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The Children of Piraeus: A Video Short

The Children of Piraeus: A Video Short

From The Transmetropolitan Review

We present to you our latest video-short, The Children of Piraeus, chronicling some recent events that have taken place in Exarchia, Athens. Others have written extensively about the current siege of the anarchist neighborhood, a police offensive that’s lasted for nearly two months, and the first victims of this state-led assault were the immigrant squats. Those without papers were arrested and sent off to Greek concentration camps, while the anarchists of Exarchia were subjected to a military occupation of their home. The situation is now boiling over, and the police offensive will clearly backfire on the state.


In the midst of this siege, a group of anarchists decided to begin their own offensive against the AirBNB units within Exarchia itself. While wealthy landlords of Exarchia have been complaining about the anarchists for decades, they’re now frothing at the mouth in greed at the prospect of making the neighborhood a gentrified tourist hellhole filled with AirBNB units. In opposition to this capitalist vision, anarchists spray-painted the doors and glued the locks of several AirBNB units within the neighborhood.

In their communique, the group stated that AirBNB units were “pushing working-class families and youth out of the area by appealing to the interests of landlords who see a golden opportunity in the pockets of the tourists who come to Exarcheia in quest of cheap thrills and the vague scent of radicality.” In addition to this action, Exarchia is now filled with anti-AirBNB propaganda and many tourists who use AirBNB are continuously harassed.

Two weeks later, a group calling itself Revolutionary Anarchist Armed Strugglers (GANA) fired five shots at a police checkpoint in Exarchia. One week after this, GANA bombed a mafia-owned club near the port of Piraeus, an establishment that was used to traffic women from ex-Yugoslavia into Greece. As the anarchists made clear in their communique, the main players of this sex-trafficking ring were also major political fascists. While the right-wing politicians and police claim to be fighting human-trafficking with their anti-immigrant policies, both groups turn a blind eye to the Greek fascists who openly exploit and abuse women. To cap it all off, GANA devoted an entire paragraph of their recent communique to reminding the reader that AirBNB’s actions are “no different from mafia practices.” In this regard, the anarchists believe AirBNB is a target.

Damage from anarchist bomb blast at mafia-owned club, Piraeus, October 2016

We
hope you enjoy the video. If so, please share far and wide.

Eternal
love for the anarchists of Exarchia.

Long live the Black International!