Solidarity Poster for Polykarpos Georgiadis and Vaggelis Chrisohoidis (greece)

Communique from the anarchist super-market action in Thessaloniki

On 14/06/10 we stormed into a super-market of the chain Masoutis on M. Kyriakou street, we took basic needs goods (olive oil, pasta, milk etc.) and destroyed the anti-theft systems and the surveillance camera while we also smashed the tills and burnt all the money they had inside.

From the beginning we had decided that the goods of the appropriation would be distributed among the comrades who participated, not outside the super-market. With this choice of ours we want to make clear that this, and other practices aim not at promoting some of us as saviours of the society – rather, we want society itself to familiarise itself with such practices and to embrace them without waiting for the “revolutionary” philanthropist/ friends of the poor. Especially in a period like this one, where the rottenness of the present system is pushing it toward collapse. As for the term “Robin Hoodies” (in Greek: Super-market Robins) we believe this consists of another typical attempt to twist the meaning of such actions by Mass Media, which present comrades as some sort of elite stealing for the poor. In result, the distribution of the goods is presented in a way that refers to the narcosis and passivity reflected in the thinking “someone will think-act-take care of us”.

We do not believe in a society of “weak-minded” people who must necessarily be ruled, as is wished by the ruling propaganda. We are happy when people walk on with the belief that their life belongs to them, away from mediators and needless gabble, when they organise under the premise of solidarity, anti-authoritarianism and self-organisation; under the guidance of active negation and attack. When they do not fall for the fallacy of the regime that “by helping each other we will scrape through the crisis”. It is important, finally that when distributing goods you have no way of telling if the recipients are indeed in solidarity, even if that is not active, or if they are just hypocrites taking care of themselves only – and perhaps even, in another case, they would be the first to inform to the police. Of course we applaud similar actions by comrades who distribute the goods: as as we said earlier the aims are the same.

The burning of money is a symbolic action speaking for itself. These little pieces of paper that turned into ashes within seconds have managed, in even less seconds, to destroy lives, relationships, to transform the human and her desires by transforming life into indexes, digitalising feelings and experiences, simplifying the feelings of joy and misery down to the dipole I have/ I have no money.

As for the action itself it took place exactly as planned. Our getaway was relaxed and with no unexpected incidents. We used bins as a precautionary to block off some roads while we made sure we knew the movements of the cops before and during the action. It is telling that pigs of the Z force (motorcycle cops –trans.) were sitting around confused by the fountain on Egnatia Ave, obviously waiting for reinforcements and tried to approach only when we were already gone.

We are consciously and actively in solidarity with every other action sabotaging capitalism within the urban environment in which we act.

PS 1. A warning toward the “macho Greeks” who might want to become heroes: they’ll receive the treatment they deserve, exactly as it happened when one of them was spotted to be calling the cops – he was chased, along with the bunch who were about to intervene. But as the saying goes, “the mother of the fast one has never mourned”

PS 2. We can only laugh at the misinformation of the media about supposed clashes with repression forces, trolleys filled with goods that we never managed to hand out etc…

PS 3. Of course we support the appropriation of money for the needs of the movement, it is just that we wanted to give a different context to this particular action.

The thieves’ thieves