Cafe Morgenland & Terminal 119
[January / 2009]
Will anti-Semitism succeed where the repression didn’t?
«For every known or unknown person whom we want or are forced to form an opinion of, we constantly and consistently make the same, stereotypical and set question: How would he or she react, how would this or the other collective or social group react if Auschwitz or something proportional would be repeated? The answer to this question is the dominant, the absolute and the decisive criterion by which we count and esteem the individuals and the groups, their actions and their behavior».
In 31.12.2008, a “revolutionary” attack took place against the Jewish synagogue in Volos (the older one was blown up by the Germans in 1943). The attack consisted of writing some threatening slogansi on the synagogue walls (elsewhere, they call it desecration or sacrilege). This act of disgraceful anti-Semitism, consists of another attempt at changing the direction in the radical scene (the first occurred at Athens Indymedia which, “for the Greek lords’ favour”, rapidly left behind the theme of the December riots in Greece so as to promote the Middle East issue with its all necessary reflexives and accesoires).
Because, of course, it is very convenient, after seeing in Greece an outburst, a rebellion, that at last, looking “inside,” found the enemy in the Greek state, and all the shit of Greek society, clearly attacked the local putrescence and conservatism… where even social de-alienation (“p l i a t s i k o” as it was called in a pejorative term) started to blossom in mid-Winter… now, to have those that that will start to burn American flags, those that will speak against the Jews about the international financial crisis and the war, those that will target synagogues, those that will care to “drake” the rebellion’s violence to targets (read here the embassies of Israel and USA) more compatible with local nationalism and the old, pure patriotic feelings that we have got used to blessing in every revolutionary-patriotic anniversary. Thus, it is very convenient when the structures that this rebellion left behind, go on to insinuate themselves using all possible connections among the immigrants and the workers that receive murder attacks with acid, like the immigrant syndicalist Konstantina Kouneva, and when, in solidarity to Kouneva, demonstrators attack and injure cops in response, in Piraeus and elsewhere. It is very convenient when someone wants to mislead us from the solidarity to the dozens of arrested immigrant rebels that this repression left behind, it is very convenient when over 50 Albanian and Arab immigrants have been put in jail for 18 months in Athens alone, and will be deported. It is very convenient when the Riot Police are tired to death by the thousands of rioters and when the para-militaries and indignant Greek citizens and fascists take their guns out and shoot people. It is precisely this moment, now, that it seems that anti-Semitism, always in the form of anti-Zionism, manages to repress whatever the cops “magic weapons”ii didn’t succeed in repressing…
At this definitive point, it is a fact that such actions can have only one goal and one result, namely to gather people once again around the Greek national pole, either for anti-imperialist or for humanist reasons, where, of course, one can make distinctions between these two. Thus, they try in this manner to bury one of the slogans shouted during the December riot: “Righteous are the rebels, national unity with blood is stained!”
Until now, the communist party of Greece was the “usual suspect” for such actions (desecration of the Holocaust memorial, mob gatherings by “communists” and other good citizens outside the offices of the Jewish community in Thessaloniki, screaming anti-Semitic chants against the Greek Jews in 2006, etc.), not to mention the neo-nazis of Golden Dawn and all the remaining democratic powers, each one of them, of course, for their very own political reasons. Now, another group took over, with the signature of “AK” (in Volos). What is strange about this last action is that there is no “AK Volos” group, as far as we knowiii, while it is definitive of this period that we live in, that we can’t distinguish which actions were carried out by neo-nazis and which ones by others. The only thing for certain is that not a few people from the “scene” cheered the action in Indymedia (and in “Stohos”, a greek nationalist newspaper). We say this without, of course, trying to lessen the value of many people’s opposition to the above “revolutionary” action.
The threat of their “intervention” yesterday is expressed with a rhetorical question in one of their slogans on a wall of the synagogue:
The state of Israel murders! Whose position do you support? (signature Α.Κ.).
Those who criticize Israel for corporate responsibility, without hesitation lash out with exactly the same accusation against the Greek Jews of Volos.
With their question, they don’t just express their curiosity, so as to learn their fellow citizens’ opinion, as they also never cared about their fellow citizens’ opinion about other issues, they have never cared about their blood-stained historyiv, the one that smells of Zyklon B and crematories, about their feelings, about their dreams and hopes. They demand that the Greek Jews of Volos take a position about the facts in Middle East and, thus, a position condemning Israel, as any other position will make them “guilty by definition”. Only so can they be certain that the stigmatised will not escape them.
Of course, they themselves give the answer that they ask of the OTHERS, those that are DIFFERENT, with their second slogan, as they already know, before they make their “visit” to the synagogue. Since the day they were born, they already knew everything about this chthonic race which is responsible and guilty for the politics of Israel (even in the greek “Antifa” magazine, the Jews are not even Greeks, but citizens, and thus agents, of a foreign country, Israel). So as not to leave any doubts, they respond to themselves with their second slogan:
In genocide there is no “neutrality” and “equal distance”! (signature Α.Κ. - antiauthoritarian movement) a greek group
The threat to physical integrity, to property, synagogues, cemeteries, Holocaust memorials and, in general, everything that is or is supposed to be Jewish, manifest themselves as the tacit consequences of these slogans, consequences that the stigmatised will have caused the perpetrators to perpetrate, consequences that the stigmatised will have to bear.
Die Bedrohung der körperliche Unversehrtheit, des Eigentums, der Synagogen, der Friedhöfe, der Holocaust-Mahnmale, und generell allen was jüdisch ist oder als solcher definiert wird, sind die implizierten Konsequenzen solche Parolen, Konsequenzen, die die Stigmatisierte durch die „Angreifer“ zu tragen haben.
So, what will be the next step, their next “revolutionary” act, if (the Jews) do not abide and keep “a neutral position” or maintain an “equal distance”? What will their next dynamic action be, if they that survived Auschwitz, and their descendants, take a pro-Israeli stand? (Indeed, we don’t even want to imagine it). Others have already spread the rumor that they attacked the Larissa synagogue – a lie, as far as we know – and try, in this way, to create a wave of attacks against Jewish targets all over the country, by sweeping up more people from the mob, under the mask of their anti-Zionism and/ or opposition against… religions in general.
We will say it again here, without any hesitation. After Auschwitz, every anti-Semitic act and every anti-Semitic threat, is synonymous with annihilation. Don’t forget that, at the anteroom of the Holocaust, in parallel with the free smearing of the inferiority and noxiousness of the chthonic Jews (which a writer from Babylonia newspaper called “freedom of speech”), were also the attacks against Jewish synagogues (in “Kristallnacht”, for example), houses, shops etc. Back then, they were writing on the synagogue walls «Juda verrecke!» («death to the Jews») or «kauft nicht bei Juden!» («don’t buy from the Jews») etc. That, 70 years ago, they were not writing the same things on the walls as today, is simply because of the fact that there was no Middle East issue back then. Nothing else matters.
We condemn every action and expression of threat against the Greek Jews and we promise to do everything to stop these actions by any means, so as to allow every person and every Israelite community to freely decide, whether they want to be for or against Israel, whether they want to keep a neutral stand or no stand at all etc, without anyone daring to force them sign certificates of loyalty.
We demand from the anti-authoritarian scene, we demand from every person and group, that they themselves condemn and isolate such actions and groups as a phenomena of an anti-Semitic cesspit, of racist behavior and patriotic sublimity.
We demand from those intellectuals that write these abstract, spectacular articles against anti-Semitism and racism to condemn the particular.
Silence stands for Guilt by accessory!
Hands off the Greek Jews!
Café Morgenland – antifascist immigrant group from Germany
Terminal 119 – for social and individual autonomy
03/01/09
i Five days after the attack, the Greek Helsinki Monitor published the following announcement “Greek Jew’s fears following new outburst of anti-Semitism” (in English): Greek Helsinki Monitor (GHM) has been receiving messages from Greek Jews following the desecration of the Volos Synagogue on New Year’s Eve (http://cm.greekhelsinki.gr/index.php?sec=194&cid=3392). With the sender’s permission and on condition of confidentiality, one such message is reprinted here. It eloquently describes how many Greek Jews live in the provinces and the consequences of anti-Semitic acts and –especially– media coverage. “The Jews in our community are experiencing a climate of intimidation following the graffiti on the Volos Synagogue. Since that act was taken as an attack, it resulted in the cancellation of Sabbath services and all other events and gatherings scheduled over the next several days. Some even considered removing their names from their apartment house bells! These concerns are intensified by various bombastic programs on local and national TV channels where everything becomes grist for the mill (Jews, Masons, Zionism, arrival of the Antichrist and the end of the world with globalization and so forth)!”. Café Morgenland group immediately republished the news in Greek http://www.cafemorgenland.net/archiv/2009/2009.01.06_Wohnungsklingen_gr.htm and German (http://www.cafemorgenland.net/archiv/2009/2009.01.06_Wohnungsklingen.htm.
ii A reference to the riot’s classic slogan “The cop’s gun is magic/ he shoots in the air and hits in the flesh”. The slogan mocks the usual excuse of the Greek cops when they kill someone, usually immigrant, with their guns: “the gun drakes”.
iii Ten days after the incident, “AK” organization (Anti-authoritarian movement) and particularly its groups in Ioannina, Thessaloniki and Athens published an announcement that condemned the action by saying that it was a “dangerous stupidity” and that everyone that acts similarly can only be compared with the neo-nazis of Golden Dawn. Also, demanded the perpetrators to expose themselves so as to take the responsibility of their actions. http://athens.indymedia.org/front.php3?lang=el&article_id=966719 (in Greek)
iv The hunting had already begun from October 1943. On the 25th of March in 1944, the Jews were arrested and sent to the Concentration Camps, where they were exterminated. Totally, 227 Jews from Volos lost their lives (“Hronika” magazine, KIS). Thanks to the attempts that the rabbi Pessah, the archbishop Ioakeim and some parts of EAM, the 74% of the Jews of Volos, were saved. Today, the “Jewish danger” in Volos includes only 120 survivors of Holocaust and their descendants.
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