Photo Essay: Austerity Athens Street Art

Class War Report / Visual Aid / March 17, 2012

By Alexander Zaitchik

A.C.A.B. = “All Cops Are Bastards”

The central Athenian neighborhood of Exarchia is the hub of Greek anarchist activity and a major node in the European anarchist network. Part NYC’s Lower East Side and part Copenhagen’s Christiana, it is home to numerous squat communities and reclaimed people’s parks, as well as some of the city’s hippest cafes and bars. The newest of the anarchist community spaces is called Nosotros, which features radical bands and speakers most nights of the week, including figures associated with the Occupy movement such as David Graeber. Since the 2008 murder of a teenage activist in Exarchia, relations between the locals and police have deteriorated to the point where cops generally stay out of the area, limiting their activities to plainclothes monitoring and stop-and-frisks along the perimeter. The quarter is home to a vibrant political street art scene. Below is a small sampling of the tags, stencils, and painted images found on its walls.

Check out Alexander Zaitchik’s accompanying article: Letter From Athens: Inside the Greek Crisis with Anarchists and the Radicalized Ex-Middle-Class

“I don’t exist for your entertainment”

The memorial for 15-year old Alexandros Grigoropoulos, who was assassinated by a policeman on December 6, 2008

ANTIFA: The war is a class war




The letters in yellow spray spell a word that describes the state in weather where there is no wind at all.

The first line of the Communist Anthem: “Rise up, damned of the Earth”

To the dreamers without dreams

Logo of Anarchism in the middle and IMF on top, then (clockwise) the euro logo, New Democracy party, PASOK party and EU’s stars.

“Eat the Rich” (In Greek letters but sounding like the pronunciation in English)

Ideology Kills

“We live like kids our unfulfilled adventures”

“Cops, Pigs, Murderers”

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25 Comments

Add your own

1. euro-dude | March 17th, 2012 at 1:43 pm
The Exiled … perhaps becoming the vanguard chronicle of the European Revolution of 2012
2. Doug | March 17th, 2012 at 2:02 pm
Christiania’s in Copenhagen, not Amsterdam.
The Exile: a bunch of 40+ year old commies pretending to be “down with the kids.”
3. rothko | March 17th, 2012 at 2:14 pm
Good post. Christiana’s in Copenhagen, though.
4. Letov | March 17th, 2012 at 3:41 pm
Wicked.
5. Cum | March 17th, 2012 at 4:19 pm
Some really good ones
6. Hick | March 17th, 2012 at 4:27 pm
Amazing. They are still the center of the artistic universe.
Very hard to keep a crafty, inventive people down.
7. Mark Games | March 17th, 2012 at 5:36 pm
exile editor club is like handsome gentleman club
danke schoen for the pretty pictures
8. hazey | March 17th, 2012 at 8:18 pm
On the “Future? What can we eat today?” bit The shirt reads “Merry Crises and Happy New Fear 2010”
Nice shots.
9. Steve Patriot | March 17th, 2012 at 9:03 pm
Your howls of dissent won’t be in vain, Mark.
One day, the world will know about this, all of these reservoirs of dissent on the Internet that alludes them.
I’ll see to it, and I’ll risk everything- freedom, life, comfort- to illuminate this most glistening aurora beam of lights in this shroud of darkness.
Because I’d rather be dead than languish in a community “college” regurgitating terminology in an hellish stasis of comatose maintenance rehearsal. With a canyon wide smile on my face, I’d do it. Because whatever the bastards that immiserate us throw at me, it can’t be worse than the fecal, loveless, and humiliating existence of a service clerk wondering if I’m ever going to find a place with other pensive minds…
When I get a megaphone, my Guy Fawkes suit, and the free speech circle in Mizzou… the world will know.
10. robotslave | March 17th, 2012 at 9:54 pm
This is kinda cool.
It would be way cooler if I didn’t know anything about the neo-nazis and racist soccer ultras who’ve adopted the ACAB slogan, and done a lot more to popularize it than your average anglophone anarchist on the Grand Tour.
Have you seen Italy yet? You absolutely *must* do Rome, my dear…
11. ishmael | March 17th, 2012 at 10:38 pm
because if banksy proved anything, a vibrant street art community is an essential condition for the revolution.
12. Vas | March 18th, 2012 at 1:02 am
Movie
http://vimeo.com/33854206
13. Virgil | March 18th, 2012 at 2:28 am
Fuck I wish I could be an ironic cunt like #10 and #11 instead of thinking Zaitchik is a good bloke for actually doing some fucking reporting. But hey, who am I? Not an ironic Ferris Bueller cool-guy hooligan detector.
14. Strophe | March 18th, 2012 at 9:34 am
@11
Somewhat tangential to your line of inquiry is question of mine: does OWS have any songs? I certainly can’t think of any, but I’m a recluse and wouldn’t have much idea unless it happened to be covered in the news.
I can’t imagine how OWS can succeed sans song. Song implies united ideology and identity–a commitment to the same set of goals. Song reminds the protester why he is there and shames the man-on-the-street for not participating.
15. Hick | March 19th, 2012 at 12:09 am
#14 that’s a good point. The 1960s had iconic songs, “Tin soldiers and Nixon’s coming” and all that. And a bunch of rehashed protest songs going back, some of them, to WWI. And some fine, singable ones too. As my age during that period was in the single digits, I appreciated that.
So where are the songs?
16. Hick | March 19th, 2012 at 12:12 am
To give an idea of the cool shit to sing back in the late 60’s/early 70’s, here’s a ditty, to the tune of “Frere Jacques”
Marijuana!
Marijuana!
LSD!
LSD!
Doctors make it, teachers take it,
Why don’t we!
Why don’t we!
OF course we had a ton of our own little-kid subversive songs but no little kid made that one up, we had no idea what the F we were singing about, only that it drove grown-ups up the wall and made fun of teachers, somehow. Good enough!
17. Cum | March 19th, 2012 at 3:55 am
There are a bunch of videos of live performances by famous musicians performing for Occupy. I just saw one with Tom Morello in an IWW hat. There’s gonna be a big OWS album with a crazy list of bands including DEVO.
18. manure manoeuvre | March 19th, 2012 at 9:23 am
Songs !! Yes, great idea. Something melodically simple, but gripping. Straighforward verse that’s easy to translate … OK, I’m on it …
19. jimmythehyena | March 19th, 2012 at 10:58 am
@ Doug he didn’t say that Christiana was in Amsterdam. And why be ageist about it? Just because somebody was around during the mortage bond boom of the eighties or the dot com boom of the ninties doesn’t mean they’re the enemies. Maybe they just couldn’t go along with the program. Maybe it felt to morally and intellectually bankrupt and one had the feeling that it was going to end up materially bankrupt as well. And whats more I doubt that many of exiles fans are “commies”. Most of us probably think of Marxist Leninist thinking doesn’t hold many solutions because were dealing with technocrats hyper capitalism and not industrial capitalism now.
20. Fischbyne | March 19th, 2012 at 3:16 pm
I take this and other articles to mean Exiled won’t be asking Chris Hedges to contribute any time soon.
21. the1 | March 19th, 2012 at 6:36 pm
14:
Anti-flag and Atari Teenage Riot have songs that reference occupy. Both have a strong anti-capitalist identity.
22. Mr. Bad | March 19th, 2012 at 10:28 pm
Fuck this bullshit where is the article defending that fat fuck Mike Daisey? He’s taking one for the team and all the faggot journo’s are running for cover because he had “an agenda”. Oh no, won’t some big handsome former Russian whore-fucker come save his blubbery baby ass? Get fucked.
23. Numerius Negidius | March 22nd, 2012 at 12:00 am
14:
As far as OWS songs go, might I suggest Rubber Bullets, by 10cc? The lyrics are fairly appropriate and it’s a damn catchy song:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-7ktZyll7Lg
“I love to hear those convicts squeal/It’s a shame these slugs ain’t real!” etc.
24. robotslave | March 25th, 2012 at 1:40 am
@13 – Virgil, you’re right, the problems with a slogan associated with racist groups, or with the phenomenon of protest-tourism on the left, if indeed there are any such problems, would surely dry up and blow away if only we could get rid of all this cunting *irony*.
25. Buddy | March 29th, 2012 at 8:08 pm
We be playing a trick on you, Germany.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zvl9N9GdraQ