Nikos Romanos
This text [1] does not contain complete placements around the matters it grapples. It publicly places thoughts, conclusions and findings. It aims at giving food for thought and desire for action. Until next time.
To new comrades
If something stresses us and troubles us, besides the deprivation of our freedom, it is our worry if the life we gave and give to the struggle, will touch some at the degree we desire.
Those who will decide that anarchy is not a frozen meaning, it is not an ideology, it is not attached with the bug of diplomacy. Our anarchy is expressions of an authentic and slave-less life. One can see it in the flaming bottles against the ritocops in the demos and the night-time attacks, one can see it in the smoke from the incendiary attacks, attacks on fascists and every enemy of freedom.
For those of you who see it therefore do not even bother to speak to it of ideologies, it will not answer to you and despises wooden speech.
The language it speaks, demands passion, rage, imagination and destructive intention. You will feel it flood you when you revolt violently. Fall in love with it and make it yours.
Melt the ice of incarceration and warm our hearts with fire…
…And now words will speak. Words which are not enough to describe our armed decisions and contradictions. But even so they promise, reminisce. Words which revenge the organized silences of the modern world when accompanied by the sounds of explosions of guerilla attacks, creating thus liberated time-spaces in the generalized captivity produced by the system. In these moments therefore neither bruises for the newsreports fit, neither scratches for hypocritical evasiveness. Either way the bodies of the rebels always bared, the beatings, swearing, incarceration and handcuffs. And if some times they stop for a bit, it is not from the slaps and kicks from the pigs, but the subservient looks which silently admit their complicity.
Pity has no place, it never did and never will. It likes to pose however in front of the lens causing unanswered questions in the armies of tv-idiots who never wondered what really goes on in the darkness of invisibility with unknown protagonists the disinherited of the social margin. As for the people of our cast, the bet of destroying the existence and the existential mutiny remains open, for whoever, for those whom the flame of resistance burns their bloodied heart.
“The choice of robbing a bank and its extensions”
Then come choices. They should be analysed, become clear and understood, take down bridges of communication through their dialectic approach and revolutionary critic. The target? To be adopted by more and more comrades who will judge them as fertile and effective practices of the anarchist struggle.
For me bank robberies are a timeless choice of revolutionaries which “unlocks” many possibilities. First of all it releases you from the tentacles of waged labour and the contracts attached to it. Thus time is liberated from your daily life, giving you the choice to devote yourself to your passions. Where the destruction of joy ends, begins the joy of destruction. Simultaneously bank robberies consist also a necessary mean to fund multiform structures of the anarchist struggle with money re-appropriated from the enemy. We are talking about the support of anarchist projects, hostage comrades, guerilla structures. At the same time it is a factual opposition to the social ethics of waged labour and its social roles which the capitalist world reproduces.
Of course no action on its own has revolutionary characteristics. The subject through speech, motives and its aims, gives meaning to the action and leads it to the targets it defines. In my case, the refusal of labour is a part of the specific choice, the other is the support of anarchist direct action and attacks against state and capitalism through anarchist urban guerilla.
“Concerning the anarchist urban guerilla”
The mean of urban guerilla is a useful tool in the “arsenal” of every anarchist. An armed confrontation against dominance which disputes in practice so much the state monopoly in violence, as much as the fictitious need of a mass revolt in order to act. Urban guerilla action shows that the system is challenged and its myth of omnipotence can collapse together with the façade of the invincible machine. It causes fatal wounds to the enemy and is a message of insurrection and an open invitation to take action against the oppression. At a personal level you do not let yourself succumb and bow the head before the strength of the system but you arm yourself and attack it. Risks, decisions and consequences are weighed with political and personal criteria and lead to the choice. Either you fight for the destruction of the system or you capitulate with its benefits. A choice which goes along with the qualitative evolution of the anarchist struggle. Something that means we must cast off the political populism which has blossomed in the anti-regime circles. Lets tell it how it is. We are at war with the system, we have casualties, hostages, hunted. None of that can or should be said pleasantly in order to caress the “oppressed” ears. It must be said as it is, a punch in our stomach which we ought to return it to their faces.
For all those who refuse our existence, avoid to connect micro-policies with the multiform anarchist struggle and dream of “self-organized” bloodless struggles and post-capitalist paradises. If we knew them, we have already forgotten them.
“A few words about the organized boredom of today”
We live in a time where social contracts are delivered to the flames of the onslaught of neo-liberalism. Consequently the welfare state and social benefits shrink before the onslaught of multinational conglomerates.
The spearhead of civilization, the techno industrial complex consolidates its sovereignty. The new order demands a god which will be announced as the saviour of humanity. Its name is science. An authority which cannot be disputed by common mortals while its social acceptance prepares bloodlessly for total control. The application of new technologies, the growing technostructure of the state which abandons the bureaucracy of the past, the desire for voluntary mass control from society, is a taste of a civilized totalitarianism. Through dominating propaganda, daily crimes of science are groomed. With the excuse of improving the living level and medical care. The protectors of life raise the value by wearing the uniforms of hypocrisy. When however they find it necessary they drop the masks in order to exterminate in the name of their god (money), declaring the crusades of today.
Deterministic theories collapse, since despite the economic bloodsucking of the population, people remain prisoners of their inhibitions, fears, vested (which are decreasing more and more). Prisoners of a system from which they depend materially, mentally, spiritually. Tolerance therefore increases and humiliation continues. In the queues at the unemployment offices, the churches soup-kitchens, the bosses offices, in the refined charity of the humanitarian campaigns of the media.
A humiliation which insults human dignity, while the managers if political scene brag about the accomplishments and humanity of democracy.
Modern human beings do not choose, they simply follow the choices of others. They do not worry, they leave others to do that for them. They do not have a voice and prefer to listen to the voices of others. They do not arm themselves, best case scenario they become indignant. They do not live but simply are convinced that the virtual world of screens and adverts are their lives.
Screens of modern civilization project models of people and ideal products, decreasing thus the distance between them. People, products and machines become one in the whirlpool of control spreading constantly. The uniqueness of the individual ceases to exist and identifies itself with the mediocrity which takes on the responsibility of silence. A silence which murders while smiling drowned in between products of consumerism heaven, police stations, prisons, concentration camps, psychiatric clinics and the “developed” countries of the capitalist periphery.
Public opinion, this will-less systemic creation, settles with vulgar habits and strolls around the beds of the bosses. Empty opinions therefore are not susceptible of ideological repairs. Besides, no matter how much ideology you sprinkle, shit remains shit.
For the people who against their time take the risk to fight and fall in love passionately, attack will never fit into an ideological mold in order to be liked and fair. Tracing past historical experiences of struggle, discovering our common points of connection with other fighters, we strengthen the barricades of today and construct the revolutionary prospect of tomorrow. Lets built militant communities of struggle which will conduct a front-line struggle against state and capitalism. Lets built anarchist relations inside us living and promoting the anarchy of wild freedom in the present tense.
Lets dare and continue to dare.
10, 100, 1000 revolutionary cells against dominance and mass subjugation.
EVERYTHING FOR FREEDOM!
LONG LIVE ANARCHY!
“The point where pain does not reach.
The point where storms connect with rough seas.
The point where hope greets the tears and a promise is enough.
The point where sweaty from the stress hands, touch those red-hot faces who eternally wait for that something
At that point we will meet again.
And if something is left to be said, lets be consistent”
My warmest comradely greetings to all anarchists who do not capitulate and maintain the bet of subversion open. To the comrades who choose to strike the state and capital anonymously, those who choose a name to baptise their mutiny, to the cells of the Informal Anarchist Federation – International Revolutionary Front (FAI-IRF), which continue the diffused attack.
To all hostage brothers and sisters at every corner of the world who at night look at the stars between bars and barbedwires.
P.S.1. Just before this text came out I was informed of the hunger strike of anarchist comrade Kostas Sakkas who demands his immediate release. In the near future I will publish a text in solidarity to the comrades struggle [2].
P.S.2. With my look on suburbs of Stockholm set alight and the flaming barricades inTurkey.
Avlona prisons
Nikos Romanos
June 2013
[1] The author is one of four anarchists (Dimitris Politis, Yannis Michailidis, Andreas-Dimitris Bourzoukos) arrested in Febbruary 2013, accused in the Velventos-Kozani (Greece) robbery case.
[2] Published at theanarchistlibrary.org as “Hunger Strike”.
Hunger Strike
Nikos Romanos
My [1] reference to the tough struggle of a hunger strike does not necessarily mean that I would choose to use this specific means, without stating whether I agree or disagree with the means, as there is no right or wrong in such situations and everything is disputed and re-examined again and again.
Hunger Strike – Contradiction in a fighting position.
A hunger strike is the ultimate means of struggle of a revolutionary individual. Historically it has been used by a wide political spectrum of fighters held hostage for their subversive action, mainly against democratic regimes.
From the dead hunger strikers of the r.o. Red Army Faction (RAF) and the deaths of the fighters of the IRA and ETA, up to the successful hunger strikes of anarchist comrades such as Christophoros Marinos and Kostas Kalaremas, the members of Revolutionary Struggle and the CCF. Points in common can be minimal to non-existent, but there is a decision which remains the same, “I am fighting to the end.”
This decision has been capable of creating specific blackmail against the State. Blackmail which, as paradoxical as it might sound, has gained important power of negotiation because of the dead hunger strikers.
Of course, as we speak of power of negotiation we recognize the existence of equilibriums within the revolutionary war which are formed by the social, political and economic conditions of each era and the polarization that exists between statesmen and revolutionaries. This does not mean we respect them, the aim we set ourselves is to foil them and throw them to the rocks. Neither, however, does it mean that we do not hound them out, locate them and use them to our benefit.
A hunger strike is exactly such a case, where the humanistic façade of democracy is used in order to achieve the demands of the fighter. A battle is taking place against the political representation of the system, democracy, an explosive device which the fighter chooses to place inside her/his body and go right to the foundations of democratic cohesion, notifying that in the case of their demand not being met the explosion that follows will have a chain reaction within democracy.
It’s this notification that must be expressed in multiform ways from the comrades outside the walls. With a militant strategy that will definitely adapt itself depending on the circumstances, simultaneously aiming at the creation of a powerful political cost for every day that the State does not give in to the demands of the fighter.
Of course all this demands the cancellation of any institutional mediation and our clear separation from leftist crowns and their bastards.
Going from theory to practise I am publicly deposit some thoughts around practices and strategies that can be carried out during this tough and limited – in time – struggle. Believing that communication between the hostages and the free comrades must go both ways and not be limited to theoretical quests but put matters in the only field in which their effectiveness is tested, in practice.
Act one: Continuous Counter-Information
The visual frame: It functions as a forerunner of war with clear and aggressive anarchist words, it preserves the struggle of the comrade within the timeliness and at the same time informs the interested and the indifferent that no comrade of ours is alone and that as long as the State does not back down the attack will continue.
The ways: banners, posters, flyers, stencils, fill every corner of the city, occupations of buildings and radio stations make sure that the comrade’s struggle is an open wound for the State, interventions and p.a. systems in central points transmit anarchist perceptions and the words of the comrade, painting slogans on buses, trams, train wagons, stations and platforms of the underground, transfer together with the apathy and stress of the passengers, a clear message, – not a step back, victory for the struggle of our comrade.
Act two: Guerilla Action
The guerilla actions carried out aim among other things at creating pressure and causing social tensions and intra-systemic conflicts, the short-circuiting of social cohesion and the construction of an increasing intensity which is heading to a very specific target thus leaving the choice of decompression open to the State, which is none other than the immediate satisfaction of the comrade’s demands.
The guerilla attacks must be substantial and strategically targeted, whether we are talking about attacks that will become known because of their dynamic, or the choice of targets such as politicians and journalists which will be projected because of the publicity of their institutional roles. The message remains the same, the comrade’s struggle.
In the case of diffuse attacks on power it is necessary that the perpetrators claim the reasons and motives of the action. Next to the burnt-out ATMs and the government buildings blackened from arson attacks, slogans of solidarity and flyers inform passers-by that as long as the State does not retreat the attacks will continue.
This way even those who are indifferent and drowned in moderation will function as a tool of political pressure, since they will resent a prospect of insurrection resulting from a state of the many arbitrary and illegal actions that come to public awareness.
Subversive practices that are interconnected under a common demand and a common struggle with a clear and not so abstract meaning, gain a greater dynamic and multiply the intensity of the attacks, creating an explosive climate. The best and most recent example of the above, are the guerilla attacks and the political and social dynamic they created after the State attack on occupations, self-organized spaces and structures of the movement.
Act Three: In case of defeat
Because every battle carries the possibility of defeat, in the worst case that the comrade is murdered by the intransigent attitude of the State mechanism it is necessary to immediately create a counter-balance which will make the next lot of politicians responsible for managing similar cases to think very well of the consequences of such a choice.
The historical examples of political executions in Western Europe
Targeting individuals who bear a large share of responsibility for the death of the hunger striker. The torturers-doctors who performed forced feeding on the hunger strikers (Spain-GRAPO), the reactionary judges who made a career on the backs of the fighters (Germany- Holger Meine’s death), the political supervisors, general secretaries, ministers and their pack of hounds were and are a target. All this experience is a part of the revolutionary history which should not repeated like a farce, but with even more passion for freedom and more hate against our enemies.
Concerning the case of anarchist Kostas Sakkas
Anarchist K.Sakkas [2] has begun a hunger strike as of 4/6 demanding his immediate release. The reason is the vengeful extension of his pre-trial detention to 36 months, that is three whole years in custody. The vengeful treatment and arbitrariness of the State does not surprise us, nor should we call for a return to their legality.
Let’s not forget that we live in a world where the military operations, bombings and ethnic cleansing of invasive wars by the empires are taking place in the name of peace, along with the exterminating condemnation of people to the slow death of prison, in the name of a bloodthirsty and petty justice and an even more petty society.
By using their own contradictions and exploiting their weaknesses a chance is given to fight a decisive battle for the liberation of an anarchist comrade. At this point it is important to mention that the guerilla of the CCF Gerasimos Tsakalos is under the same regime of special captivity.
The conclusion we draw therefore from this oppressive choice of the State is that decisive individuals can cause important wounds to the State mechanism. To such a degree that the latter prefer to take on the political cost of illegal detainment, a State choice that creates cracks the façade of “humanism” and justice that they claim.
It is a fact that the State will push the situation to the extreme, aiming at the physical burnout of the fighter in order to shake his resolve.
We shall rise up against the extermination of our comrade. With every means and all standing next to the comrade.
CONSTANT ATTACK FOR THE RELEASE OF ANARCHIST KOSTAS SAKKAS
EVERYTHING FOR FREEDOM
LONG LIVE ANARCHY
P.S. In order to avoid any misunderstanding, the reason I am not abstaining from prison food is because I do not eat the prison food and take care of my food (cooking etc.) myself. To claim therefore that I am abstaining from prison food would be hypocritical and a conscious deceit of the comrades who would read such a thing and have a false impression. For the comrades who eat the prison food it can be a deprivation but in any other case it is abstract and without substance.
Avlona Prisons
June 2013
Nikos Romanos
[1] The author is one of four anarchists (Dimitris Politis, Yannis Michailidis, Andreas-Dimitris Bourzoukos) arrested in Febbruary 2013, accused in the Velventos-Kozani (Greece) robbery case.
[2] Kostas is an anarchist prisoner that currently stands two trials underway against the R.O. CCF, although he has denied his participation in the same anarchist urban guerrilla group from the moment of his arrest (December 2010.). The comrade has been kept in pretrial incarceration 30 months already. Recently, the State prolonged his pretrial incarceration for another 6 months (and applied the same measure against anarchist Gerasimos Tsakalos, admitted member of the R.O. CCF). Anarchist Kostas Sakkas is on hunger strike from the 4th of June 2013 protesting the extension of his pre-trial detention, and demanding his immediate release from prison.