March for a demilitarised Nicosia 2015

Why is there a border dividing this city?
Do we really want to harm each other?
Were we ever as different as they taught us to be?

This city wasn’t divided because of the different languages we spoke; it was a power struggle between competing elites.

For a few it was more preferable to have all the power in half an island than share the power in the whole island.

Our daily lives is not their playground. Nobody should be forced to live under constant threat, to live in a city with 5 different armies pointing their guns at us, supposedly protecting us from each other.

Somehow they find space for all their armies in a single strip, but when we try to meet, they dare tell us we block the street.

We are against all nationalist and imperialist armies, post-colonial military forces and alliances, as well as states’ repressing mechanisms and authoritarian institutions. Nobody should be a soldier of power elites, never and nowhere.

Time to reclaim what the armies took from us; Our city,our neighborhoods and our lives.

This month on the 28th lets experience Nicosia as we deserve it.

Meeting points:
Faneromeni Square at 14:00, or
Sarayönü Meydanı at 14:30
Come!

We will walk through the streets of our city, sing a song or two, have a good time and meet at 16:30 at Home for Cooperation (opposite the UN Holiday Squat).

Open discussions, live music, and certainly NO ARMIES!

Assembly for a Demilitarized Nicosia

YKP – Sispirosi Atakton – faq – Granazi – SYRIZA – Dikoinotiki Rizospastiki Aristeri Synergasia/İki Toplumlu Radikal Sol İşbirliği – Ergatiki Dimokratia/Workers’ Democracy – Nea Diethnistiki Aristera/Yeni Enternasyonalist Sol

Heteronormativity is a political regime that needs to be overthrown.

On the occasion of the first Prides (one in the North and one in the South) in Cyprus, we want to share our reflections on matters relating to the acknowledgement of the right to agency that every person should have over their own body, sexuality, and gender identity. Referring mostly to the pride which takes place in the south, we feel that we should clarify this: although it is organised “under the protection” of the institutional authority (so as to exercise social pressure on the issue of acceptance, regardless of sexual orientation or gender expression/gender identity), is being carried out first and foremost by the LGBTQ community, claiming visibility for the persons of the LGBTQ community, claiming inclusion for all genders and sexualities that have been oppressed over the years and are still oppressed within the well-established system of heteronormativity. The counteraction of those, who are oppressed, especially when it’s formed and run by the oppressed people themselves, should enjoy support from the whole society and especially from the antiauthoritarian scene: not in recognising the constitutional authorities that may lie behind the organisation of the Pride, but in participating, supporting, and connecting with a community that defends its right to be included in the social representations and claims respect for all, regardless of sexual orientation and/or gender identity.

The Pride festival -even the choice of the word Pride- is directly linked to the idea of ‘coming out of the closet’ and the feminist movements that demand the recognition of the personal as political: our very lives, the oppression, the violence, the control, and the power relations we experience on a daily basis in different aspects of our interpersonal relationships – whether we identify as gay, lesbian, trans, bi, or whatever else – is not a personal or private matter confined in the walls of our homes or in our bedrooms. It is a matter, which is mostly political, as it stands critically towards any normative and regulatory system of production of “normal” trends and tendencies, and aspires to deconstruct any patriarcal system where heterosexuality is the norm (and every other sexuality is excluded, deleted, silenced, and oppressed): It aims to expose any system that is sexist, or hierarchical in any other way, any power system, which promotes unequal treatment, oppression, and exclusion and silences and oppresses whatever deviates from the norm.

Exclusion is not a personal matter. The verbal or physical abuse of a trans person, or a homosexual person is not a personal issue. Violence is the product of a mentality, which considers a gender to be superior to other genders, a body more important than other bodies, a voice more resonant than other voices, and a life more worth-living than other lives. The domains of the weak and the powerful, those who are excluded and those who belong, are interchangeable within the system of political and social structures, which we fight. Therefore, Pride festivals are not mere festivities and -what’s more important- they are not mistimed, amid the crisis, as it is claimed by many: these festivals reclaim public space and distort the power of a discourse which operates to shape the represented reality in ways which create domains of abjected beings. These festivals constitute a reminder that all aspects of our lives are diffused with power and authoritarian determinations that segregate us on the basis of arbirtrary prejudices.

Therefore, because we desire to breathe freely, to live participatory, in inclusion and not exclusion, we deconstruct systematically the dominant power relations seeking to jointly shape a common context in which we will un-learn and un-discipline to any form of identification from above and to reclaim, through self-education, the control over our own lives, bodies, responsibilities, and desires.

Syspirosi Atakton
Lefkosia 30/05/2014

 

A first contact with Plan C

• Plan C is quite an unusual name for a leftist organisation. What does it stand for?

The ‘C’ is deliberately ambiguous. The assumption tends to be that it stands for ‘Commons’ or ‘Communism’. Either of these is acceptable but people should feel free to interpret it differently if they wish. It’s a play on the flurry of discourse around ‘Plan A’ and ‘Plan B’ that emerged in the UK once the crisis had dug its heels in after 2007.
At the end of 2009, in a now-classic statement, the prime minister’s spokesperson told us “It is quite normal for government officials to be thinking about alternative scenarios [but] ministers haven’t asked for advice on ‘plan B’ because they are very clear that the plan we have is the right plan.” This plan, Plan A, is the plan that involves massive cuts to public spending, tripling of university fees, the ‘remodeling’ of labour and environmental policy, and tax breaks for the wealthy. In short, a neo-liberal plan focused on making Britain more ‘business-friendly’.
Of course, just because ministers hadn’t gone looking for a plan B doesn’t mean no one else did. There are numerous Plan B’s. Some better than others, but all of them hovering in the vicinity of some form or other of neokeynesianism. We don’t want to unhelpfully dismiss these plan Bs out of hand. We think it’s exciting so many people seem to be questioning the ‘present state of things’ and thinking about alternatives. However, it is crucially important to note the absence of the same social and material conditions that ushered in the golden age of social democracy in the past. In the light of this, the Plan B(s), being called for by everyone from pragmatic capitalist economists to left revolutionary parties, seem little more than pie in the sky. So, we suggest a new plan, Plan C (perhaps centered on commons). We have no desire to present this plan as a prognosis; one of the problems with plan B after all is its inability to meet the dynamism and flux of everyday life under capitalism. We need plans that can change, rapidly if need be. We do however, see this plan as being centered on how we organize our social reproduction. The focus on the question of organization that this necessarily engenders is another aspect of the name. We want to go beyond the plans A and B of political organizing.

• Plan C seems to be looking for new forms of organisation. You want to go beyond the network-based organisation, without falling back on the model of a party. How do you organise? What are the common principles of organising in Plan C?

– The purpose in using ‘soft’ terms such as ‘go beyond’ and ‘without falling back on’ is that there are, of course, many strengths in these forms of organising, many elements of which have yet to be probed. In fact, we’ve elsewhere referred to ourselves as an organisation, a network, and a perspective. Plan C is dedicated to organising in a way that is perpetually experimental. We’re not concerned to finding the ‘correct’ model for organisation, nor do we believe such a thing exists or if it does, it could only ever exist for an instant. Because the possibilities for organisational experiments far exceed both our imaginations and our capacities as an organisation (in fact they tend to the infinite), we find ourselves opposed to the idea of ‘one big working class organisation’, similarly, whilst not condemning the various ‘unity’ projects that spring up from time to time on the left, we are far more interested in developing means of co-ordination and consider unity to be neither likely nor necessarily desirable.
One of the ways in which we try to put this into practice is by organizing together on the basis of engagement rather than agreement. This means two things. Firstly, when we want to work together, the initial operative question becomes not ‘does this plan fit into our grand scheme or ideology?’ but ‘What’s the minimum we need to agree on in order to work collectively here?’ Secondly, we operate what we refer to as a ‘community of reference’ whereby we’re committed to critical support for all struggles in which our members are involved (if they want us to be). This means collectively talking things through, looking for the elements that can be pushed beyond themselves, the cracks, and the potentials for commonality with other struggles.
Another way in which we attempt to ensure an ongoing experimentalism is in allowing each of the groups autonomy in the way they organize. We meet together nationally four times a year. Two large congresses and two delegate meetings. Other than that, interaction between the groups is informal and context specific. So in addition to local groups and national meetings we’ve experimented with topic-specific commissions and task-specific working groups that operate, at least nominally, on a national level. After a couple of years, it has begun to feel useful to us to adopt a more formal membership structure and this does entail becoming a member of the organization as a whole, rather than a local group, but other than agreeing with a basic two hundred word statement about what Plan C is, paying negligible subscription fees, and committing to the ‘community of reference’ idea, there are no rules to which members must strictly adhere.

• Can you tell us something about the situation of the radical left in the UK? How is the situation in the context of the crisis?

The radical left in the UK is in a state of some disorientation and fragmentation. In many ways this is just an instance of a more general post-crisis political disorientation, which stretches far beyond the UK. Ironically it’s the breadth and depth of the disorientation on the left that provides some hope. None of the various segments or traditions on the left are doing well and so at least parts of each tradition are being forced to re-assess the way they do politics. There have been various splits and scandals on the Trotskyist left while what we might call the horizontalist left, which gained such traction in 2010-11 has had it’s limitations exposed. Coming out of this generalized in-effectiveness there have been several attempts at regroupment and recomposition. Plan C is one of those attempts and it has fairly friendly relations to several other attempts at regroupment on both the libertarian and more traditional lefts.

Zapatistas: solidarity statement

Comrades,

As soon as we heard the news about Galeano, we felt again those turbulent winds blowing on the calendars and the geographies of all those who are below and outside the system.

No matter how far apart we are, and despite the many clocks and calendars that exist between us, we stand by your side, with pain and rage, but mostly with solidarity and respect.

Because as long as there are homeless you provide them with shelter…

Because as long as there are landless people, you provide them with land…

Because as long as there are people starving you distribute bread to them…

Because as long as there are patients, you provide them with medicine and access to health care…

Because as long as there are people who are illiterate, you build schools for them…

Because as long as there is cheap labor in the maquiladoras and the farms, you continue to fight for autonomy and independence…

Because as long as there are people who are marginalised and excluded, you keep struggling for self-organisation and democracy…

Because as long as there are slaves and masters, subordinates and rulers you continue to dream about freedom…

Because even as your evil government declares war, you continue to talk about peace…

And because even though the others are falling into oblivion, you remember the long dark nights and you move towards another reality (realidad); slowly but steadily, just like snails (caracoles) in the jungle…

We thank you for reminding us about old-Antonio dreaming – just like you, we and many others, we are also dreaming. Just as the kings, the lords and the bosses are dreaming, but some are dreaming about the beginning and others about the end.

And indeed, the time of the awakening is approaching, as our clocks are syncing with yours, and as our calendars are closer to meeting yours.

From another small corner of the world
Syspirosi Atakton
Nicosia, Cyprus
One dawn during May, 2014

 

About our participation in “The war is over, if you want it”

Last Saturday we participated in the unexpectedly occupation of the Green Line in the Buffer Zone of the Ledra / Lokmaci Street. This action along with the slogan “the war is over, if you want it”, was the response to the ban of the two parallel marches during the mobilisation for a  demilitarised Nicosia, which were planned to meet at the buffer zone, as well as an act of solidarity for Turkish Cypriot conscientious objector Murat Kanantli.

As far as we are concerned it is clear and proved in actions, that the ruling elite doesn’t want the oppressed classes to get involved in the resolution process.

It is also clear that the agony for the resolution of the Cyprus problem right now is directly connected to serve their interests in the region and particularly  the extraction and transport of hydrocarbons from Cyprus and Israel to central Europe via Turkey. In the process of this dealing, each side tries to secure as much profit as possible for its own ruling class and is very little concerned whether the reached arrangement will drive to yet another protectorate state dependent on NATO and the  EU, or whether the arrangement will also mean the end or not of the national controversy. This explains the fact that while in the past the United Nations had been encouraging bi-communal contacts and actions, now they became hostile towards them, especially when these actions come from the below and not from pro-system and neo-liberal political forces.

We believe that there is an even greater risk: An interim agreement to be made, settling the issue of hydrocarbons and garnished with some “confidence building measures” (Famagusta, ports, etc) in order to push for an overall solution in the long run. Therefore, the ruling classes would be able to implement their plans, while people in Cyprus remain trapped and harmless in a dead end national conflict.

The entrapment of the institutional left to the neoliberal visions of development – which, unfortunately, are also adopted by a part of the ‘extra-parliamentary’ left – are blurring more the scene and create false expectations. The latest example is the alleged possibility of the exploitation of hydrocarbons pooling from the two communities as a case of solution with big profits for the Cypriots. Amid  the economic crisis and with an EU as the tool in the hands of the capital and the oppressive elite, these expectations can create new intercommunal conflicts, as tomorrow they will fail in practice.

Certainly a possible solution creates a new reality in Cyprus. The abolition of internal borders, the withdrawal of Turkish and Greek military forces, as well as the dissolution of local armies, can only be identified as positive elements that can contribute to overcome nationalism.

At this conjuncture, however, it is important to express our demand for a solution outside of NATO and other dependencies, but mainly to prepare for tomorrow’s environment, the one after the solution, to connect with the radical libertarian forces of communities living in Cyprus and together fight against our real enemy, which is capitalism.

Along with these initial thoughts and mostly with continuous dialogue and joint activities with our class brothers and sisters, regardless of origin, we declare ourselves present in the struggle for a Cyprus of peace and social equality.

Syspirosi Atakton

Lefkosia 22-3-2014

About the imprisoned conscientious objector Murat Kanatli

Because every individual has the right to be autonomous and able to offer to the society without being a subordinate to power and to the “duty” to serve the country…

Because the military service – either conscript or reservist – is not “sacred”, as the army by nature is turning against human life and as a mechanism “trains” the servant to be completely subordinated without any objections at any authoritarian institution.

Because the conscientious objection is not a liberal individual right, but a libertarian act of civil disobedience and anti-militarist action.

We express our full solidarity to the imprisoned conscientious objector Murat Kanatli and we escalate our action towards a demilitarised Nicosia and a demilitarised Cyprus.

Nobody should be a soldier, never and nowhere, We are not surrendering our lives to the bosses!

Syspirosi Atakton.

DEMILITARISED NICOSIA 2014

• This year marks the 50th anniversary of the establishment of the “Green Line” along the historic center of Nicosia, a result of the bi-communal conflicts of 1963. This line in essence signaled the beginning of a ten-year period of ethnic conflicts and the division of the island into control zones. The interference of the English and later on of the UN’s multinational armies between the clashing ethnic troops did not prevent the conflicts, as their presence reflected the balance of the dominant forces in the region rather than a peacemaking force. So, after a decade of conflicts, we have been led to the military coup of the Greek Junta and the invasion by the Turkish Army, events which shaped the current status quo.

The recent history of Nicosia represents in the best possible way the recent history of Cyprus. Its division is a big and continuous failure of its people, who adopted the narration of the nationalists and got pushed into this long term conflict.

Armies, weapons, crisis, growth… and a nonexistent salary,
How beautiful it is, the militarized capitalism!

• It is pretty obvious: The number of troops and military bases that exist in Cyprus are disproportional to its size, but at the same time indicative of its strategic importance in the Eastern Mediterranean and the Middle East. The “National Guard”, the “Turkish Cypriot Security Force”, the “Hellenic Force in Cyprus”, the “Turkish Force in Cyprus”, the British and the American troops and the UN’s multinational force, have transformed the island into a huge barrack, making it one of the most militarized regions of the whole planet.

The recent military agreement between the Cypriot government and Israel dangerously escalates the situation in Cyprus and the wider region. The intention of the Cypriot government to extract hydrocarbons, be it natural gas or oil, without solving the Cyprus problem first, creates a new explosive situation, which automatically leads to a new arms race. So, whilst the public debt and the national deficit increases, whilst wages and pensions are being cut, and public spending, as well as the social welfare and environmental protection services are reduced, the Cypriot government expresses its intention to proceed with purchasing warships worth 100 million euros from Israel, as well as spending tens of millions of euros for the maintenance of old weapons.

The increasing militarization of the police and the use of the anti-terrorist special forces to suppress strikes, bi-communal actions, hunt immigrants and more recently, to control the central prisons, where they replaced the “untrained” guards, is also alarming.

The recent attempt by the government to quietly pass a law that would have enabled the government to use the army as an oppressive force in the internal affairs of the country, is another indication of where we are heading. At the same time that the crisis will marginal more and more segments / parts of the society, the repression would be the only weapon that the system will possess in order to take things under its control. The Cypriot state learns from the failures of other countries and it is getting prepared. As the experiment in Gaza – a prison country – is transferred to the so-called “first world”, the ally state of Israel will be a good teacher. Let us not forget that some members of the EU have already voted laws that allow the use of the army as a repressive measure against demonstrators and rioters, while it is no secret that NATO is preparing its army towards this direction as well.

• The ethnic conflict and the geographical division are the perfect excuse for the rulers to maintain the same peculiar and extended state of exception. This regime tries to expand its power and extend its dominance to every part of our lives. It is sufficient, simply by invoking it, to suspend our labor, social, political and environmental rights, but also to suppress class struggles and mobilizations of all insubordinate pieces of the society, those from the lower classes and the outsiders. During this state of emergency, it is not only our rights that are being violated and our freedom neglected, but even the provisions of “constitutional legitimacy” and the principles of the “rule of law” of the so-called “liberal democracy” are lifted.

The time has come for Nicosia to stop being the place of exclusions and of the excluded. The time has come to abolish all armies and stand together as residents of this island against the attacks of the capital and the nationalists, who poison our lives, our bi-communal ties and our quality of life.

We are calling for everyone to participate in the march for a demilitarized Nicosia on Saturday, 15 of February 2014.

We have reached the end of our tether; we are not obeying you anymore

Eco-Polis | Syspirosi Atakton

Saturday, 15 of February 2014, 14:00
Starting point: Peace Park (Roundabout Markou Drakou)
Αποστρατιωτικοποιημένη Λευκωσία – Demilitarized Nicosia – Askersiz Lefkoşa

Unlivable lives for exemplification, correction, and punishment

The frequency of the recent suicides, or what  seem as suicides, in the prisons of Cyprus, as well as the fact that  almost all the people, who were found dead, or attempted to commit  suicide are migrants, are definitely not random. The combination of the  two facts is not random either.

If these are indeed suicides/suicide attempts within  the context of the agency of the people committing them, that is  prisoners, then we are talking about acts of protest against the  conditions in the prison and of resistance against the power structures  within the prison. They are about the use of the right to  self-determination of one’s body; they are about the choice of death as  an act of resistance against the current structures of prisons. The  measures announced by the director of the prison and the ministry of  justice are only efforts to fully restrict the right of prisoners to  self-determination, and to the choice between life and death.

The fact that  institutions like prisons are called “correctional institutions” is not  random. “Correctional” because they aim to “correct” the people, who are  incarcerated there. To “correct” is to impose to someone “the “correct  way to be,” which is a condition of “reason” and “normality.” The  “correct way to be” is “sanity.” It is not accidental that besides  prisons and detention centres, mental health hospitals are also enlisted  as correctional institutions.

A  characteristic the correctional institutions share is (obligatory)  confinement. Persons under correction are usually not allowed to choose  either the correctional procedure, or their institutionalisation. These  are imposed on them, without them giving their consent, or any  possibility to make a choice, restricting in this way their freedom,  their agency, and their self-determination. It is a judge or a  judiciary, a doctor or a board of doctors that get to decide on and  impose to someone confinement in correctional institutions, either a  prison, or a mental health hospital. The infliction of these  restrictions is under the pretext that this is for the “common good,” or  even for the person’s “own good.” In the case of Cyprus, such decisions  can also be administrative, since detention of migrants for “illegal  stay” are usually based on detention and deportation orders issued by  the migration officer.

An  essential element of the correctional procedure is the isolation of the  persons, who are under correction, from society, cutting them off  society, and eventually marginalising them. Persons under correction are  considered to be flagitious for the rest of the society and their  correction is for the purposes of their “purgation.” In the same manner  correction in the Middle Ages was imposed on persons that were judged as  “sinners” for reasons of “purgation.”

Correction constitutes an  exemplary punishment to ensure that the rest of the people in a society  will also conform. By confining the people considered as “socially  malfunctioning and dangerous” in a correctional institution, not only  the punishment of those people is achieved, but it also sets an example  for the rest of the people within the society. Thus, through the threat  and fear of imprisonment and of isolation from the rest of the society,  the compliance of the society members with the set legal and social  framework and their subjection under its institutions are achieved.  “Malfunctioning and dangerous” are considered to be the persons that do  not fit in the legal and social framework, do not comply with the  current social covenant, and do not obey the institutions.

As  a consequence, even the persons that have never harmed anybody, but do  not fit or do not accept to fit in the existing “boxes” of normativity  are also compelled to correction. Historically, and also in modern  times,  women claiming visibility/agency/autonomy, gay persons, trans  persons, persons with “infectious diseases” (tuberculosis, HIV, etc.),  people with “mental problems,” migrants, and other groups of people  outside the normative framework were and continue to be penalised for  being what they are and forced to correction. Not because they harmed or  because they could harm other people, but because they are considered  to be a threat for the current social system and the current order of  things. Therefore, correction was and still is a means to impose power  and to restrict desire and autonomy. It is not a coincidence that at  times of suppression of uprisings, prisons and mental hospitals become  full with people. And the same happens during war periods.

It  should not therefore come as a surprise that prisons, as correctional  institutions, a tool of exercising power, are proven to be places of  torture for the prisoners, and of corruption for those imposing,  exercising, and protecting power.  The surprise of the Cypriot society  with the recent revelations
regarding the events in the central  prisons is nothing but hypocrisy. We all know that prisons do not offer  any improvements, but rather exist in order to impose authority, by  punishing, exemplifying, isolating. Many choose to ignore this and not  pay attention, but it is not strange that the lives of the persons, who  are in prison become unbearable.

Particularly  unbearable become the lives of those confined in correctional  institutions and who diverge from normativity in more than one ways. So,  women, migrants, homosexual and trans people, people with disabilities,  people with mental care/psychiatric past, and any other person, who  diverges from the social norms, experience their incarceration in  prisons in a particularly violent way. The normativity imposed by  society, continuous to be imposed within correctional institutions. It  is no coincidence that those who committed or attempted to commit  suicide in the central prisons are migrants.

On the contrary,  people who are imprisoned, even for serious crimes (murders, rapes),  but are adapted to normal stereotypes receive more advantageous  treatment during their imprisonment. They have a good relationship with  authority and those who impose it, and they can even undertake the role  of punisher for their account, since they also want to make sure that  they have good reciprocal relationships. As we have been informed, one  of those who attempted suicide in the central prisons was repeatedly  raped from other inmates with the complicity of the guards. We are also  informed that punishment for those imprisoned is often their transfer to  the cells of long-term convicts, who have good relationships with the  guards, and who could abuse them. The shock that this information has  (assumedly) caused is also hypocritical.

“Solutions” being forced by the state with the excuse  to control an “unstable” situation are also hypocritical. In reality,  they take away any remaining self-determination and agency the prisoners  have over their own bodies and lives, in order to completely suppress  them. Measures that have been announced in the last few days include  things like: “the removal from the prisoners’ cells  of all dangerous  objects capable of being used for suicides; installation of special  equipment within the cells to eliminate all the possibilities for the  prisoners to find easy ways to commit suicide; instalment of soft  mattresses around the perimeter of the cells to eliminate the  possibility of the people wanting to commit suicide to hit their head on  the wall, in order to cause their death; to create special places  within the prisons to host people with psychological problems; the  installation of anti-vandalism equipment;” and the reinforcement of the  special police forces squat within the prisons.

There has of course been  no hint of changing the correctional system. As if people  attempting/committing suicide are responsible for such  attempts/suicides. The conditions that are imposed to them in the  prisons, the mistreatment of the prisoners, and the deprivation of their  basic human rights seem not to be taken into account during the  discourse around the latest events within the prisons. The measures, as  expected, are not being placed in order to restrict the reasons that  drive prisoners to commit suicide, but rather to restrict even more the  prisoners and their rights. Depriving them completely from their right  to self-determination, aim to restrict their choice between life and  death, when the life of some people becomes unbearable. And of course,  no one questions the responsibilities of such correctional institutions  that drive people into such deadlocks, where death becomes redemption.

Those measures were announced when a few days  before, the (now former) deputy director of prisons had declared that  the hunger strike conducted by the prisoners “was not a hunger strike,”  but “a denial of a few people (60-70 prisoners) to eat,” in an effort to  quickly silence the protest of the prisoners regarding the prisons’  conditions, the brutal punishments, and the tortures imposed on them.  The former deputy director also tried to reverse the situation driving  the society against the protestors and the prisoners in general,  claiming that the prisoners live better than the rest of the society.

The complete control of the prisoners, their  deprivation of any form of agency, and their complete suppression, seem  to be completed with their phychiatrisation. During the last days,  prisoners are portrayed as persons, who have, or possibly have, mental  health problems, which is where the responsibilities for the frequent  suicides are shifted away. It seems that the system considers that  imprisonment, isolation, torture, abuse, marginalisation, social  rejection, and the absence of any possibility for control over one’s own  life are not enough reasons for someone to desire and pursue death. Of  course, admitting to any of these reasons would basically entail the  need for the abolition of prisons and a radical restructure of the  correctional system – something that would be completely inconvenient  for the authorities. On the other hand, the psychiatrisation of  prisoners has the extra bonus of shifting responsibilities from the  system to the prisoners themselves. In this way, the authorities appear  to have no responsibilities (there are some exceptions of course, in  cases of corruption and “abuse of power”). Furthermore, authority  restores and confirms itself, since it promises to consolidate the  correctional system, as well as the prisoners. Psychiatric monitoring  for the prisoners, even without their consent, taking away any  possibility for agency and self-control over their lives and bodies, and  erasure of any possibility for autonomy. Plus, reinforcing special  police force squad in prisons. Restoration of law and order.  Suppression. Full stop.

The transfer of the  deputy director and the psychiatrist of the prisoners are nothing but  attempts on behalf of the government to disorient the society, since  this “proves” the desire to “reform” prisons. in this way, the entire  correctional system is restored as necessary for ensuring the “common  good” and controlling crime through the repression of violence, making  use of… violence! Crime, however, is not due to the inadequate control  of violence, but to the structures of the capitalist – hierarchical  system. A system that reproduces and fuels violence, in order to confirm  and legalise its own existence and, at the same time, it perceives  imprisoned persons as a site where power inscribes itself, and whose  lives are not worth living. Besides, to exercise power is to exercise  control over the choice to have or to not have agency and  self-determination.

Iperastika – Sispirosi Atakton
Nicosia 18/1/2014

Solidarity call for the recognized refugees on hunger strike for 50 days now.

 

 

Occupy Buffer Zone reflections

Since the turn of 2000s, especially, there has been a shift in the understanding and practice of resistance and struggle. Traditional ways of protesting started to become irrelevant in addressing complex realties of the modern world.  Talking only about the bosses, means of production or alienation in the production process and focusing merely on developing strategies on these matters were not providing a strong ground to stand against the machine. It is now a world of ecological catastrophes, health crises, a world ruled not by governments but banks and their corrupted clients, a world in which people are manipulated with heroic narratives and trapped in their futile pursuit of satisfaction through consumption of “things” and became slaves of the “things”. Today we speak of alienation in a different sense, it’s alienation from the nature, from oneself, from the life itself. What we are dealing with today is less a question of labour and more a question of life and how every sphere of it is in one way or another linked to the subject of unrest. Inevitably, modes of action started to move outside of organizations, establishments, and political parties. Structural shifts in communications pushed forward the emergence of global communities and spread the unrest to an extent that was once unimaginable. In 2011, Occupy Movement marked this transformation in political resistance. It turned the political theory upside down, put ideologies under question. Political action became embedded in the life style, it was a manifestation that political will goes way beyond voting, marching and manifestos, it is now taking active and steady step for what is demanded, embracing alternative ways of living to physically exercise what is desired and revealing all kinds of intrinsic relations that is affecting our lives and so on and so forth.  There are a lot of unanswered theoretical questions about the Occupy Movement but we know now that nothing will ever be the same again.

Global trends tend to reach Cyprus a few years later, except the consumerist ones needless to stress. But we had an exception 2 years ago
exactly on the same day when OWS started. Responding to the global call to take the squares, people from both sides of Cyprus initiated now what we refer as Occupy Buffer Zone. Along with the parallels with the global Occupy movement in terms of its format and composition, OBZ had a unique twist: it was also an anti-border movement exercised on a border. One of the main slogans used at the OBZ is self-explanatory both in the sense of the nature of global Occupy movement and also specifically in the context of Cyprus: We are living the solution.  Theoretical discussion on the Occupy often refers to its function in creation of islands of utopias. Ledra Street/Lokmaci buffer zone witnessed for 7 months an attempt to experience how it would be to live in an un-divided island. It was based on the argument that instead of desperately hoping from the political elite to solve the Cyprus problem one day, why not just transform our demand into practice.

Throughout time, the occupation camp became not only a living space but a space for creation, a space that could generate a common sub-culture. Being divided for 39 years, current generation only had narratives to rely on about the ‘other’. OBZ camp was not only a form of protest; it also provided a ground for redefining the concept of other and challenging the borders created in minds. But it is important to stress that as a form of protest, it brought a whole new perspective to the Cypriot context.  It went beyond temporary reactions to undesired policies, it pointed out and connected the dots between various dynamics that had not been addressed before, it allowed people from across the divide to act, react and produce together consistently, through being visible to the public at all times for 7 months it exhibited the determination of the new generation which is often deemed as “apolitical”. Despite it all OBZ was far from being perfect. There were a lot of internal conflicts, which most basically stemmed from whether or no
t OBZ was a medium to have an influence on the public or whether it was just a squat.

The motivation for initiating OBZ was a vision for a long-term impact that would transcend the camp itself and generate an understanding of solidarity, a sense of community within the wider public. Such an understanding required an all-inclusive approach and ironically it became a destructive factor for the movement. In time there had been an imbalance in terms of quantity between the groups who pursued the initial ideal of OBZ and those who were seeking to exercise a form of authority on the space, as a stance against the so-called authorities. People staying in the camp and those who worked outside the camp became polarized and decision-making process was disrupted by the lack of common vision. Not before long the problems became personal and had a negative impact on people’s motivation and also on public’s approach to the movement. But these dynamics are not very different from the other Occupy examples and today we know it was just a beginning. We know utopias do not exist  as there is no utter harmony in societies. This is a new era for a new kind of political resistance and there are a lot lessons to be learned on the way. Especially the second half of 2013 is showing us a new stage for the Occupy movement in the world and also in Cyprus. Following a year of decentralized action, there is a lot of work put into infrastructural aspects such as communication strategies, synchronizing action globally and establishing tactics that would spread this new culture of resistance to all spheres of the public and mobilise the non-mobilised.  Having enough time to reflect on the mistakes, recover from the conflicts of the learning process, OBZ, too is regenerating itself with a clearer vision and stronger global connections. The next chapter starts here.

An OBZ Activist

*Opinions expressed here are personal reflections of my own and do not necessarily represent OBZ.