The chronicle of a repression announced for 10 years was completed yesterday with the eviction of the Embros theatre. A space that began as a response to the capital’s overthrow of iconic urban landmarks is sealed off to be overpowered.
The occupation of the Embros Theatre was the appropriation of a decaying cultural tool and its true utilization by people of art, politics, and the neighborhood. All these masses of people who passed, the participants and producers of another culture testing its grips, can attest to this but also reflect on what its loss signifies.
In the midst of the pandemic, in the most gentrified area for the capital’s small and large tourist capital, Embros was a thorn, not only for its political flavour but also for constituting an agitated and agressive voice at the centre of the tourist product. Something like a stronghold a few meters from the tables of the occupied city held parties, theatre performances, speeches, events, concerts, seminars, collective kitchens, festivals… For free. Organized horizontally. And without discrimination, neither ethnic, nor racial, nor, unfortunately for gentrification.
Embros did not fit in this Psiri, and there is also the work to be done by the Municipality of Athens after the “big tour”, and the building that is in the hands of TAIPED since 2012 will be transformed into money that will fall on the market. Add to this the need for the state to show law and order work in the midst of murders and underworld warfare that touches power and we can understand why now was the right time for the state to venture into evicting Embros. Those who are cementing the Acropolis, who manage culture as a nationalist outgrowth that generates money want to definitively cement a libertarian cultural fabrics made by, with and for the social base.
The story of Embros is not over, the answer from the grassroots and the world of struggle remains to be given, another answer that must be given at a time when state and capital are trying to grab as much as they can as if there is no tomorrow. Or rather to catch up with that tomorrow from the best possible positions, having reaped the most possible.
But they do not realize that the branches they cut have a tree with deep roots. The rhetoric and narratives of law and order have already stumbled into the reality of their lies. We know that they will continue to try to cut branches, here they even threaten the 8-hour day, let them too know that the best is yet to come. Let them not be carried away by the numbness of the majority. No lockdown is convincing anymore and no government promise sounds anything but noise.
The Embros theater and the defense of its occupation can become a node of resistance. The people who expressed themselves through it must reflect on what the loss of such a tool means, and consider whether they will stand up for it. The world of struggle will fight its battle.
On the side of the self-organized spaces of resistance, in the name of a culture of freedom, solidarity and community, let us stand by the occupation of the Embros Theatre!
20 May 2021
Αναρχική Ομοσπονδία (Anarchist Federation, Greece)
anarchist-federation [at] riseup [dot] net
Some squats in Athens: https://radar.squat.net/en/groups/city/athens/country/GR/squated/squat
Some evicted squats in Athens: https://radar.squat.net/en/groups/city/athens/country/GR/field_active/1/squated/evicted
Groups in Athens: https://radar.squat.net/en/groups/city/athens/country/GR
Events in Athens: https://radar.squat.net/en/events/city/Athens/country/GR
Some squats in Greece: https://radar.squat.net/en/groups/country/GR/squated/squat
Groups in Greece: https://radar.squat.net/en/groups/country/GR
Events in Greece: https://radar.squat.net/en/events/country/GR
