Insanity.

 Image courtesy of AEON.

 

         Across the world places called countries are run as states, and sadly vast numbers of ordinary people accept this cruel psychopathic system of insanity. It is deemed normal by so many that it's frightening that humans can accept such drastic failure in running their lives. In the last couple of hundred years this system has produced two world wars and the killing of millions of innocent men women and children and a swath of regional wars killing millions more, plus the aftermath of war and destruction. It has resulted in millions living in poverty and destitution, while a small group live in unimaginable opulence. and today we are seeing an ever growing army of refugees, fleeing everything from persecution, death, war, deprivation and now being added to by those trying to escape the result of the system created climate emergency. All they seek is a decent life for them and their children and yet they are treated as criminals to be stigmatised and receive harsh, brutal and inhumane treatment from those states responsible for their plight. 

 Image courtesy of UNHCR.

 

          The latest report from UNHCR state that there are well over 84 million people displaced by conflict, persecution and climate change disasters. 84 million, that is more than the entire population of the following countries, UK, 67.22 million, Spain, 47.35 million, Italy, 59.55 million and France, 67.39 million. Can you imagine the entire population of the UK being displaced persons and still approximately 15 million more waiting in the queue? That is the size of the problem that this state system has spawned, in complete co-operation with corporate capitalist economics.
         There can be no more appealing to the system to please be fairer, no more marching with colourful banners asking for a better world for all, the system hasn't listened or changed in the last two hundred or more years and shows no sign of listening or changing at the present time. It is going to take our righteous anger organised in solidarity and openly displayed throughout every fibre of this rotten, corrupt, cruel inhumane system until we bring it crashing down and replace it with that better world for all, that we know we can create.

Visit ann arky's home at https://spiritofrevolt.info  

The Shackles Of State Laws.

        This short video highlights the true nature of the state. What individuals do in the spirit of humanity and co-operation, reaching out to those in dire need, offering and helping to create shelter and assistance, so the refugees can get on with their lives and become integrated in communities, is what the state is attacking in country after country. In Exarcheia, in Athens, the Greek state has launched a full scale and savage war against these very projects. Projects that would in actual fact save the state money, but dogma and ideology dictate that the state and/or its corporate bedfellows must control  all that happens within its proclaimed phony borders. No real rational approach, no humanity, just the rule of its shackling laws, created to ensure the continuation of its power and authority. Freedom and the state are incompatible.

Visit ann arky's home at https://radicalglasgow.me.uk

Today's Scapegoats, The Migrant.

           More on the state's brutal savagery in seeking total control, pick a country, and there will be state repression either on its own citizens or as is common place now, the modern scapegoat, migrants. This example is from Athens, but, today, it could be any city in Europe.

This from Act For Fredom Now:

   Freedom For All Migrants.

          Hicham, is a North African-born migrant, living in Athens for the past 10 months. He is a member of our squat community of Exarchia, and an active participant in the free public bath initiative. Hischam was arrested in June this year on Kallidromiou st. in a police control check.
He has been held in the dungeon cells of Kallidromiou police station ever since. Hicham, who is a Europe-wide organizer of unions and activists of unregistered refugees, was held completely incognito for the first ten days, and denied any contact with the outside world, including his Belgian wife and child. Like so many migrants he gets no regular access to visitors, no legal advice, no translation, no information about his case and future. Instead he gets constant humiliation, violence and psychological torture from the repressive, racist organs of the state. Conditions in these police cells are inhuman, more like lightless, airless underground pits, conditions that are designed to crush the prisoner, leading to severe depression and mental illness.
        Combined with denying them any information about the length of detention, this amounts to torture. Though Hicham has legal papers in Belgium, he is caught in the trap of the state judicial system. Indefinite detention means what it says – indefinite.
         The state’s fascist politics unfolds in its full magnitude in its treatment of migrants. They are the scapegoats, stripped of all dignity. The scope is international, the borders of Europe now an untold war. Daily killings, torture, mass imprisonment and abducted deportations have all become commonplace. New concentration camps are planned outside of Europe, without regard for the humanity of their inmates.
        Hicham’s case is only one example of thousands of migrants and refugees imprisoned in administrative detention around the country. The only reason, not having the right papers! This is the fascist nature of the system which categorizes and criminalizes people in order to exploit them. Only solidarity can make these people visible, and their cases known. This occurs in Exarchia at a time when the state is implementing a plan for total control and subjugation of this neighborhood, because it is a neighborhood of resistance!
         Renewed police sweep operations have become a weekly routine, and many refugees and members from our squat communities have been controlled, beaten and detained. Exarchia is and should remain a place of direct political action, of self organization of the oppressed, a site of diversity and freedom. Militants, migrants and prisoners alike, we can only defend our community through unified action against the state. Solidarity is our weapon, and our key.

And much nearer home, Glasgow.
        Sorry a bit late with this for the protest, but you can still take action and join one of the support groups, links below.

Protest - Stop The Mass Eviction of Refugees Tonight 6:00 Buchanan Street.

      PROTEST: Glasgow stands with 300 refugees facing mass eviction from
their homes over the next week.

        The mass eviction of 300 refugees is set to take place across Glasgow
city over the next week. Serco who are the private housing firm who deal with accommodation for refugees have deployed beyond disgusting tactics to displace people from their homes. Serco will issue "lock change" notices on Monday giving residents a week to get out with nowhere else to go.
       With the night shelter and housing schemes already massively stretched, hundreds of people in Glasgow will be facing street homelessness and will be extremely vulnerable.

        "This is, ultimately, a brutal consequence of Home Office using deliberate destitution and homelessness as a key immigration enforcement policy. Alongside the use of private asylum accommodation providers" - Stuart McDonald, MP for Cumbernauld, Kilsyth & Kirkintilloch East

This display of a brutality is not the values of the citizens of Glasgow and we are urging people to join our protest against this mass eviction. Speakers on the day to be announced. We also recommend writing to your elected representatives urging them to take action and sharing this with friends and family. If you want to learn more about organisations working on these issues or find out more about what it's like to go through the asylum process - here are some useful links:

Refugee Survival Trust - http://www.rst.org.uk/

Glasgow Night Shelter - https://glasgownightshelter.org/

Glasgow Asylum Destitute Action Network -

https://destitutionaction.wordpress.com/

Positive Action in Housing - http://www.paih.org/

Scottish Refugee Council - http://www.scottishrefugeecouncil.org.uk/

Govan Community Project - http://www.govancommunityproject.org.uk/

Unity Centre - https://unitycentreglasgow.org/

Ubuntu Women's Shelter - http://ubuntu-glasgow.org.uk/

Scottish Detainee Visitors - http://sdv.org.uk/

Maryhill Integration Network - http://www.maryhillintegration.org.uk/

Refuweegee - https://refuweegee.co.uk/

Maslow's Community Shop Govan -

https://www.facebook.com/maslowsgovan/?hc_location=ufi

Scottish Afghan Society - http://www.scottishafghansociety.org.uk/Home.aspx

Right To Remain Toolkit - https://righttoremain.org.uk/toolkit/

Report on Asylum Destitution in Scotland:

https://digitalpublications.parliament.scot/Committees/Report/EHRiC/2017/5/22/Hidden-Lives---New-Beginnings--Destitution--asylum-and-insecure-immigration-status-in-Scotland

Visit ann arky's home at radicalglasgow.me.uk

A Death Of An Ordinary Person Is Of No Consquence To The State.

       The state is an institution of control that lacks compassion and human empathy, it follows that those employed to guard its power and privileges are endowed with those same deficiencies. To expect the police to protect the public when their actual function is to protect the state, is naive in the extreme. The state, to safe guard its existence, grants itself the monopoly on power and violence, it can kill at will, and dress it up in their legal jargon, giving it their stamp of legitimacy. You kneel at the alter of state power or you are the enemy. There is a litany of evidence to this effect, all of it written in the blood of the ordinary people.

This from Enough is Enough:

        On March 15th, around 5 o’clock in the afternoon, our brother, friend, and colleague, Mame Mbaye Ndiaye, passed away. The incident took place on Calle Oso, Lavapiés, after a racist raid that was followed by a pursuit.

       Together with all the organizations that support us including the 12N Sin Racismo, SOS Racismo, The Association of Manteros and Lateros, and Kwanzaa, we will no longer continue to accept the daily persecution of black people, nor the constant assassination attempts made by the Spanish State.

       In accordance with our fellow colleagues who had also been the victims of the pursuit from Sol to Lavapiés, there were reports that the Police had been continually kicking them so that they would fall to be able to arrest them.

       Mame Mbaye and a colleague had managed to reach Lavapiés where he then collapsed. His colleague tried to help him when he fell, but the police impeded him from doing so, with the excuse that they should wait for paramedics. Aid was possible, but yet the forces of the State decided to wait, facilitating his death. This incident is clearly a crime supported by the Ley de Extranjería (Spanish Law of Immigration), a law that kills, tortures and humiliates us both on the street and in the CIEs (Detention Centre for Illegal Migrants). A law that excludes us from society in such a way that prevents us from being able to exercise basic rights such as the right to work, health care, and fair legal representation. We find ourselves before the crime of a system of borders — a crime of state-sanctioned violence.

         Moreover, we want to emphasize the fact that what happened to our brother Mame is not an isolated incident, but one that forms part of a bigger dynamic between the Spanish government that sustains itself through racism and the torture of black bodies and migrants.

The Collective of Manteros and Lateros is currently one of the social groups that suffers from the most police violence. Our colleagues are constantly attacked, discriminated against, and beaten for merely trying to survive. This is in addition to several thefts and arrests by state forces.

        We demand the immediate conviction of the assassin of our brother, Mame Mbaye Ndiaye. We want to also commemorate each person that has been assassinated by these very same racist laws and borders including Samba Martínez, Aramis Manuka, Idrissa Diallo, Mohamed Abagui, and all those who cross continents and all our mantero brothers that suffer as well as all our ancestors.

Visit ann arky's home at radicalglasgow.me.uk

The Invisible People.

       The "refugee crisis" in Europe, or should that be stated as the "fruits of Western foreign policy" has not evaporated, though by the silence of our babbling brook of bullshit, the mainstream media, on this matter, you might get the impression that somehow all those fleeing the West "building democracy" in the Middle East had all been suitable accommodated. 

      Of course the truth is a different story, countless thousands of innocent people are still fleeing, death and destruction, the mayhem and misery, of the West "building democracy" in the Middle East. From all across northern Africa, the Middle East and Afghanistan, a constant stream families and individuals struggle across borders, facing unimaginable horrors, in an attempt to live in peace, to seek somewhere to live a normal life. They are meet with resistance from states across Europe, who treat them like cattle, non-persons, a dangerous group that has to be controlled, but have no rights. Their plight is at the mercy of the vagaries of authoritarianism. However, they are still there, teachers, shopkeepers, plumbers, factory workers, children, elderly, infirm, all with one aim, to live with their family in safety and decency, something the West is not prepared to grant.

       It might seem obvious to most people, that building democracy with bombs doesn't work, but our lords and masters, still spin the lie, that is what they are about.   

This from Enough is Enough:  

         In Sarajevo, mostly locals are helping to all those who are arriving daily. Every kind of help is needed medical, food, clothes, shoes…Volunteers are needed too, including doctors or nurses. If you can come to Bosnia, please get in touch with Are You Syrious.

Originally published by Are You Syrious.
    Full update on situation in Sarajevo

       On Friday evening, over 40 people entered Bosnia from Serbia, mostly families with children. For now, all of them have been placed in a local hostel paid for by the local volunteers in Sarajevo, but soon they will be moved to Delijas, the only existing asylum center. They will be forced to stay at this center in the mountains, where they are not given adequate food or any kind of help, far from the city. It is a twelve-kilometer walk to the closest gas station where they have a phone and an internet signal. No volunteers are allowed into this center.
       Nevertheless, groups of local and international volunteers are trying to help all the people who are arriving daily in Sarajevo. Several hundreds are now on the streets since no shelter has been provided by the government, UNHCR or any organization that exists in the country. The only available help is coming from the small, local groups of international volunteers.

Two groups that are working in Sarajevo need your help.

       One is Pomozi.ba, a local charity that supports volunteers in the field. The volunteers are working to provide accommodation for all, giving priority to the mostly vulnerable people. So far they are taking care of about 300 people, but many are still on the streets.
      Locals are also providing food, medical help, clothing and everything else. But they desperately need help to continue working, while the number of people who are arriving is increasing every day.

You can help by donating to Pomozi.ba
Name of the bank: Intesa Sanpaolo Banka BiH
SWIFT CODE:UPBKBA22
IBAN: BA39 1541802008533048
Receiving: Udruženje “Pomozi.ba”, dr. Fetaha Bećirbegovića br. 8, 71000 Sarajevo
Purpose: help for refugees

If you want to send financial support from Austria:
ERSTE BANK
IBAN: AT64 2011182266475400
BIC: GIBAATWWXXX
Wien, Oestereich
Name: hilfhelfen-pomozi.ba

        If you want to volunteer in Bosnia, please get in touch through the AYS inbox on Facebook. Experienced volunteers only.
     The other group (Warning Facebook Link) are international volunteers who are working at a private property with a local family who has offered shelter for about 80 single men. But every day new people are arriving and they are struggling with financing food, blankets, and other essential items.

Visit ann arky's home at radicalglasgow.me.uk

A Red Sunset Of Blood.

 

        Today our senses are numbed by the suffering of the people of Syria, Libya, Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen, Palestine, the 6.5 million displaced persons, the sea of the fleeing who end under the banner of migrants/refugees/asylum seekers, and so it goes on, a litany of misery, death and destruction. Even in the midst of the rich developed countries, supposedly to be at peace, we find poverty, misery and deprivation. It seems there is no spring, no summer, no autumn, only cruel winter. How do you absorb such suffering how do you comprehend such a large section of humanity living on the edge of chaos, misery and death? All the actions that are responsible for this tsunami of unimaginable suffering, are no accident of nature, no inevitable sequence of events, but are the results of deliberate actions by people with power, they have names, they have faces, but they hide in the marble corridors of corrupt power. With no regard for humanity, but a constant eye on the balance sheet, they calculate the profit and loss, and see all this human suffering as acceptable collateral damage. That is the nature of the capitalist beast, power and wealth to be protected and increased at all costs. The beast will devour us all, unless we slay the beast before it is too late.

       It is difficult to love when you realise that the bright red sunset is the blood of the innocent.

Winter

Dark malefic clouds crowd the sky

winds carry the stench of carrion to every nostril,

the crazy ape has followed the faculty of hawks.

All around stand crows, magpies, jackdaws, vultures,

edacious eyes anticipating their putrid feast.

A weary Cassandra laments;

doves, hearts weeping for a better yesterday

forsake their olive branches.

 

 

Humans, Surplus To Requirements.

 

       The labels vary, refugees, asylum seekers, migrants, but these labels are usually badges of misery. People, human beings, uprooted forcibly, or fleeing hurriedly, in fear and desperation. According to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, in 2017, 65.6 million people were forcibly displaced worldwide because of persecution, conflict, violence, or human rights violations alone. Think of that figure, approximately the population of the UK hurriedly uprooted and moved on, usually in fear and desperation.

       A river of misery flows from Africa and washes over the graveyard that is the Mediterranean Sea, the inscription “We are not all there – The drowned are missing” is a bitter one. Those who survive that passage find themselves locked in groups at various borders, living in deprivation or in detention centres. Held at the vagaries of the autocratic states, who see them, not as suffering human beings, but as a problem of control. 

      The lot of the refugee, asylum seeker, migrant, is one of being stalked, and if found to be lacking the necessary piece of paper, locked up in some inhumane detention centre, with the constant threat of being thrown back into the hell that they tried to escape. A hell, in most cases, caused by the foreign policy of the host nations, who treat them like cattle. They will be stalked by uniformed gangs of thugs, paid members of the state's protection squad, whose duties are to protect the rich and powerful. These paid minions of the state with complete lack of morality will always obey orders, they are part and parcel of this corrupt and dying system.

       The so called "refugee/asylum seeker/migrant" crisis will only disappear when we end this system of capitalism, that sees humans as productive units or surplus to requirements. This system that spawns wars as a means of profit, that destroys vast swaths of the planet for control of resources, creating that 65.6 million "displaced persons". History tells us a bitter story written in letters of blood, of the dismal failure of this man made system. The future is yet unwritten, we can write that future, a future of humanity, mutual aid, co-operation and sustainability. A future where no one is a refugee, or an asylum seeker, where those power drawn lines known as borders, melt and fade into the dust of history. Only the ordinary people of this world can write that future, but only when they discard the man made cancer that is capitalism and abandon any belief in "leaders" and party "messiahs" who offer to guide them to that "pie-in the-sky" illusion of the promised land. 

Visit ann arky's home at radicalglasgow.me.uk

It's Very Simple, It's So Easy---.

 

      Following on from the last post on refugees, a beautiful moving poem, Thanks Loam.

The sea and the earth common pits,
the rain, acid, and the sun, thirsty;
the feet boots, the feet obstacles,
the shoulders load, the eyes tears:

invincible bodies passed out.

If your country did not have oil, coltan or any coveted wealth,
or if you were white or if you were rich,
if you were hetero or co-religionist,
if you wear a veil or if you do not wear it,

if you were what you are not and do not want and can not be,
if you were not you
you should not run away from your house and your landscape and from your air and your water.

Barbed doors and hosts
the soldiers, and, if there is no death, field
of extermination for men,
women, children and girls
refugees.

If we were human - I do not say yet in solidarity -
if we had a brain - I still do not say, thought-
if we were respectful - no, I do not say tolerant-
if we had heart, eyes and arms, and curiosity
- I have not said love, hug, look or desire to know-

if we were not what we are because we want
and because we can,
if we were not us
you should not run away from your house and your landscape and from your air and your water.

What is all this plot we have hatched
to create a problem that does not exist?
What is all this technical-economic gibberish
irrefutable?

Lie.
Nothing of that.
No, nothing.

It's very simple, it's
So easy
so much:

welcome
home, welcome,
let's share
bread and salt.

Isabel Rivas Etxaniz

The EU War Against Refugees.

        No doubt tonight, as the clock strikes midnight, there will be celebrations across the globe, parties, food and drink, much merry making and comradeship. However, not for everybody, poverty, deprivation, imprisonment and detention centres, don't evaporate, refugees don't suddenly find a home. The suffering continues, it's just that most of us shut it out for a spell, perhaps we need a break from the poison fruits of the capitalist system and from the various states' power-grid of phoney borders, but we should not forget, the EU war against refugees takes no holidays.

This from Enough is Enough:

The Militarisation of Lesvos:

             Sometimes you don’t know where to start. Maybe that  Twitter “temporarily” warns people for my personal Twitter account because of “suspicious activities” (Hey Twitter maybe I logged in with a Greek IP adress because I am in Greece right now..)???
        But to be honest that’s a typical first world problem in comparison to the war against refugees the EU member states are fighting here on Lesvos. If you walk along the harbor of Mytilini, the capital of Levos island, you still see them; the small picturesque fisher boats. But nowadays you have to focus on these beautiful small boats to see them. When you see the big canons of a British “Border Force” ship, you start to ask yourself are they going to shoot and sink the dinghy boats with refugees one day? The big navy and Frontext ships are dominating the little harbor of Mytilini.
           And yes these ships also rescued a lot of refugees, but the Greek coastguard ships were also involved in illegal pushbacks to Turkey. Something the Turkish coastguard ships were also involved in. Sometimes the Turkish and Greek coastguard ships also attack the people on the dinghy boats with sticks or even sunk them, as can be seen on footage in a documentary I made here in September
       In the harbor of Mytilini I saw navy and Frontex ships from Bulgaria, Great Brittain, Greece and Italy. They are patrolling the sea between Turkey and Lesvos island. But you also see a lot of military- and Frontext vehicles on Lesvos. They come from countries like the Netherlands, Italy and Greece (just to name a few). The whole island is full of cops and military. Refugees get randomly checked in the city center of Mytilini all the time. You can observe several of these racial profiling operations when you drink a coffee on Sappho square. Day by day.

       The mutual aid work that we are doing here is one part, but we also document the situation and try to support people who are in danger to get deported. This all takes place in a hostile and militarized environment. In September I was chased by cops while taking pictures of the Moria Camp and last week a cops also wanted to check me, but I was lucky both times and was fast enough. The long days of buying food, sanitary products and other things people need for their daily life, documenting the situation and the work on legal issues and political stuff take their toll. I planned to report every day, but often I am to tired to write anything after the long days of work on the island. 
      Today is the last day of 2017, many people will celebrate New Years Eve but I don’t feel like celebrating at all and I have to save energy for the coming weeks. As part of the Cars of Hope team I will celebrate a bit with some of the people who are stuck here on Lesvos. I have a lot of wishes for the coming year, but I am afraid the EU member states will intensify their war against refugees.

Read the full article and view more videos HERE:

To The System, Refugees Are Non-Productive Units.

       Although our babbling brook of bullshit, the mainstream media, like the European states, have long since abandoned the refugees that are scattered around the EU, the misery and deprivation is still there. No more so than on the Greek islands. Where they are held in camps and in some cases in prison. Herded like cattle in unhealthy and totally inadequate conditions for the winter weather, their plight is real, but hidden. In this capitalist system refugees in such numbers are surplus to requirements, so can be left to rot, only when the system sees a way to make a profit from them will they become of some interest to the pundits of our corporate financial Mafia. Humans are no more than productive units in this callous system of exploitation. Cease to be productive and you can rot in hell.

        This from Enough is Enough:

       The protests of refugees on Lesvos island continue. In the past days conditions at the Moria refugee camp even got worse because of heavy rainfall. According to a post by Arash Hampay on Facebook. Hesam (who is on hunger strike) was questioned about his refusal to eat. Hesam replied that, “Until you set me free I will stay on hunger strike, because I didn’t do any crime, and if you deport me I might die there,” to which the policeman replied, “Ok. So you will die.”

        The protests of refugees on Lesvos island continue. In the past days conditions at the Moria refugee camp even got worse because of heavy rainfall. According to a post by Arash Hampay on Facebook. Hesam (who is on hunger strike) was questioned about his refusal to eat. Hesam replied that, “Until you set me free I will stay on hunger strike, because I didn’t do any crime, and if you deport me I might die there,” to which the policeman replied, “Ok. So you will die.” 
Lesvos solidarity – Pikpa wrote on their Facebook page yesterday: “Protests and fire in Moria camp last night. Amidst rain and tear gas, several families were brought to the nearby community centre of Humans 4 Humanity. Together with many different groups, we all helped and came together to respond to the emergency: with tents for the families, food, water, medical assistance,…
Today the municipality organised a protest and called for a general strike, to demand the central government to decongest the islands. At the same time, refugees are protesting for their rights and to open the islands.
      How many more emergencies, protests, distressed families, cold and wet nights, speeches, marches? We need immediate action. #opentheislands“

      Arash Hampay wrote on his Facebook profile that yesterdays protests were confronted with counter protests but the refugees avoided any kind of confrontation with the “anti-refugee” protesters: “The anti-refugee protesters want to do their protest at the same place that we are, so we decided that when they start their protest, we will collect our stuff from there and let them do their protest, to show that we are respecting the people who are living there and who are born there. We also want to show that our protest is peaceful. Therefore, we will wait until the end of their protest before we begin ours.” The goal of yesterdays refugee demonstration was clear: “To be free from Moria Camp and Karatpe Camp and, of course, from Lesbos prison. They will use the following slogans: #Opentheborder #Opentheisland #Freetherefugees.”

Visit ann arky's home at www.radicalglasgow.me.uk

Today City Plaza Hotel Is One And a Half Years Old.

 

         Having spent a considerable time in Greece over the years, some of that time on some of the islands, but mainly in Athens, I have great admiration for the activists there. They seem to be able to mobilise in numbers, and to hold onto what they have won, of course it is the numbers and the solidarity they show to each other, that brings them victories.
        One such action which I consider a remarkable achievement is the City Plaza Hotel. Back in 2008, when the financial Mafia went with demand notices to the various states, insisting in getting back their gambling losses, the following "austerity" ideology decimated lots of countries, in Europe, Greece was the worst hit. unemployment rocketed, hotels, shops and workplaces closed their doors, evictions mushroomed, plus Greece was facing a vast influx of refugees. That's when the local activists stepped in, occupied a large empty hotel in the centre of Athens, and housed lots of refugees. That was in April 2016, they are still there today.
      The logistics to keep such an enterprise going over this period of time is a considerable achievement, but they have done it, and are still doing it. The City Plaza Hotel is home to hundreds of refugees, in the centre of Athens, thanks to the local activists, refugees and their supporters.

This from Squatnet:

        On April 22, 2016, 250 activists and refugees took over the hotel City Plaza in the center of Athens. A hotel which like many other businesses stood closed for 6 years after the economic collapse and the government’s policies of austerity. This abandoned hotel was transformed into a Refugee Accommodation and Solidarity Space. Since then the solidarity initiative has, for more than 500 days, provided free and decent housing to over 1700 people in the center of Athens, irrespective of their nationality and residence status. These people are housed in the hotel’s 120 rooms, 350-400 persons at a time, a third of whom are children.
       There are other ways you can measure what’s been happening here over the past 18 months; with the 385,000 warm meals served by the kitchen group or with the 35,000 working hours spent at security posts by the hotel’s entrance and on the balconies of the building. With the 13,560 hours of shifts at the reception desk or with the more than 32,700 rolls of toilet paper distributed by the warehouse team. It can also be counted in 156 full van-loads of fresh vegetables and meat; or in the countless hours spent cleaning the building, or in the medical center, in the hours spent teaching in the two classrooms, or in the women space and in the playground or with the 18 tons of heating oil used in the boilers and radiators.

Read the full story of this wonderful achievement:

Visit ann arky's home at www.radicalglasgow.me.uk
 

"Capitalism".

        “Capitalism”, a word that means many things to many people, but what is the actual manifestation of the word in our world? It means the expanding transnational corporations concentrating the largest slice of all the social wealth in fewer and fewer hands. This in turn, results in ever expanding impoverishment among the many. Its incessant drive for profit creates endemic job insecurity, and the persistent threat of unemployment, with the resultant deprivation. Another of its features is the inherent corruption that perpetuates the privileges of the ruling elite, wealth buys privileges. The bedrock of "Capitalism" is a banking system that accumulates vast mountains of capital that in turn, fosters the growth of financial predators slashing their way through societies, creating human misery in an endless endeavour to increase that mountain of capital. A banking system that has the power to create homelessness by means of evictions, and by its ruthlessness fosters misery and suicides. 

       “Capitalism” in its drive for perpetual growth creates a world of endless wars, wars for resources, wars for markets, resulting in destruction across vast swathes of our planet, bringing death, misery and deprivation to countless millions of innocent people. These wars give birth to racism, and the vile poison of xenophobia, and the persecuting of minorities of all shades. In “Capitalism”, money is the governing factor in the quality of your life, which opens the door to organised crime, this in turn allows the state, in the name of “law and order”, to move towards ever increasing authoritarianism, eventually criminalising political dissent. 

        Because “Capitalism” is a system based on cost and profit, we are witness to thousands of displaced individuals and families, fleeing death and deprivation, being abandon on the shores of Europe to survive or die in appalling conditions, the system can’t find a way of profiting from their presence, so there they will rot. The worst form of hedonistic individualism is fostered as success, inequality is accepted as inevitable. These are all manifestations of “Capitalism”, I’m sure you can come up with more of its inhumane and unjust qualities, but with a track record like that, why do we tolerate this man made economic system? It is after, just a product of man’s mind, not a system set in tablets of stone by some higher being. Do we lack the imagination to see a better fairer system. I’m sure all of us ordinary people can visualise a system of fairness and justice that would see to the needs of all our people. The resources are there, our ability is there, the vision is in our hearts, it is just the will to start to tear down this stinking edifice to greed that is lacking, and time is running out. 

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The Non-Story Of Desperate People.

          We all know the flights of fancy taken by our babbling brook of bullshit, the mainstream media. They flit from shock, horror, spectacular, amusing, to sex, fashion and celebrity parasites, with complete lack of empathy, and little thought for the whole story or the real truth.
       For a while they flooded our minds with images of drowning refugees fleeing death, deprivation and violence, of large trails of men women and children being herded like cattle, in appalling condition, a vision of a monumental humanitarian crisis. Now, to them that storey is boring, so no need to bother with that particular tragedy.
        However, has the flow of desperate people ceased, are thousand no longer risking death to cross the Mediterranean, are they no longer being herded like cattle in appalling conditions, has that particular humanitarian crisis been solved? Of course not, it is out of sight, out of mind, and left to fester, bring misery, deprivation and death to countless innocent people.
        Desperate people are are still, after a death risking journey, landing on Europe's shores, adding to the thousands already denied dignity, humanity and freedom.
        Since Europe's deal with Turkey, the flow of desperate people fleeing the results of the West's foreign policy in the Middle East and North Africa, get no further than Greece, so just keep piling up on the Greek islands. Picturesque Greek islands are now a dystopian world for thousands of unfortunate and desperate people, who according to their treatment by European governments, are "non-persons" on the shores of Europe.
        This report from Medium, helps to tell the true story of Europe's treatment of desperate refugees, the story that our babbling brook of bullshit, the mainstream media has deemed "not worth reporting", after all they have royal babies and celebrity sex scandals to cover.

         The Aegean islands are at breaking point. Spread across five islands — Lesvos, Samos, Chios, Kos and Leros — over 11,000 asylum-seekers wait to be transferred to mainland Greece. They wait in detention centres, ‘hotspots’ and make-shift camps, afforded only restricted access to transport, sanitation, food, medical support and their dignity.
         On returning to Chios after 3 months away, the changes are stark. My own return coincides with the final eviction of Souda Camp, a non-governmental camp situated in the centre of the port town of Chios. At times, over 1000 asylum-seekers lived beneath the shadow of the town’s castle walls. With the final eviction of its last 60 residents early in the morning of 21st October, this port town might now claim itself ‘free’ from the perceived nuisances of such embarrassingly close proximity to the continuing humanitarian crisis.
         But out of sight is not out of mind. These residents, along with the 435 refugees that have arrived in the last 72 hours now find themselves crammed into Vial Camp, the governmental, army-run facility 10 kilometres away. Hidden in the mountains, access is controlled and most NGOs are not permitted to enter. With an intended capacity of 1100, Vial Camp currently contains close to 2000 asylum-seekers. Recently, video footage shared by Chios Solidarity exposed the horrendous conditions of the camp. You can watch it here.
       Earlier this week, one young woman gave birth. With no ambulance available, she delivered her baby on the floor of her tent, without any medical aid or attention.
         But in Moria Camp, Lesvos, and in Vathy, Samos, the situations are even worse. On these islands, such were the abominable conditions that the Greek government this week announced plans to transport 2000 of the most vulnerable asylum-seekers on Lesvos and Samos to the mainland. This mass movement of people is a much-needed step in the right direction.
       Since the EU-Turkey deal of March 2016, the Aegean islands have been prisons for the thousands trying to reach Europe. These prisons witness suicides, riots, mental health crises and a fundamental retraction of basic human rights. Last winter, efforts to ‘winterise’ the camps failed systematically, with young and old dying from hypothermia in the camps. As winter approaches once again, last Sunday, the body of a 5-year-old girl was found in Moria Camp, Lesvos. She died from underlying medical conditions aggravated by the cold, the damp, and the denial of access to the medical attention that was the very reason her family came to Europe.
        As the weather turns, over 100 solidarity groups and NGOs on the Aegean islands have signed an open letter calling upon the Greek government of Alexis Tsipras to take steps, transparently and immediately, to avoid a repeat of last year’s horrific winter conditions. The campaign #opentheislands is signed by a powerful force of actors across Europe who have worked to fill the gaps left by governments and the EU.
       As I walk around the town of Chios, streets, sidewalks and cafes that have been the haunts of asylum-seekers for many months are rediscovered by Greek locals. Today, old men shuffled back into the plastic chairs outside the bus station on the port, opening backgammon boards hidden away whilst refugees spent the day in the cafe’s inexpensive shade.
       But the new lease of life this town might feel at having Souda Camp finally closed comes at a great cost to those suffering in the mountains a short drive away.
       Meanwhile, vast swathes of UNHCR canvas have appeared in Vial Camp as its newest residents fight for room. Around me, shocked volunteers cry, ‘How can this be happening in Europe?’ We have sold ourselves a lie. This is the reality. It is this frayed border of Europe that reveals the truth. #ThisIsEurope.

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The Answer Is In Our Hands.

 

       An odd place to go to find a somewhat favourable article on what some anarchists are up to in Greece, The New York Times!! Though some typical establishment phrases slip in, it in no way condemns the anarchists in the usual way that the babbling brook of bullshit, our mainstream media, do as a matter of form. A lot is going on in Greece and the anarchists involved are a varied and multifaceted array of people, their actions are diverse, but with the same aim, the destruction of the state and its bed partner capitalism, and the creation of a society that offers individual freedom with co-operation, free association, mutual aid, and which sees to the needs of all our people, in a sustainable environment. If that is the sort of society you want, why not join the anarchists in that struggle. 

From The New York Times:

ATHENS — It may seem paradoxical, but Greece’s anarchists are organizing like never before.

Seven years of austerity policies and a more recent refugee crisis have left the government with fewer and fewer resources, offering citizens less and less. Many have lost faith. Some who never had faith in the first place are taking matters into their own hands, to the chagrin of the authorities.

Tasos Sagris, a 45-year-old member of the Greek anarchist group Void Network and of the “self-organized” Embros theater group, has been at the forefront of a resurgence of social activism that is effectively filling a void in governance.

“People trust us because we don’t use the people as customers or voters,” Mr. Sagris said. “Every failure of the system proves the idea of the anarchists to be true.”

      These days that idea is not only about chaos and tearing down the institutions of the state and society — the country’s long, grinding economic crisis has taken care of much of that — but also about unfiltered self-help and citizen action.

      Yet the movement remains disparate, with some parts emphasizing the need for social activism and others prioritizing a struggle against authority with acts of vandalism and street battles with the police. Some are seeking to combine both.

      Whatever the means, since 2008 scores of “self-managing social centers” have mushroomed across Greece, financed by private donations and the proceeds from regularly scheduled concerts, exhibitions and on-site bars, most of which are open to the public. There are now around 250 nationwide.

Some activists have focused on food and medicine handouts as poverty has deepened and public services have collapsed.

      In recent months, anarchists and leftist groups have trained special energy on housing refugees who flooded into Greece in 2015 and who have been bottled up in the country since the European Union and Balkan nations tightened their borders. Some 3,000 of these refugees now live in 15 abandoned buildings that have been taken over by anarchists in the capital.

      The burst of citizen action is just the latest chapter in a long history for the anarchist movement in Greece.

       Anarchists played an active role in the student uprisings that helped bring down Greece’s dictatorship in the mid-1970s, including a rebellion at the Athens Polytechnic in November 1973, which authorities crushed with police officers and tanks, resulting in several deaths.

       Since the late 1970s and early 1980s, anarchists have joined leftist groups in occupying portions of Greek universities to promote their thinking and lifestyle; many of those occupied spaces exist today, and some are used as bases by anarchists to fashion the crude firebombs hurled at the police during street protests.

       Over the years, anarchists have also backed a spectrum of causes, such as opposing “neoliberal” education reform or campaigning against the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens.

Continue reading:

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Every Day You Die Many Times.

         So we think we have a lot on our mind, what with austerity, Brexit, and the Indy-ref 2. Well perhaps we should spare a thought for those hundreds of thousands of refugees herded like cattle in various points on the continent of Europe. In Greece, in particular, their conditions are deteriorating rapidly from appalling to utterly inhumane and unbearable. Having managed, through grit, courage and determination, to extract themselves from the bloody dystopia that is the imperialist slaughter house of the Middle East, they find themselves trapped in a living hell. Just the other day, "an asylum seeker was found hanged in an apparent suicide at Greece’s largest port, shortly after aid agencies warned of mounting desperation among refugees trapped in the country. The 25-year-old Syrian man was carrying refugee application papers when he was found dead near passenger ferry departure gates in Piraeus, outside Athens." More than 1,500 refugees are living around the Greek port of Piraeus, but there are over 62,000 refugees trapped in Greece in concentration camps and elsewhere by the idiotic impractical EU-Turkey deal and other border closures across Europe. Of course this is capitalism, so there will be those standing by to make a profit from exploiting this trapped and desperate group.

         Research by Save the Children found more than 5,000 minors are living in “appalling conditions”, driving a mounting mental health crisis. It found that children as young as nine were self-harming and 12-year-olds attempting suicide, sometimes filming themselves in the act. A spike in drug and alcohol abuse by teenagers was also recorded, as dealers exploit them in the camps.

       The root of this "refugee crisis" is  of course, the world imperialists' blood stained foreign policy, their brutal, savage drive for control of the oil rich territory. Those unfortunate individuals and families, caught up in this mayhem of death and destruction, who see their homes, villages, towns, and cities being obliterated, and their families and friends being killed, and decide to try to make it to a safer place, are further hindered by those imaginary lines dawn on the planet's surface, borders. This is where the minders of the various states, stop the hungry, the sick, the maimed and the desperate, then make the arbitrary decision, which to accept and which to reject. Decisions that can mean, in many cases, the difference between life and death.
       The plight of the hundreds of thousands of refugees fleeing the bloody fireball that is the Middle East, has somewhat, disappeared from our babbling brook of bullshit, the mainstream media, that does not mean that the problem has been solved, far from it, it just means that they have lost interest and have moved on to their usual bilge splurge of candy-floss and bubble gum, peppered with the odd cash and sex scandal.
       What is going on in the Middle East is still there, the misery is still being created, the death and destruction is still going on, and the hungry, the terrified, the desperate, are still trying to flee to a safer place, and the developed world, the cause of the problem, is still turning its back on them.

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