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LAMBROS FOUNDAS
The struggle of all of us who struggle against any form of power, who “are anxious” for every moment not to be lost, and who preserve stubbornly the belief that we are not incapable of building a free and power-less world, is as far from any sort of mythology as the earth from the moon. This struggle had and has innumerable dead, hostages but also people who quit because they loose their hopes or they conform as power found a “small” or “big” price to buy them off. All those who, therefore, all looking for hagiographies, for martyrs or for saviours, for heroes, or for “holy monsters” are no different from those who do not loose a chance to point with their finger the “adventurists”, the “lost sheep”, the “suspiciously diverging”, the politically “forever lost”. Both the “transcedental beings” glorified by the former, and the “extremists” from which the latter distance themselves are consumable. In both cases the issue is forgetfulness, despite the former or the latter evangelising the opposite. The “ecstatics” talk about “the sacrificed”, while the others demarcate of the limits of “loss” with political piety. It is equally insignificant if that converging is achieved due to fanaticism or illusions, naiveness or purposefulness. for reasons of political survival and projection or of dogmatic exercises. The “conficting” voices above are yelling in order to convince that they are enemies, but their trick had hide itself with great difficulty.
Be it. The “play” is sad and a thousand times rehearsed, but known things always convey “certainty/security”. Always? Or perhaps not? The words below and all of the above are not the product of some obligation or duty. Nor are they part of some revolutionary necrology. They are far away and hostile to any effort of mythologisation, reclaiming, intervention or distancing, they are against the mud and the devaluation that power is trying to channel via the publication of the identity and photo of a dead “terrorist” after a clash with cops in Dafni.
Lambros Foundas, who fell dead, during the exchange of fire with the crew of a patrol car in the area of Dafni, is known for his anarchist activity. He participated as a high school teacher in social practices and a bit later in the Anarchist Group Black Thorn that published the journal Roads of Rage. He was active in protest marches, demos, social clashes, fly-posting, conversations and happenings. He was one of those thousands of young people who at that time did not enter any party youth group, who participated in the pupil’s occupations and clashes after the assassination of the teacher Nikos Temboneras in Patras, who were inspired by the insurrectionary events of January 1991, but also by the anarchist opinions and practices, which they made their own with a liveliness which words are too poor to express. The Anarchist Group Black Thorn until its disolvement participated in the Collaboration of Anarchist Groups and Individuals for Social Solidarity and Multiform Action. During the Polytechnic occupation of 1995, which took place on the anniversary of the 1973 uprising, Lambros Foundas was amongst the 504 arrested by the repressive state forces that invaded on the morning of 18 November 1995 inside the Athens Polytechnic. He was thus amongst the young people of his “generation” who the politically “correct” ones took haste to characterise “lost”. He was amongst those comrades who chose a side and “traveled” the 1990s decade from demonstration to demonstration, from barricade to barricade, in pationate solidarity towards any social sector that chose to confront power, bearing each their own mistakes and rights, their difference and their stuborness, making a liar of any power that wanted to portray them as “passers by” of the social struggles. Of course there were also such kind of people. With Lambros since then we have found ourselves so many times next to each other in demonstrations, clashes and in the barricades.
We thus believe unwaveringly that what the struggling people leave behind is ALL THAT CONTRIBUTE REALLY AND NOT SUPERFICIALLY to the process of liberation from the bonds of oppression and exploitation. This is their heritage that is beyond their individual needs, decisions or choices. Because the means are not a goal in themselves, they do not separate those who struggle, but they liberate possibilities; they do not make saints out of those who choose this or that form, nor do they elevate them filling them with decorations. There are no generally and abstractly unjustly lost comrades. Nor is it important in these cases to look for operational errors. Equally however the logic that explanations are the privilege of hieratic councils, of the initiated or of some sublime internal affairs is not good for us. Nor can our answer to those who weave scenarios can our answer start and finish with the saying “losses are a necessary evil”. Our positions should be clear and sound.
We close by bidding Lambros farewell with an indian wish (and certainty): next time (we meet) it will be better!
ANARCHIST ARCHIVE OF ATHENS
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