Letter from prison by the anarchist Fee Marie Meyer, 18.2.2011

Greek original
Behind bars…
So sometimes even the most wild scenarios become reality, and so here I am in pre-trial detention at the Female Prison of Korydallos [in Athens] precisely because I possessed already published documents, because I am anarchist. Of course, the original list of charges against me has grown, with an extremely serious crime added to it – namely my reference to the imprisoned anarchists as “political prisoners”. These are the findings upon which the decision of the Committee of Misdemeanours was based [which ordered Fee's pre-trial detention –trans.], the only findings with which they have sent me to prison. I am not surprised yet I wonder, if what I am going through is not a political persecution, then what would ever be one? Perhaps all the persecutions of comrades based solely on their relationships and their beliefs are not political. Perhaps even the detention of people awaiting trial in high-security prisons, or underground dungeons, are random phenomena, entirely unconnected to the political identity of the detainees. Not to forget the transformation of political trials into military tribunals acting under special circumstances, in absentia of the accused and the withholding of the ID of the people who chose to attend…
Are you kidding us?
Authority itself gets rid of the dipole of innocence and guilt, the same dipole it had used for so many years in order to divide the front of the people in struggle into good and bad ones, legal and illegal. From now on, everything is related; dividing lines become fluid and everyone who resists is placed on the shore of the guilty ones. Everyone is potentially incarcerated in the hospitable cells of the greek prisons.
Divide and conquer is no longer required, the junta is by now shameless, people are one again divided into two parts. Into the exploited and the powerful.

In this situation, it is not only acts who matter anymore but thoughts too. Books and publications are categorised as dangerous and we should expect the new publication of the “index librorum prohibitorum” (list of banned books by the Inquisition). The anarchist/ anti-authoritarian word is criminalised and most certainly needs to be repented as it is subversive. This is an attempt to silence and dispose not only the people in struggle but also the thoughts and our ideals, the ideas that our texts carry with them.

All this is extremely dangerous at the present time.

Dangerous because in the times that we live in a new liberal totalitarianism has made an appearance; the perfectly post-modern and always socialist junta.
Dangerous as the parts of people who resist are widening out, networking, recognising the importance of a multiform struggle.
From the dignified residents of Keratea and the nearby areas, the 300 migrant hunger strikers who demand the obvious dream in life with complete consciousness of their class, to the strikers at the Mass Transportation Systems and other working sectors refusing to bow to the blackmailing of their bosses; the “I won’t pay” movement, the members of which are facing incarceration. Them and how many, how many more…
This junta lacks nothing compared to the previous ones as it has adopted from them the military advantage of the quick, versatile and always-present forces of “Security” and the security para-state that moves around, armed, hooded up and with no initials – specialising in the chasing and torturing of people in struggle; specialising to truly terrorise. Terrorists with new and older methods, abductions in the middle of the street with cinematic effects, publication of photographs even before charges are brought forward (the recent case of comrade K.S in Thessaloniki), invented groups with no name nor action being included in the list of charges against comrades; terrorist laws with special clauses, more laws, more incarcerations.
This entire climate is sustained and reproduced via the media which take on the role that the state would never be able to fulfil on its own. With lies upon lies, TV shows about indifferent celebrities targeting only dumb people and offending the intelligence of those who watch them, they attempt on the one hand to break up and terrorise and on the other hand to keep people drugged up and subordinate to a cheap dream.
At this moment then, for all the above reasons, solidarity as a main co-ordinate unifying the front of the repressed beholds even greater value. Solidarity meaning proximity, not consonance: a recognition of the common ground of the state of our struggle. This fundamental political virtue of higher social organising combined with the utmost individual fulfilment.
Comradely regards, my friendliness and my thoughts go out to all the comrades and friends behind and outside the bars – stay strong! Because until the tearing down of the last prison and total freedom, no-one is free. Because the darkest hour is just before the dawn!

Fee Meyer
Cell 35, Wing B
female prison of Korydallos