[spectre] An absolute refusal? Notes on the 12 February demonstration in Athens

[pavlos hatzopoulos]

published at http://bit.ly/yZ7DVf
<http://bit.ly/yZ7DVf>


1. The 12th February demonstration in Athens, consolidated, what is
becoming clearer in the past weeks: a growing majority of the Greek people
support the refusal of the memorandum no.2 no matter what. In spite of the
fear mongering spread by the pro-memorandum forces that a negative
parliamentary vote would entail an immediate euro exit and the ensuing
Africanisation of Greece, the popular support for the new EU-ECB-IMF loans
and the correlated austerity measures is waning significantly. The formal
political debate is increasingly based on a politics of fear: the
government's and mainstream media's principal argumentation is stripped, on
the one hand, to the bare threat of what a disorderly Greek bankruptcy
would entail -invoking often assumed similarities with Greece's plight
during the World War II occupation by German and Italian troops- with basic
food and medicine shortages and a lack of basic public amenities like gas,
heating, electricity; on the other hand even mainstream media cannot but be
critical vis-à-vis the most dismantling provisions of the memorandum no.2
for any sign of consensual legitimacy, such as the automatic decrease by
22% of minimum wages, the content and scope of collective bargaining and so
on, insisting however ‘in the final analysis’ that the dilemma posed leaves
only one choice.

In the current conditions, the growing impoverishment of the wider
population and the collapse of state welfare structures makes this line of
argumentation less and less effective. In the everyday lived experience of
the wider population the spectre of destitution and the destruction of
universal public services and amenities is embodied as a direct result of
the austerity policies. The massive refusal of the memorandum no.2 tends
thus to becoming absolute: it is consolidated beyond and besides any types
of rationalisations of existing or future formal policies and calls for new
beginnings that the government and financial interests can articulate. In
the coming critical period, the site of openness in the political sphere
relates to the struggles over what forms this absolute refusal might take
and what type of political actions can be constructed around it.

The social composition of the massive absolute refusal of the memorandum
no. 2 crosses existing societal divisions and categorisations and reflects
its informal and fluid character. The demonstrations in Greece include more
and more actors with different social backgrounds, different political
aspirations, and different desires for mostly non-representable futures.
Apart from the material outcomes that successive austerity plans produce,
mainly the violent downgrading of large parts of the late middle class, a
strife against injustice is drowning by numbers the whole society
regardless previous political affiliations. In addition, demonstrations in
Greece more and more seem to escalate, precisely when they are less
organised and when they are not called by formal political organisations.
Although, a 3 day call for action (February 10 to 12) was set against the
parliamentary vote of the memorandum no.2, during the first two days that
coincided with a 48 hour strike supported by all the trade unions, the
turnout was unexpectedly low, the protests pursued the usual tactic of
marching towards the parliament grouped largely in political blocs and
ended relatively quickly. On Sunday, February 12, when there was no strike,
no precise formal call for action and no foreseen march itinerary at all
the participation in the protest became unprecedented. Everyone just knew
that from afternoon onwards people should go to Syntagma square, outside
the Parliament. Most of the participants just walked from different parts
of the city joining the demonstrations in small groups of friends, at
random with people they met on their way to Syntagma, in neighbourhood
associations, in neighbourhood assemblies that have been formed the past 6
months throughout Greece. There was no starting point of the
‘demonstration’, but only destination. People were trying to reach Syntagma
many hours after the demonstration was supposed to have started, most were
intermittently leaving the tear-gased areas to catch their breath and
returning after a while. Even some political groups that managed to form a
few blocs of demonstrators near the parliament dissolved soon after the
first rounds of teargas were fired by the police as early as 5pm.

The only political group that retained its cohesive character and tactics
during the course of February 12 was the Greek Communist Party (KKE), whose
activists remained largely outside of the geographical scope of the
demonstration, on the outskirts of central Athens trying to avoid any
mingling with the rest.

3. The police tactics during the 12th February demonstration, were
primarily aiming to deface the mediamatic image of this consolidated mass
refusal of the memorandum no. 2 by evacuating the square ‘by any means
necessary’. It was as if the whole crackdown of the demonstration unfolded
around interrupting a panoramic visual representation of the mass of
demonstrators and of course avoid any unpredicted shortcomings that could
hinder the parliamentary procedure. Therefore, the principal concern of the
Greek police was to prevent the demonstrators from gathering in one unified
body of people tear-gassing massively all areas around Syntagma square,
even before the beginning of the protest. As a result of this tactic, a
large -quite possibly the largest- number of demonstrators never managed to
reach Syntagma square and wandered around side streets, engaging in street
battles against the police or trying to avoid them. This prevention of the
emergence of a centralised mediamatic image depicting the mass refusal of
the memorandum no.2 was quasi-celebrated by mainstream media and the
government precisely as it enabled them to avoid to visually represent,
address, or respond to the mass character of the demonstration. At the same
time, however, it expressed their apprehension: the realisation that their
usual formal reaction to these types of political conditions is becoming
null, that they can no longer appeal to a supposed silent majority
supporting them and so on.

The widespread rioting during the night of 12th February was also a result
of this police tactic. The difficulties faced by police forces in
dispersing the demonstrators as far away as possible from Syntagma square,
when their primary desire was to return there every time they were pushed
back. The dispersion of rioting in the wider city centre of Athens in the
12th of February is also related to the radicalisation of wider groups of
demonstrators and the unexpected participation of certain social groups
experienced in street battles against the police. In an unprecedented
action, for instance, the principal football fan clubs in Greece, along
with youngsters from other clubs, joined the 12th February demonstrations
in a united fashion, setting aside club differences.

4. Through the absolute refusal of the memorandum no.2, an impossible
situation is emerging for formal Greek parliamentary politics, particularly
for governmental politics. The formal political solution: parliamentary
elections cannot be easily pursued by the government coalition, even if the
conservative partner in the coalition (Nea Dimokratia) insists on asking
elections ‘just after the state of emergency’ is overcome. This because the
result of these elections will probably make it impossible to put in place
a pro-memorandum government, regardless of what type of electoral system
will be chosen. The movement of absolute refusal will tend, in this way, to
push Greek formal politics to or even beyond their limit.

This movement of absolute refusal is emerging out of the exceptional
material circumstances of crisis contagion and catastrophe. But the most
fearful for parliamentary politics development-factor that emerges as a
mute – therefore unpredictable – monster is that catastrophe can be
pursued, produced and imposed by a frenzy multitude that feels it has
nothing to lose apart from the joy of destruction. Although, similarities
and connections to the December 2008 revolt might seem evident, there is no
necessarily linear or evolutionary process that connects the two, apart
from the cumulative experience that has moved everyone a step towards
radicalisation in thought and in practice. It is true that this growing
radicalisation of more and more larger segments of Greek society hasn't
produced in these past 3 years any permanent democratic structures for
organising or for articulating political struggles. The critical political
question, however, might not necessarily be how to create these structures
in the Greek context, but how to immediately transpose them in their
fitting European setting, to think on how will this movement spread like
contagion from one country to the next, from one urban context to another.
In other words, how this absolute refusal will be internationalised in a
continent that already lives its future through the lenses of a fist of
experimental animals.
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