CHAPTER EIGHT: DECEMBER AS AN EVENT IN GREEK RADICAL POLITICS
2 After the Athens Polytechnic uprising in November 1973 Greece has been the terrain for multiple incidents of social unrest. However, these incidents were only of interest to particular sections of society (for example, education workers in 1998, the student movement of 2006–07) that never found points to intersect with other agents in the social field. What is distinctive in the case of December is the diversity of subjects, agents and individuals that participated in the events. 3 Source: http://tvxs.gr/news. This is the description that the witness Lito Valliatza has testified on the court in the course of the ongoing trial. 4 Exarcheia has been the space of Greek radical politics for more than 25 years. At the beginning of the 1980s, the formulation of radical practices was still in an experimental stage and various political actions and protest techniques were being re-evaluated, readjusting to changes on both a political and social level. Exarcheia, being the most primordial space of these configurations, which ranged from the squatting of buildings to violent clashes with the police, was straightforwardly classified and distinguished as imperium in imperio. “The main square of Exarcheia is an Anarchist kernel.… They have occupied the district. As if the problems of the residents are not enough, they now have to deal with corruption, with the ‘anarchists,’ drug dealing, prostitution.…” (Rizospastis, 16 December 1980. A description of the district by the official journal of the Greek Communist Party). In another newspaper in 1984 we read “Exarcheia: After the drugs and the anarchists came the punks with shaved heads” (Ethnos, 14 September 1984). In this discursive formation of the imaginary of the district, the state had an active role, not only in trying to control the neighbourhood but also by introducing abstract narratives to the public. In 1986, the former General Drosogiannis, the new Minister of Public Order, stated in the media: “I will not tolerate a state of anarchists or any others in Exarcheia. The main square will become like any other and everybody will be able to walk freely” (To Vima, 18 May 1986). 5 Built in stages from 1862 to 1957, the National Technical University of Athens (Polytechnic), one of the most significant Modern Greek architectural constructions, bears the elusive signs of Modern Greek history, since it is connected with the uprising (14–17 November 1973) that stood up to the military Junta (1967–1974). Since then, the building has symbolically connoted more than a revolutionary past, since its space is still used as the primary place for major assemblies by different political groups. In addition, the building’s use during the latest uprising of December 2008 indicates the revolutionary imagery that is imposed on such spaces. 6 A video presentation of the December insurrection through the deeds and discourse of the participants. The video was made in Thessaloniki on January 2009 and was shown for the first time in an assembly at the occupied public library of Ano Poli. 7 Slogan on wall, December 2008, Athens. 8 Slogan that first appeared at ASOEE (Athens School of Economics and Business).
165