Communique by Conspiracy of Cells of Fire – Urban Guerilla Cell (Greece)

images4

The plan.

To the anarchist “space”.

i. The call.

Every call for action, like “Black December“, is an attempt to coordinate our forces. It is an effort to interrupt the normal flow of reality. It is a plan to invade it with our own characteristics and subvert it. It is a poll of our desire for anarchy here and now, and of our ability to confront the forces of order. It is an occasion for people acquainted or not, to meet in the field of action and try to raid the palaces of the state, organized and abruptly. It is an international signal of complicity to all the comrades within and outside the walls that strengthens our solidarity. It is an anarchist agreement which confirms that there are people in all corners of the earth, that without speaking the same language, they coordinate the pulse of their hearts, align their gaze facing the enemy, clench their fists, wear a hood and attack against the social engine of authority, its structures and its relations.

The call of “Black December” had such moments …

And now what? Back to normality?

Each call for action may be just a snapshot of revolt repeating itself, waiting for the next anniversary, the next opportunity, the next “Call” or it might turn into an appointment with history…

To all those for whom anarchy means “I burn behind me the bridges of capitulation and of social peace”, the anarchist action has not any date of beginning or end…

Thus, the bet of “Black December” actually unlocks a larger bet. A bet for those whose calendar of attack is constantly stuck in today, here and now. The challenge of creating an autonomous anarchist pole for the organization of the anarchist urban guerrilla.

ii) Memory is not garbage.

“Black December” was an open call to everyone, but was mainly recorded as a point of reference for the insurrectionary, the anarchist-nihilists, the young comrades, the non-aligned, the “troublemakers” against the state (and partly against the inactivity of the official ‘anarchist space’,

against its pacifist transformation).

We are not going to refer that much to the call of “Black December”. Each call for action is an instance of a more comprehensive history that preceded it and perhaps the accelerator of a perspective that follows.

There would be no “Black December” if there was no November, October, September… there would be no anarchist urban guerrilla if there were no clashes in demos, barricades and molotov cocktails; there would have be no revolt in 2008 if there had been no arsonists and commando attacks in the three previous years; there will be no perspective if there is no memory.

Through time, anarchy gives -internally- birth to its anarchist overcoming. It gives birth to trends (anarchist individualism, anarchist nihilism, insurrectionary anarchy etc.) with the most sharpened corners, which choose to move at the edge of the movement, of the “space”, of revolution… Sometimes such trends act as a detonator for anarchy, raising the bar of the anarchist attack and sometimes cannibalizing each other full of conceit and arrogance…

In Greece the appearance of heretic trends within the “space” is as old as the “space” itself.. Trends that either declined and turned into circles of artistic intellectuals (eg. Situationists) or were assimilated and integrated into the official “space”… All of them though, have left their mark in a story that’s never ending.

In 2005, a circle of people opens in public, in a very visible way (with posters, magazines, participation in meetings) the challenge of upgrading the anarchist violence, with the slogan “think revolutionary – act offensively”. It appears, as now a more organized and constant public presence. An insurrectionary tendency that aims not only at the state and the authorities but also at the complicity of social apathy.Meanwhile, the issue of the refusal of work opens in public, with armed bank robberies as its cutting edge… In fact, the partial theme of refusal of work, twinkles the eye and is actually the prologue of discussions on the spreadingof the anarchist urban guerrilla. Out of this diffusible mobility (arsons, robberies, commando attacks, assemblies such as the Coordination of Action), that in January 2008 the Conspiracy of Cells of Fire was born.

The Conspiracy of Cells of Fire emerges as the organized expression of a heretic anarchist trend with a clear orientation towards the armed struggle and references to anarchist individualism, to nihilism, the revolution of everyday life and criticism to the state-society complex.

Therefore it was, of course, not this trend that gave birth to the insurrection of December 2008. A revolt cannot be copyrighted or owned.

But it was mainly this trend that had the reflexes to accelerate some of the most conflicting events which occurred in December 2008, since the small core structures were already operating with regular coordinated attacks.

iii) Catching up with today.

The first arrests for Conspiracy of Cells of Fire in September 2009 (Halandri case) created a storm of fear. The majority of the heretical trend (anarcho-nihilists, anarcho-individualists, anti-socials etc.) bowed at the panic of oppression, integrated into the security of the “official” anarchist movement, and their big words about “revolution or death” were left behind like a rotting carcass, looking like betrayal. Those who were realizable, were a few comrades who remained unshakeable and wanted to continue what has been started… But for all these things, many has been said and written… Today, a big part of the anarchist movement has been living with the imprint of defeat, the fear of oppression, with the lost opportunity of an uprising that never came to be in these times of economic crisis, of introversion, of informal hegemonies. However, the consignment that’s been left cannot be determined when will be of use and certainly nothing is lost forever. In the last two years, a new generation of our anarchist trend is making an appearance from the debris of the past, making their own course. A trend that has been created not so much because of the mutual political characteristics but because of the mutual desire for something different from what already exists in the anarchist movement in Greece. A trend that appears more homogenized than it really is due to those who criticize with depiction. In reality it’s a wave of people that includes from conscious comrades to persons that just hate police and want to make an outbreak..

iv) The clash of old and new.

Every birth is violent. Every new wave that is born is questioning and clashing against its womb, wanting to cut the umbilical cord. Intertemporarily, all heresies that are born inside the anarchist movement have targeted with their incandescent critique the old structures. Respectively, the senate of the anarchist movement, if they cannot take in the new by projecting the infallible of their inveteracy, then they will fight it with the senile fear of change. Especially today, it seems that the connection of communication between old and new has been lost permanently… The reasons are many, but history doesn’t wait for our introversion. What is urgent is a new idea, a plan for the continuation of the struggle. Every new anarchist wave is often discovering itself by stating what they hate in the “official” anarchist movement. The critique against the immobility of the movement many times supplants the critique against the tyranny of authority. We now think that the inner situation of the anarchist movement is polarized more than ever. That’s why it’s the time for the next step. The new anarchist trend can abolish the introversion, be self-determined and create its own autonomous political anarchist movement.

Remembrance is a basic component of this effort. We remember our past experiences, not to imitate them, but to exceed them. The fact that the new anarchist wave is suffering from lack of organization in procedures and assemblies, because they think that this is a characteristic of the bureaucracy of the official anarchist movement, it’s like they are bestowing this to them.

The organization, the assembly, the political procedures don’t have copyrights. They are a means of struggle that are determined through the political persons who are taking part in them… The aphorism and the supposedly unconventional attitude like “I don’t care about the procedures, I’ll do what I want…” is a perverse conservation and a fear against the punctuality and responsibility that an anarchist needs in order to partake in the urban guerrilla warfare. A tool doesn’t have a positive or negative hue, contrariwise, the way that tools are used has. A political assembly is bureaucratic when the people that are taking part are bureaucrats. Nevertheless, an assembly can be a living procedure of conformation, coordination and propulsive analysis, a means of personal and collective development. Let us now create our own political procedures, without bureaucracy, our own assemblies without jabberers, our own organizations without ranks… Let’s construct ourselves our own infrastructures for the armed blow against the empire of authority.

v) The 5 points – For an autonomous and offensive anarchist trend.

Anarcho-nihilism, anarcho-individualism and in general the more offensive anarchist heresies, are not “accidents” in the history of anarchy, but on the contrary, they are the most promoted parts of it.

These trends can now constitute an autonomous political movement.

A movement that doesn’t seek the absolute agreement in theoretical gospel truth and the statutes of ideological clarity. A movement that doesn’t blackmail for an aggregated identification of views, but one that recognizes the political kinship of the groups and individuals who take part and meet in 5 basic characteristics: First of all, we are anarchists regardless of our particular mentions (nihilists, insurgents, individualists etc). As anarchists we do not recognize not only the state and authority, but also not any central committee of “revolution”, no ideological expert, nor any hierarchical relationship in our interior. We organize based on aformalism and coordination of groups and individuals of political kinship. Secondly, the polemic against the state and authority doesn’t leave beyond approach the social connivance of silence, apathy and obsequiousness. We attack with actions against the state of officials and their structures, but at the same time, we want our words and deeds to blow up the social relationships that make acceptable and sometimes procreate the authorities in our everyday lives. Thirdly, we support the International of Anarchists Federation. We desire that our hostilities in the interior of the states we are living in to be connected as moments of an overall anarchist war internationally. We are exchanging ideas, we are sharing experiences, we are creating relationships of solidarity and we pursue the constitution of an international anarchist federation where the fragments of an explosion in Santiago, Chile, will reach to Athens and then multiply… Fourthly, we do not give up on our imprisoned comrades. Our offensive solidarity is the retaliation for their captivity. This doesn’t mean identification with their views. The prisoners are not sacred idols, nor symbols of struggle, BUT they are those who are missing from our sides… The consequence of all these imprisoned comrades who remain unrepentant in the prisons and don’t grow thin, is a proof that the struggle is worth it… Finally, we promote the diversity in anarchist actions. We are able to create our own squats, our own political procedures, assemblies, groups, our publishing ventures, our means of information media. However, because often the invocation of diversity becomes the alibi for marginalization of armed anarchist practice, we need to make clear that diversity doesn’t reproduce itself. The squats, the posters, the events, the printings, the media of information that are retrenching in the borders of perseverance of their ventures, are turning to islands of supposed-freedom without threatening authority. The authentic diversity of the struggle essentially has to support and promote the armed clash with the system. It is the encounter of the movement with the insurgent realm. It is the rite of passage from theory to action, from the serendipitous to the organized, from the fortuitous to the planned.

It is propaganda through action.

These five key points (some have been reported previously in texts of the Conspiracy of Cells of Fire and the FAI – see “Fire and Gunpowder“) are the elements of a proposal that is open to all those interested in participating, in enriching, in criticizing, in working it out.

In no case does it constitute an ideological fence, but instead an occasion for practical discussion. At the core of the proposal for the establishment of an autonomous space of heretic anarchist trends, is consciousness.

The first collective project where consciousness is actually tested, is in an anarchist group. In the context of this discussion’s propulsion, we will cite in public in the coming months a number of personal texts of some imprisoned comrades of the Conspiracy of Cells of Fire (Olga Economidou, George Polydoros, Christos and Gerasimos Tsakalos).

The experiences, concerns and the prospect of the project of an anarchist group through personal narratives are not instructions for the armed practice, but certainly contribute to the debate on the urban guerrilla and its propulsion. Besides, the experience cannot be transferred. That ‘s why the best bet is to move from theory to action.

As an initiation of this discussion we’ll publicize in a few days the pamphlet of a comrade in the Conspiracy of Cells of Fire, Gerasimos Tsakalos, “Individualities and Anarchist Groups”, which will soon be released in print… From reading… to complicity…

 

Conspiracy of Cells of Fire – Urban Guerilla Cell.

Informal Anarchist Federation – F.A.I.

Communique by Conspiracy of Cells of Fire – Urban Guerilla Cell (Greece)