Never again slaves, never again with downcast eyes, never again alone; forever on the opposite riverbank, forever insurrectionalists and profane, forever on the path of free humans; forever, do you hear me?
These are the words of Anarchist Nikos Romanos, imprisoned in Athens, Greece for rebelling against the same system that suffocates and humiliates us all in this open prison called democracy. We could have begun this leaflet instead by saying that as we write Nikos is in hospital slipping into a coma, on hunger strike since November 10. That the prison authorities decided to completely ignore his ‘eligibility by law’ for educational day release in order to attend classes at an Athens university. That he is a conscious rebel, an anarchist, who learned the true meaning of power in 2008 at the age of fifteen when his friend Alexis Grigoropoulos died in his arms, shot in the heart by marauding police in a small street of Athens, leading to a month of mass insurrections all over Greece. That one of his comrades, Yannis Michailidis, has now joined him in hunger strike in solidarity and is also reaching a serious condition.
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In the words of Nikos: As expected, my request (for day release) have ended up in the unwanted pile, a fact that leads me to claim these prison furloughs using my body as a barricade. Laws, besides being tools of control and oppressions are simunltaneously a maintenance of equilibrium or what we summarily call social contracts, they reflect political and social associations and partially form certain positions for the conduct of social war. This is why I want the choice I am making to be as clear as possible: I am not defending their legitimacy, on the contrary I am addressing political blackmail in order to win some breaths of freedom from the crushing condition of incarceration.
Im times when the system wants us on our knees begging for crumbs, accepting or giving charity – partial restitution, always accompaineed by tyrannical moral judgement and control – we are unthankful, malcontended, undisciplined and rebellious. Anything less and we would be no more than mindless fools, pawns in the planetary battleground where the massacre of children, women and men and the rape of nature continue to feed the insatiable greed of the powerful thanks to the intervention of their eager servants with a arsenal that goes from ‘smart bombs’, to keys turning il locks, down to the ever faithful jackboot and truncheon (read taser).
But above all, thanks to the resignation of millions of people. In the absence of consensus, power would cease to exist.
[Prison is a crime that serves to protect the (plundered|) wealth of the rich (always fewer and richer) from the dispossessed (always more and poorer, excluded not only from material needs but being stripped also of their dignity, rapidly losing the language to articulate what they don’t have]
[That night we kept our eyes fixed on the horizon and saw many falling stars drawing their own chaotic paths. And we counted them over and over, we made wished, calculated the odds. We knew that our desire for a free life had to step over all that oppresses us, murders us, destroy us, so we dived into the void just like the shooting stars we were observing. Since then innumerable stars have fallen, perhaps it’s time for our star to fall, who knows? If we had the answer ready, we would’t have become what we are, but selfish bastards who would teach people how to become rodents that eat each other as they do today. At least we still remain implacable and stubborn the people of our kind. And those of us who closed their eyes to pain and travelled far continue to keep their eyes stuck on that night sky we also observed. And they watch us fall, beautiful and shining stars. Now it’s our turn. Now, without hesitation, we fall. As of Monday, November 10th, 2014 I begin a hunger strike without taking a step back, with anarchy forever in my heart. Nikos Romanos.
Responsible for each day of hunger strike, and whatever happens from this point forward, is the prison board, namely the prosecutor Nikolaos Pimenidis, the director Charalabia Koutsomichali as well as the social work assistant.
SOLIDARITY MEANS ATTACK]
[Today December 6, 2014, 6 years after the murder of Alexis Grigoropoulos the flames are spreading again, in Athens and elsewhere, for Nikos Romanos and his comrades on hunger strike in solidarity, he refuses to back down and is determined to continue his hunger strike to the end. Everybody to the streets! INSURRECTION NOW!
–NTUA squat statement of the occupation of the Athens Polytechnic School since 1/12.
NTUA squat statement (abbreviated) Nikos Romanos has been determined in his struggle for 25 days now and be will persist until the end despite the rejections of his latest demand for educational leave from prison. A dynamic solidarity movement has been developing around Nikos Romanos’ struggle throughout the country and abroad…This movement has taken on mass and broad dimensions inspiring a number of diverse social subjects who recognize in the struggle of Nikos pieces of their own struggle for life and dignity, Propaganda actions and attacks, mass mobilizations, widespread counter-information, occupations of public buildings and school and more.
The next few days (until the passing of the budget on Sunday 7/12) are critical as much for the struggle and life of Nikos Romanos as for the prospects of the social and class struggle.
EVERYONE TO THE STREETS OF REVOLT.]