[spectre] Becoming cockroaches @Syntagma square

[hello | florian kuhlmann]

thank you.
good luck and hail to the cockroaches!

greetings from germany
fk

Am 30.06.2011 um 11:45 schrieb pavlos hatzopoulos:

> from  http://bit.ly/ldvIK6
> 
> Since yesterday, June 28, we live like cockroaches in Syntagma square.
> We are sprayed continuously with chemicals by the Greek police
> regardless of what we do or what we say, but we persist. We leave
> Syntagma square for a while to catch our breath and keep on coming
> back. We rest a bit and return to the square. Even before the
> chemicals began exploding yesterday morning, we were just sitting on
> the pavement and the riot police stormed and arrested a person seating
> nearby. When we protested against the arrest, the riot police
> responded by arresting another passerby who was just exiting a coffee
> shop with a coffee in his hand. To be just standing close to Syntagma
> square seems dangerous and certainly suspicious. The arrests are being
> enacted to disperse the crowds, but we keep on moving closer to the
> square instead of leaving.
> 
> As we are becoming cockroaches we begin, without really realizing it,
> to adopt tactics of stasis, of perseverance and of endurance, that
> were previously unknown to us. Chemicals keep on flying, sound bombs
> keep on exploding all around us making terrible noise and the crowds
> respond by not leaving, by remaining at Syntagma square. Becoming
> cockroaches and growing more and more resistant to the chemicals, our
> bodies begin to mutate. In gas masks, painting maalox on our faces,
> wearing sun glasses, we persist. The figures in gas masks recognize
> each other even when they meet further away from Syntagma square.
> 
> Even now that the austerity law was approved in the Greek parliament,
> the crowds are not leaving, they are reinforced. “Let’s have an
> assembly now,” said someone in the midst of a cloud of chemicals. Like
> we did when we “staged the music concert yesterday”, he explains.
> Yesterday, we were cleaning and washing the square with water for
> hours to disperse the smell of the chemicals and then from a defunct
> PA system the Tiger Lillies played live on Syntagma square. Chemicals
> and sound bombs started to explode again all around Syntagma, but
> everybody remained on the square and kept on dancing.
> 
> The classic urban tactics of confrontation -like throwing marbles,
> stones, and molotov cocktails against the police- seem and are
> secondary in face of our tactics. Cockroaches do not attack, they do
> not make much noise, nor do not destroy something. But, we cockroaches
> are far more persistent and productive than other animals that are
> slowly disappearing.
> 
> 
> -Police gas the infirmary @Syntagma metro station http://vimeo.com/25777463
> 
> 
> 
> -- 
> Mobile: 6937413112
> http://www.re-public.gr
> 
> ______________________________________________
> SPECTRE list for media culture in Deep Europe
> Info, archive and help:
> http://post.in-mind.de/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/spectre