The following text 'From the land of the forgotten against oblivion...' by anarchist prisoner and member of CCF-FAI, Olga Ekonomidu is a contribution to the imprisoned comrades in Chile: Tamara Sol and Natalia Collado. It is also a gesture in solidarity with Evi Statiri, held hostage by the Greek state, written in the context of the call for a national solidarity day on Semptember 2nd, 2015. Translation from Greek to English by Inter Arma.
Greece: “From the land of the forgotten against oblivion…” by Olga Ekonomidou
The captivity condition in which I find myself for 4,5 years now as a vindictive and exemplary punishment has created a distance between me and outside reality, action. Besides, the purpose of imprisonment for those who fight against the existent is separation, deprivation, political isolation, moral annihilation. But there are always bars to brake either you walk in the monotonous sterile corridors of a “penitentiary” or you cross the decorated streets of consumption of prison-society. Now, within the prison cells of democracy, my need for freedom continues to give breath to my each day. It’s my moving force, to think, to imagine, to organize, to act. The decision of total conflict with the existing, the power of individual choice enriched by collective action experiences, are the ingredients that can penetrate the prison bars and high walls. Why in prison you don’t give up… you go on. You reorganize yourself and you fight. For 4,5 years I wake up in a bed in prison always a little after sunrise, although many times I liked sleeping more when I was out, I organize my every move, although outside the spontaneous often moved me, I analyze and judge the data (political and personal) of yesterday’s day alone, although outside I always shared them with comrades. For 4,5 years I wake up every morning feeling sure that I alone defined my participation in the war against any form of authority and that freedom is not given away… you conquer it yourself.
January 2015… a plan about to materialize, to turn into something with flesh and bones. One step…. a breath before freedom…. And if the goal was not achieved… it was surely worth the try!
The attempted prison escape of CCF from our probable graves, confirmed that the struggle for freedom never stops while it sounded the alarm of the state apparatus. It made the damage it would inflict to both the validity and the reliability of the state visible, whether it was successful. So an escape plan, became the occasion for a whole repressive operation with revenge for the years our tenacious attitude and non-repentance as its sole purpose. The diffusion of fear in the part of the anarchist milieu that is in solidarity with political prisoners aiming their political isolation is not enough. For the first time in Greece and with such intensity, an enlarged perspective of the previous logic was applied. After authority saw that its “legal” or “irregular” judicial and legislative arms have not affected us until now, it crawled like an insidious reptile to bite Achilles heel. This time it targeted our relatives. The criminalization of family relations showed nothing but the clear vengeful intention of the state. To blackmail and emotionally destroy those who have hurt the prestige of its structures. The pursuit of new arrests and raids in homes resulted in two detentions. Of the mother of Christos and Gerasimos Tsakalos and the wife of the latter. But as long as you give the enemy the easier he thinks will win. So the same day of these detentions began a grueling hunger strike by CCF which managed to pull the mother of the two comrades out of jail. In this hunger strike which lasted several days, anarchist Ageliki Spyropoulou who is accused for her political contribution to the escape attempt, was also involved from the start, from the cells of the counter-terrorism agency For two months she was hunted by the police dogs after choosing not to surrender, choosing the difficult but beautiful road of illegality. Until today, we share the same cell discussing, analyzing all those things that came to pass and all that will come from a common perspective, in a new perspective.
From the first days of January, CCF is under constant attack by separating four comrades from the general prison population, transferring them during the night in special isolation cells. This was followed by continuous searches in the cells of the basement, under the pretext of security or some tip. And if every time they find nothing criminally remarkable, the feeling of the dissatisfied hound in their eyes, indicates that they will soon come again. The prison visits for Christos and Gerasimos are informally cancelled since their mother’s terms of release do not allow her to leave the island she lives on, not even for medical reasons. With their their insistence they Evi (wife of Gerasimos Tsakalos) in jail for six months now.
The extension of Evi’s detention is of double significance for domination. On the one hand the strength of urban guerrillas and the tolerance of people in solidarity are tested and on the other it legitimizes the broader policy of criminalization of family relations. It is the psychological game of authority which, among other things, as a battering ram, invades consciences. It targets the minds of relatives in order to tire them, bring them down, make them frustrated and eventually objective, corrupting the trusted relationship we have with them, as they pay the cost of our own choices. And if in the path of every personal history, some comrades, friends or others remained and others left, is because it is easy to stand next to people when they succeed, but difficult to do so in hard times. But dominion hasn’t won this game. all those they’ve bet on the weakening of the emotional ties and their conversion, they have already lost. Why even six months after, our loved ones, either from within prison or from the restricted areas they are due to court orders, still give us smiles of patience and trust, maintaining their own dignity.
So the bet remains to us, every anarchist cell and individuality that promotes continuous attack and rebellion, to prove that there will be no truce with the enemy neither now nor ever. Particularly in times of repressive operations one does not step back, but instead reignites the attack outbreaks in order to become truly dangerous. To remain a threat as an internal enemy at the heart of the system. Because everything that rolls downhill, stops only when it finds an obstacle in front of it, otherwise it will continue to do so indefinitely by continuously increasing speed, carrying away anything of inferior proportions. It is a live bet, without end, but with continuity, evolution and one direction only… liberation, anarchy.
“I do not need, nor do I want your discipline. With regards to my experiences, I want to have them for myself. It is from them, and not from you, that I will draw my rules of conduct. I want to live my own life. Slaves and lackeys terrify me. I hate those who dominate, and those who let themselves be dominated sicken me. He who bends before the whip is worth no more than he who wields it. I love danger, and the unknown, the uncertain, seduces me. I’m filled with a desire for adventure, and I don’t give a damn for success. I hate your society of bureaucrats and administrators, millionaires and beggars. I don’t want to adapt to your hypocritical customs nor to your false courtesies. I want to live out my enthusiasms in the pure, fresh air of freedom. Your streets, drafted according to plan, torture my gaze, and your uniform buildings make the blood in my veins boil with impatience. And that’s enough for me. I’m going to follow my own path, according to my passions, changing myself ceaselessly, and I don’t want to be the same tomorrow as I am today. I stroll along and I don’t let my wings be clipped by the scissors of any one person. I share none of your moralism. I am going forth, eternally passionate and burning with the desire to give myself to the world, to the first real person that approaches me, to the ragged trousered traveler, but never to the grave and conceited wise-men who would regulate the length of my stride. Nor to the doctrinaire who would like to clutter my mind with formulas and rules. I am no intellectual; I am a human being — a woman who feels a great vibration within herself before the impulses of nature and amorous words. I hate every chain, every hindrance; I love to walk along, nude, letting my flesh be caressed by the rays of the voluptuous sun. And, oh, old man! I will care so very little when your society breaks into a thousand pieces and I can finally live my life.”
-“Who are you, little girl, fascinating like a mystery and savage like instinct?”
-“I am Anarchy.”
Emile Armand, French individualist anarchist
Olga Ekonomidou
member of CCF-FAI
Women’s prison of Korydallos
