Sonntag, 14. März 2010

Farewell to our comrade Lambros Fountas



Our comrade Lambros Fountas fell dead from the bullets of Greek police on early Wednesday morning in the suburb of Dafni (south Athens). He was 35 years old. The circumstances of his death are far from being clear. The police reclaims that he was shot during a gunfight, but it seems rather to have been a cold-blooded killing, because there are reports that he was hit on his left shoulder blade (which means he was hit from the back). Moreover, the police speaks now of three suspects allegedly surprised to steal a car in Dafni and prepared to carry out a "terrorist attack" on that day, but so far they weren't able to prove these conjectures. According to the police the two other comrades could escape during the alleged fire-exchange and are still at large. (An article about the events from the Greek newspaper Epochi, weekly aligned to SYRIZA, the Coalition of the Radical Left, is here, in English and German).

After Lambros' killing many houses around Attica have been searched by the police, while the Greek anarchists
plastered the streets of Athens with posters to his honor. The Anarchist Archive, one of the oldest, most traditional and best-known anarchist groups in Greece, has published a farewell-text in the memory of Lambros Fountas, and also the revolutionary Giorgis Voutsis Voyatzis, imprisoned for bank robbery in Athens, has communicated a short letter of hommage to the killed comrade.



*Giorgos Voutsis Voyatzis, "A few words from the prison" (translation by Libcom.org; in German here)

Comrade Lambros was a true exemplar of a struggles for all of us. A real revolutionary, sworn enemy of apraxia - idleness or lack of praxis. Simple, sober, eclectic and decided. UNTIL THE END, LEADER OF HIS OWN SELF. Besides, he made no contract with life so that he cheated on it. A contract with life is signed by those who divorce from the choice of just-praxis or dikaiopraxia. Consider these not so big-phrased but honest words a last farewell to a comrade and combatant of freedom. Let praxis and actions speak ...


*Anarchist Archive of Athens, "Lambros our comrade"

(Translation from Act for freedom now - Spanish translation here & here - French - German)

The struggle of those who fight against all forms of power, who are anxious that each moment should not be wasted and who stubbornly maintain the belief that we are capable of creating a free and non-authoritarian world, is as distant from any kind of mythology or fiction as the earth is from the moon.

This struggle has had, has and will have countless casualties; dead, captured, and people who desist because they lose hope or compromise themselves because the powers that be have found the low or high price to buy them off.

Those seeking saints, martyrs or messiahs, or heroes and mythical beasts, are ultimately no different from those who do not miss the opportunity to point the finger at the scoundrels, the black sheep, the criminally suspect and those who politically have already lost. Both the superior beings depicted by one side and the extremist creatures from the other are equally expendable. In either case the purpose is to keep everyone sedated and docile, despite what the proponents of either side might claim.

Some ecstatically speak of those 'sacrificed', while the others piously try to measure the political loss. It is of little importance whether this convergence is achieved due to fanaticism or delusion, ignorance or expediency, for reasons of political visibility and survival or practising dogmatism. Those who are supposed to object shout to convince everyone that they have unfinished business with them, but this fraud is difficult to conceal. But so be it. This scenario is true and played to death, but the beaten path is always the most secure. Always? Or maybe it is not?

The following words, and those preceding them, are not the product of an obligation or sense of duty. Nor are they part of any revolutionary obituary. They are far away from and hostile to any attempt to mythologizing, ownership, engaging or disengaging, against the mud slung and the depreciation, which authority is already trying to spread after the disclosure of the identity and photograph of a dead "terrorist" following a gunfight with cops in Daphne. Lambros Fountas, who fell dead in a shootout with the crew of the police squad car in the area of Daphne is known for his anarchist activities.

From his years as a high school student he was socially active and would later join the anarchist group MAVRO AGATHI (Black Thorn), who issued the DROMI TIS ORGIS (Streets of Rage) 'zine/pamphlet/serial. He was active and participated in marches, rallies, social conflicts, demonstrations, flyposting, discussions and social events.

He was one of the thousands of young people not enrolled at the time with any political youth party involved in the student occupations, demonstrations and clashes prior to and after the murder of Professor N. Temponera in Patras. Those young people were inspired by the insurrectional events of January 1991 as well as anarchist ideas and practices that they appropriated with a vitality which words are incapable of describing. The anarchist group Black Thorn, until its dissolution, participated in the Co-operation of Anarchist Groups and Individuals for Social Solidarity and Diverse Action.

During the occupation of the Polytechnical University of Athens in 1995 for the anniversary of the 1973 Uprising, Lambros Fountas was among the 504 who were arrested by the repressive state forces that invaded the university grounds on the morning of November 18th. He was, therefore, among so many young people of a generation that the politically correct were quick to describe as lost. Among all those who chose their partners' hand and travelled the 1990s from protest to protest, from roadblock to roadblock, standing in solidarity with passion in every social aspect, who chose to confront power with their rights and their wrongs, their differences amongst themselves and their stubbornness, confounding the authority that wanted them to simply be passers by in the social struggles. Not that there weren't any such people. Quite the contrary. Since then I have met up with Lambros and been side by side many times in marches, roadblocks and clashes.

We solemnly believe that what the people who fight leave behind them, is what they really contribute and is not superficial to the liberation process from the shackles of oppression and exploitation. This is a legacy that transcends any needs, decisions and choices.

Because the means are not an end in themselves and don't differentiate those fighting, but rather reveal possibilities, they don't sanctify those who choose one or another form, nor do they put anyone on a pedestal. There are no unknown comrades who have been unfairly lost. Nor is the point principally, in these situations, the search for operational errors.

Equally, however, we do not agree with the logic that explanations are the privilege of priests, initiates or those well-educated in internal affairs or with those who deal with cases and craft scenarios all the time, that the answer may begin and end with motto: loss is a necessary evil. Our position must be straightforward and outspoken.

We close, saying goodbye to Lambros with an Indian wish (and certainty): The next time (we meet) will be better!

Anarchist Archive of Athens 11/3/10"

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