbers are produced and expanded but this image of an uncosciousness cop show about the high levels of violence from the day. Furthermore, the press report large levels of damage to property, including party bureaus of the governing Social-Democrats, banks and luxury hotels.
The big, legal and authorised demo never happened due to police escalation. They do not even put this into question, just claiming that it was unavoidable because of the violence. Local and regional
press have hardly criticised the strategy of the police, mostly they believe the fairytale about the attacks on the police before the demonstration from the bridge or the front rows and therefore the necessity to never let this rally happen.

Political consequences

What does this event mean politically? How should we understand it? One mainstream argument, mainly pushed by the (left-)liberal press about the meaning of constitutional rights is a popular argument; This is the third time (after Blockupy 2012 and 2013) that large, nationwide protests from the left and radical left have been declared illegal and dispersed. Despite the fact that about 90% of all Nazi-demos are made possible by brutality against antifascists because it is “the constitutional right of the Nazis” to demonstrate. It seems some have more of a constitutional right than others. Nonetheless, this debate is accompanied by discussion about violence at demonstrations, which in many cases prevents widespread solidarity from German civil society towards anticapitalists who are being successfully criminalised.
This liberal outrage about the right to assemble can be taken as a discursive push against authority. The radical movement, though, should not reduce its arguments to the constitutional level and the book of law. Bourgeoise democracy always has been compatible with massive repression and exceptional actions which are seen to be needed occasionally to guarantee it. In Europe, most recently Spain and Hungary, the rising tendency of exceptional actions (against abortion, migration etc.) are put into “democratically legitimate” forms by passing them as law.
Still, this day could harden the front lines. Every time the German police state shows itself, many already politicized people are confirmed in their (very justified, as the day shows) belief of the impossibility of making peace with the state and become more radicalized. The ideological, German interpretation of “democracy” became obvious that same evening: as the official 8pm-news celebrated the freedom of Russian opposition activists, who fit neatly into their understandings of “Freedom” (of market and surplus production) and “Wealth” (for those who can be used for state and capital and therefore “earn” it), the demonstration in Hamburg was attacked brutally and was not even reported about.

Not out of the blue

But it would be naïve to believe that this development is a total surprise. It is rather the result of the ongoing criminalization and political defamation process against social struggles in Germany. Two central topics of the (radical) Left at the moment – which also were central in Hamburg on that weekend – are refugee and antiracist struggles and those surrounding housing . On these issues, the Left – despite the mistakes one can assert – could receive relatively more acceptance from civil society than usual. The central slogans are “No Borders”, “the City belongs to everyone” and “International Solidarity”.
Take the interventions against racist crisis discourse. By the slogan “We are here because you destroy our countries” the refugee-activists make clear, that the crisis is not to be personalized and projected on them, but should be seen as a crisis of the international capitalist system, its world market and its accumulation dynamics. The same can be said about the housing struggles. For years now, especially in Berlin and Hamburg, but increasingly spreading, initiatives get active and build up a good public standing without necessarily hiding a radical (i.e. revolutionary, anticapitalist) critique. They make clear that current city planning is not for those people who live in that city and need a roof above their heads, but for capital interests and against any imagination of a reasonable society. Living space is not treated as a need for everyone, but as a commodity which is commercialized at every cost.
These struggles and their message question and negate the strong national hegemony of austerity as current crisis management. In a time where Europe is building its fortress even higher to prevent migration with dramatic results and in a place where people are kicked out of their apartments because they cannot afford it and face the risk of homelessness and death, these are topics, where the radical Left in Germany (and beyond) with its radical critique can reach more people than usual.

flashback to blockupy 2013

These two struggles show, that the crisis is also in Germany and was never out of it. No state is immune to the everyday crisis of capitalism. The message is clear: the whole country – as depicted in the ideological national narrative – is not the “winner of the crisis”, but only some classes and groups and only by exploiting more heavily the others – within or outside national borders. Activists from all over Germany and beyond came together to express this critique in Hamburg and they were harshly criminalized and attacked, maybe on a new level we have not seen before. There was even hardly the well-known distinction between “violent” and “non-violent” protestors in Hamburg. This police action was a decision by the local, social-democratic government in Hamburg. But this policing method is not unique to Germany and not to be distinguished by local governments – be it conservative (as in Frankfurt against Blockupy), green and/or social-democratic.

In Europe and beyond

Seen in a European context the ruthless attack on the demonstration is no singularity. Repression, criminalization and political defamation are problems that radicals all over Europe and beyond have to face. Counterinsurgency, not only as a practical method on the street but also as a political act, is not just a national affair; secret services and police forces across Europe are in intense exchange. The German police are well known for their tactics but we are also seeing more authoritarian police responses in the UK, Greece and beyond. So the tactics we faced in Hamburg do not only concern us, but are common problems for social movements in other countries as well.
Links and Media
Photos on flickr: pm_cheung, boeseraltemann, presseservice_rathenow

source: 
http://beyondeurope.net/144/heavy-clashes-in-hamburg/

The post “Merry crisis and happy new fear – Heavy clashes in Hamburg” by Antifa AK Cologne appeared first on Void Network.