March 2, 2010
It’s been slow around here lately, so we decided to translate the Spanish version (which was likely translated from the original Greek) of a new letter from Panagiotis Masouras, who is one of the people being detained preventively in the “Fire Cells Conspiracy” case in Greece.
Are you trembling my dear?
You would tremble even more,
If you knew where I was taking you
—Turenne
Captive behind the walls of a modern reformatory for democracy’s transgressors. The days, the months, the years will be gradually killed off with the discipline embodied by the proud stance of revolutionaries, the ones who are trying to achieve the impossible. Embraces will also die out in the echoing, funereal silence of submissive prisoners.
An unofficial war is being waged on all fronts. Behind it hide the interests and positional jockeying of political parties. The frenzy of disinformation and cruel brainwashing is a given. The media, those grave robbers, are always methodically hammering away at the delicate stitching of the social fabric. Thirsty for more fear and more insecurity, they call for social awareness and collaboration in order to confront the “new terrorism.”
The echoes of their reports—from the centers of the administration and fabrication of morals and customs—now overflow from frenzied imaginations.
The situation is very clear. A home was called “a safe house,” comradely friendships became “a criminal organization,” and fingerprints found at the house were presented as “irrefutable evidence of guilt,” guilt of membership in the “Fire Cells Conspiracy” organization.
Some people remain imprisoned and others are being hunted for arrest, solely on the basis of fingerprints, while each time the group strikes, the authorities generate a new arrest warrant. The case is being handled as a means to pave the way toward authoritatively confirming whatever they are incapable of demonstrating through logic. This is fertile ground, which in the future will allow them (on a media as well as a legal level) to bring charges by the truckload.
Since our arrest, things have carried on in the same way. In December, the Minister of Soldier Protection* gave the order for “preventive detentions,” raided the “safe house” known as the Resalto anarchist social center, put a price of 600,000 Euros on the heads of three of our comrades, made declarations about connections between “organized crime” and “the common revolutionary fund,” and spoke about “the war.” Additionally, he established the institution of the “neighborhood cop” and called on all aspiring soldiers to collaborate for the cause of social peace and security. He also attempted to dismember the revolutionary milieu through a cunning de-politicization, talking about “the ideologues” on the one side and “the vandals” on the other. In this way, it was thought that the revolutionary forces would sacrifice their own structures and participants on the altar of social prosperity.
The objective of Power is neither to dismantle the “Fire Cells Conspiracy” nor to keep some specific people “out of play.” Its objective is to isolate and neutralize everything that is “against the rules” and potentially revolutionary—from groups in which people collectivize their individualism, to social centers, squats, black blocs, and potential new comrade combatants.
Under-the-table games can’t scare us, nor do they leave us bewildered. We’ve always known about the surgical precision used by the media and the political powers to de-ideologize the revolutionary milieu.
Typical extermination and vengeance play the principal roles in their war, attacking the nerve centers of our daily experience, which is one of dignity and radicalized consciousness.
Let’s oppose the jailers of our hearts, as enemies.
The cries of battle must be heard on both sides of the bars.
Attack now, everywhere, against everything.
On the side of those captured and being hunted as members of the “Fire Cells Conspiracy.”
On the side of comrades with a price on their heads.
On the side of dignified prisoners everywhere.
Face to face with ourselves, always.
Embracing the war.
—Panagiotis Masouras, Avlona prison, February 2010
*A reference to Michalis Chrysohoidis, Greece’s Minister of Citizen Protection
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