CHAPTER TWO: URBAN PLANNING AND REVOLT
mall would transmit the message of the revolt even to those pretending nothing was going on. At the same time, newspapers with smashed shop fronts on their covers hanging outside corner shops,20 the image of Alexis and of the torched Christmas tree would create the setting of a revolt even at the most “distant” point of the metropolis. EVERYDAY LIFE AND RARE ACTS—THE RANDOM EVENT IN STATISTICS
Important acts are not always captured by statistics.21 Indeed, during December possibilities opened up for everything to happen everywhere. The revolt was full of events against normality of which even the Situationists would be jealous. It was full of disruptions to the hourly schedule of the city, which no statistical analysis could predict. December sought (just like capitalism—and after all, December is part of it too) endless novelty, surprise. Space could not be policed by experts, whether these were on the side of the repression or the protesters. Everyone stood in a fluid space (Bauman 2007) and even experienced participants did not know what could happen. And this is where there are two sides to the coin. On one side, the side of authority, this was a “liquid fear” (Bauman 2006), a possible “lift” of the “security” condition. On the other side, however, possibilities opened up for each and everyone to turn desires into reality. At that point, exceptional things were born. The revolt was doubtlessly a rupture in the everyday, perhaps reaching its apogee at the moment when the everyday became revolt. This exact “reality” had so far been trapped within the island of Exarcheia but would now spread across the entire city—and so, a few days after 6 December, it seemed normal for someone to sit on a couch in the middle of a street while a bank was in flames nearby. Indeed, important acts such as those of December cannot be captured by statistics—we should never forget they are born from everyday life. THE REVOLTED
These people did not arrive here in an organised manner, that is, they did not come here with some social façade, bearing any social representation. They did not arrive and come in the building stating that they want to protest for anything at all.… [T]hese people then did not arrive in an organised manner at the ERT headquarters and I denounce them.… [A]t no point, to be precise, was there any occupation, no one occupied the broadcasting corporation. What happened was its storming by small unorganised groups which entered the TV studio by the use of force.… [T]hey also gave me a text with no signature, with no title, a non-paper with which they denounce the way in which various TV stations present the events… something which does not concern us at all.… [W]e cannot tolerate units and particular groups with no image, with
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