The artists and workers who have occupied on January 30th the National Opera House-Ethniki Lyriki Skini (ELS) and renamed it into Eksegermeni Laiki Skini (ELS)- Popular Opera in Rebellion decided to end the occupation last Saturday February 7th . But they left the area that they had liberated not defeated; by their own decision they will continue the struggle in other places the next period. They departed from the Opera with a triumphant march in the streets of Athens to celebrate their success to attract for a week thousands of people in a unique experience in recent Greek history of unification of art and revolution, despite the constant threats of the bosses and of the capitalist State, despite the conspiracy of silence of all the mass media.
More than 2000 people, mainly very young artists, participated in the march. The official Left, including the so-called “radical, extra-parliamentary left” was absolutely and shamefully absent. The demonstrators were non –organized revolutionary artists and workers, anarchists and the Trotskyists of EEK, with their leadership in front.
he three banners, which were for a week raised in the front of the Opera House, led the march: the main banner saying “Our theater is the streets, our art is the revolt!”, the banner calling for “Solidarity to Konstandina Kuneva”, the Bulgarian immigrant worker savagely attacked by vitriol, and a banner for “Freedom to the arrested of the December revolt”. During the 2-3 hours march, the symbol of the Popular Opera in Rebellion was reproduced on the walls of the buildings of the main streets: a ballerina on her pointes with a cocktail Molotov in her hand, an anti-tear gas mask protecting her face and the inscription over her head, in Spanish, Viva la Revolución!
Thousands of leaflets were distributed to the passengers of the buses and to those in the streets, explaining the content of the struggle and expressing also solidarity to the artists and workers of Teatro Colon in Buenos Aires who were fired, thanking the comrades of Lucharte in Argentina who introduced the issue of the occupied Opera in Athens to the workers of the Teatro Colon and organized solidarity from all over Latin America (Brazil, Venezuela, Ecuador). The leaflet of the artists in rebellion expressed also their full solidarity to the people of Palestine.
Behind the banners, many artists were dressed as for a show or as clowns. In front, marched a very beautiful, very young ballerina with two wings of an Archangel in her back, with the left fist raised while she was shouting revolutionary slogans- a really messianic figure! There was an orchestra playing music and supporting the songs of the marchers: a Cretan revolutionary song that we used to sing during the last military dictatorship of the colonels and in the 1973 Polytechnic uprising, “Bella Ciao”, ‘Commandante Che Guevara”, the International, but also the Toreador from the opera Carmen by Bizet, Ravel’s Bolero, as well as jazz (“When the Saints go marching in”), music from the popular theater of shadows Karaghioz, etc. There was also a caserolazo producing a fantastic noise.
The march has passed first from the place where the young Alexis Grigoropoulos has been assassinated by the police on December the 6th, a site which has been transformed into a popular shrine. At that point there was absolute silence, and, suddenly 2000 youth started to shout with what is called by the Bedouins in the Arab lands, “the Scream of the Desert”. It was like the simultaneous cry of 2000 wounded cubs. Nothing else. No slogans, no songs, just a scream for Alexis.
The march continued through the streets and the main square of Exarcheia, and then passed from the Polytechnic University. The marchers wrote a long inscription in its walls saying “Over the ruins of bourgeois civilization, we plant the forests of our dreams”.
The demonstration marched in the central avenue of Patission and it was directed to its final destination: a park which was destroyed by the right wing Mayor of Athens who cut all the trees of that popular place (the same Mayor had sent the riot police to guard the hideous Christmas Tree in Syntagma square during the December clashes) . The park was destroyed to make a parking for a big capitalist company. The people of that area (Kypseli) revolted last week, the mayor sent the riot police- and three kids were sent to the hospital (including one young comrade of ours who saw three fingers of his foot to be cut by the smoke grenade of the police).
When the march arrived to the destroyed park (where the people now try to plant new trees and they are camping there all night to prevent the building of the private parking) a popular fiesta started, full of joy, during all Saturday night, interrupting, of course, the traffic in own of the main avenues of the Greek capital!
La Luta continua!
February 8, 2009
___Savas Michael
Lisää aiheesta: An evening at the opera in rebellion
