Greece and the growing re-appropriation attacks against Super Markets

Attacks in Cap­i­tal cir­cu­la­tion and rev­enue
Greece and the grow­ing re-appro­pri­a­tion attacks against Super Mar­kets

Τhe sat­ur­day of May 31st 2008 was a beau­ti­ful day for the greek move­ment of insur­rec­tion. One action organ­ised by a small group of com­rades caused a frac­ture in the greek social process. On the last days a big debate was goin’ on in the streets, in the work­ing places, cafes, hous­es and ‑in appear­ance only- on the tv screen. Basic prod­ucts (milk,rice etc.) were becom­ing more and more expen­sive, a process which start­ed since the intro­duc­tion of the Euro cur­ren­cy, Jan­u­ary 2002 and by the last months prices kept rais­ing steeply. Peo­ples’ resent­ment con­ce­trat­ed dur­ing all these years of price stag­na­tion, was so big that although gross­ly medi­at­ed by the TV news, forced final­ly the gov­ern­ment to intro­duce mea­sures that were , sup­posed , to con­trol the ris­ing of the prices, but whose actu­al tar­get was to calm peo­ples anger down. (It is inter­est­ing to add that infla­tion rate was steady and did not rise, prob­a­bly because of “cre­ative” tricks due to Eu rules that oblige mem­ber-states to keep a low infla­tion rate)

Super Mar­ket brand own­ers were prof­i­teer­ing in a real­ly high grade in expense of the peo­ples pock­ets and the actu­al resis­tance and pres­sure was rather low. Con­sumer unions, some news­pa­per arti­cles, calls for low­er­ing the prices, one day boy­cotts. But what to do?People are depen­dent from big Super Mar­kets that con­trol most of the food mar­ket and wages in Greece are rather low for eu stan­dards (Pen­sions are worse) and prices were among the high­er in EU. Old peo­ple, low income and the unem­ployed were affect­ed most but we can say that almost all work­ing class peo­ple and even low­er mid­dle class (petit bour­geois) were hav­ing a hard time to get around . So the gov­ern­ment announces on the 28 of May “41 mea­sures against price stag­na­tion”.

True is the politi­cians did not real­ly cared. “So what are they going to do,anyway?”. Oppo­si­tion par­ties do noth­ing but talk, and peo­ple rely on the media “appar­ent” oppo­si­tion. But it is in these times were noth­ing seem to hap­pen, when the forces of insur­rec­tion that are exor­cised to stay away from the fight, make their sud­den and unex­pect­ed appear­ance in the scene. And noth­ing is the same as before..

On Sat­ur­day May 31st 2008 a group of com­rades, wear­ing their masks entered a big Super Mar­ket in the city cen­ter of Athens, re-appro­pri­at­ed prod­ucts, car­ried them to a street fruit-mar­ket near­by (most­ly old and low­er-income peo­ple go there) and dis­trib­uted the prod­ucts to them. Oil, cheese, milk, detergents,shampoos … The action met great cor­re­spon­dence from the peo­ple. Clap­ping applaus­es, excla­ma­tions, whis­tles. The prod­ucts dis­ap­peared with­in sec­onds. The man­i­festo of the action said : “The game is set. We don’t want to be a part of this fake game, with the gov­ern­ments’ com­mu­ni­ca­tion tricks, the oppo­si­tions’ abstract talk­ing about some “bad” peo­ple mak­ing prof­it and the shit of the media. We put into prac­tice our own mea­sures against price stag­na­tion. Re-appro­pri­a­tion now. Every­thing is stolen from us, Every­thing belongs to us… That was it…

The attacks start to spread wide­ly. In June three more actions against Super Mar­kets took place in Athens. One more in July. Then came the sum­mer (move­ments have hol­i­days?) and on Sep­tem­ber actions start­ed again. Two hap­pened in Thes­sa­loni­ki , the sec­ond biggest city in Greece. One attack was planned on the day when the Prime Min­is­ter tra­di­tion­al­ly address­es the nation , from the Inter­na­tion­al Expo of Thes­sa­loni­ki and speaks about the gov­ern­ment pol­i­cy of the year to come. Last week three such actions took place (15,16,18 Octo­ber). In most of the attacks prod­ucts are dis­trib­uted among peo­ple in street mar­kets, to peo­ple pass­ing-by and on one action the loot was left on a cen­tral Athens square where many immi­grants live and at the exits of the metro sta­tion there.
These actions are real­ly pop­u­lar among peo­ple. It would not be an exag­ger­a­tion to say that peo­ple wish every time they go to a street mar­ket for an action like that to take place. Media can’t hide the facts , but try to dis­tort them. They like to call us “Robin Hoods”. We are not at all “Robin Hoods”, it is not about char­i­ty. The issue at stake here is the dif­fu­sion of such “ille­gal” prac­tices among the soci­ety, so that oth­er social groups adopt such prac­tices to defend social auton­o­my and inter­ests. To debunk the nor­mal­i­ty that orders “Work-Buy-Pay-Sleep-Shut Up”. To make peo­ple col­lab­o­ra­tors in “ille­gal” attacks against cap­i­tal­ist order. To pro­mote Mutu­al Aid.

The Police is real­ly con­fused. Cashiers have a short work-break. Super Mar­ket own­ers feel anx­ious about the sit­u­a­tion. Peo­ple have fun.

So what about us Com­rades. In Balka­ns, East and West Europe, States, Latin Amer­i­ca, Ocea­nia, every­where? Can we plan some­thing? What are we wait­ing for? Cap­i­tal­ist cri­sis is already here and we are the ones to pay again for the fuck­ing banks and their tricks. The plan is sim­ple, believe us. Two douzins of com­rades, masks , sun­glass­es, an appoint­ment. You con­verge sud­den­ly and you attack. Some peo­ple watch­ing, some oth­ers fill­ing the trol­leys, every­body dis­trib­ut­ing them. It is sim­ple, it is direct, dan­ger­ous for the ene­my and real­ly amuz­ing. We wish you nice actions and lot of suc­cess.

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