Image courtesy of Oral History Columbia
Gentrification, redevelopment, re-imagining, all nice sounding words for turning public spaces into private spaces, for changing places that were free to use, to money making enterprises for some corporate bodies. Everything has to produce a profit. Free public spaces don't make money for the big boys, so have to go. This is something that most ordinary citizens are aware of, it is not a local feature, it is world wide across this capitalist world. Everything must be privately owned, so you pay the corporate beast for every amenity in your city, town or village.
Of course there is resistance to this plundering of public assets, but not enough. The perpetrators of this plundering exercise have wealth, the power of the state and the corporate world on their side, we have our solidarity. The stronger that solidarity against this plundering the more likely we are to win. There is no power on earth stronger than the combined will of the people, and that is what has to come together to defeat this ravaging of our public spaces for profit.
An extract from Act For Freedom Now:
Athens,Taking responsibility on 2/9/22
In recent years we have been experiencing a generalised attack on the neighbourhood of Exarcheia, with squat evictions, clearing operations and the attempt to impose a regime of police occupation on the neighbourhood.At the present time this attack is intensifying, with the assistance of Attiko Metro and the attempt to build a metro station in the square. The choice of the square for the construction of the station is a political and ideological choice of the municipal authority and the state, part of the broader strategy that has been expressed explicitly in recent years in the state’s counterattack against Exarcheia, a neighbourhood where resistance and struggle against exploitation and oppression has been territorialized both symbolically and practically.
The choice of the metro station in Exarcheia square is not based on the needs of the inhabitants for their movements – it could not be, as under the condition of class domination our movements are defined and organised in the metropolis by the state as the transport of the commodity work force. The choice of the station in the square is not based on the neighbourhood’s desires for the use of public/open space, but against them, seen as another opportunity to deploy hundreds of cops in the neighbourhood with the intention of destroying its only square, meeting place and political activity and handing it over to the interests of capital.
FREE MOVEMENT BASED ON OUR NEEDS AND NOT ON STATE/CAPITAL’S INTERESTS
THE SQUARE – THE STREET – THE POLYTECHNIC – EXARCHIA DOESN’T FREQUENT MUSEUMS
REGENERATION MEANS DISPLACED POOR PEOPLE
EXARCHIA WILL ALWAYS BE HERE – FIRE TO THE ATTIKO METRO CONSTRUCTION SITES
COPS – CONTRACTORS – CITY HALL – ALL BASTARDS WORKING TOGETHERhumble and rebellious
