The depth of the movement shaking two weeks now Greece, after the assassination of the young Alexis by the Police, is clearly shown also by the fact that artists and creators in the cultural field are actively involved in the revolt. Yesterday night the government wanted to inaugurate the renovated building of the National Theater in Athens and all the elite was invited, from the actual Minister of Culture Michalis Liapis, a man totally lacking any culture, to George Papandreou, leader of the official Opposition Party PASOK and chairman of the Socialist International, and to members of the big bourgeoisie, ship-owners, bankers etc. At the inauguration the premiere of a new play should be performed. But everything has collapsed as ore than a hundred of activists-actors intervened with banners and slogans calling for the release of all the arrested during the revolt (about 200) and against the government of the murderers. The whole event had to be cancelled and the elite run scared at their homes or villas in the suburbs.
This action was organized and realized by an Initiative of actors and students of actors’ schools. The same Initiative( where actors supporters of EEK participate too) performed today, December 20, another action in Syntagma Square in front of the Parliament where they stayed “frozen” as statues fro some time denouncing the killing of Alexis and expressing their horror. The riot police, of course, intervened with tear gazes but the actors remained frozen. They kept the same frozen attitude even when they were arrested and removed by the cops. Around the arrested other people continuously shouted “cops, pigs, murderers”.
The riot police had at the same time another headache; a new attack by activists against the famous Christmas tree in Syntagma Square installed by the right wing Mayor of Athens in replacement of the previous one burned in a previous demonstration. Many units of the riot police surrounded the Christmas tree which undoubtedly is the best guarded Christmas tree on the planet.
In Thessalonica, the youth occupied today Olympion, the center of the International Movie Festival of Thessalonica, interrupted the program, and as the right wing Mayor of Thessalonica was near by, he received on his head and on his costume a flood of Christmas cookies (the famous in Greece and in Turkey kourabiedes), and he had to run away to save himself (In Thessalonica, we throw cookies or eggs; in Baghdad, shoes!)
In Petralona, a working class area in Athens, the local Popular Assembly (it took that name after the 2001 Argentinazo and it is known for its struggle against the privatization of the Philopappou hill in front of Acropolis) occupied today the City’s Cultural Center “Melina Merkouri”.
Many marches took place in other cities and neighborhoods like Piraeus, in Chaidari (a working class area in Piraeus), in Nea Smyrni etc.
The Greek SWP, supported by other left organizations organized a rally in the center of Athens against the racist attacks on immigrant workers, a privileged target of police brutality.
The next important step will be a major demonstration of students, schoolchildren, teachers and workers on December 23. The next day another mass demonstration will celebrate and sing the Christmas Carols of the Revolt! Until then the fate of the Christmas tree of the mayor of Athens in Syntagma, perhaps, will be sealed.
Let me finish with a slogan shouted by EEK’s Organization of Revolutionary Youth-OEN, which says in English translation:
We have not said our last word, these days belong to Alexis!
DEN IPAME TIN TELEFTEA LEXI, AFTES I MERES INE TOY ALEXI!
Hasta la Victoria siempre!
Athens, December 20, 2008
__________Savas Michael
