On March 9, an Iranian national granted political asylum by Greece, posted a provocative message on an anarchist website, calling for the movement to arm illegal immigrants at the Greek-Turkey border with weapons with which they can do battle with the authorities.
Abtin Parsa, the self-proclaimed “anarchist refugee” said that the “…most useful solidarity to the immigrants who are at the border is to arm them because the answer to bullets should be bullets back and this is the only way to open the border for all the immigrants. We as immigrants should fight for what we need and at the moment, our first need is survival, so we must destroy those who are killing us; we have nothing to lose but our fear.”
The provocative call will only inflame anti-immigrant sentiment given the generosity and hospitality Greece granted to Abtin Parsa and many like him.
Following is Abtin Parsa’s full statement:
We are in a war situation, some of us were killed, some of us are in prisons, some of us were pushed to escape and are being hidden and many of us are under a lot of pressure. We should accept that resistance against state and capitalism is not the easy way of life but we have no choice: either we resist together and survive, or the state and capitalism will kill all of us one by one.
After months being under watch, follow and harassment by anti terrorist unit, on February 13, when the oppression did target me and those who have contact with me more than in the past, I did take a political decision to be hidden. I am not in a safe place and no one is in a safe place because in this neo liberal capitalism system, there is no safe place, so being hidden inside 4 walls does not mean you are safe.
In this period of time, there is a historical and political responsibility for the movement to defend the armed resistance. The goal of state repression is first to pacifize and in the end to destroy any kind of resistance, because the state does not want the oppressed to fight back. The state talks about peace but this peace is nothing but monopolizing the violence in the hand of state. The state is trying to make us unable to return the violence, but the oppressed should defend themselves by any means that they understand; otherwise there is no survival.
In the summer of 2018, when the state sent cops to Sterefi Hill, it was very clear for us that first, the public spaces will be under attack and the next step of the state will be our private spaces, which the anti terrorist operation in November of 2019, clearly showed. The development of state repression from 2012 to 2020 is a proof to us that if we are more pacifistic and make less resistance actions, the repression by the state becomes more and this is the point of why the movement should defend the armed resistance. I believe the golden time of the anarchist movement in Greece was in the decade of 1970, when many youths joined the movement, which had continuation until the decade of 1990, but the decade of 1990 was a historical moment to make the social revolution, when it was the time for the working class to stop work and makes riots in the streets, but since it never happened, a political disappointment arrived inside the anarchist movement, which pushed many comrades of the anarchist movement to joined the leftist parties. I believe this political change of the anarchist movement was a beginning of pacifist characteristic for the actions of the resistance movement. In 2008, simultaneous with the murder of Alexis G. by cops and in 2012, the economic crisis, the movement found more social bases to fight back violently against the state, but it was not like the social bases, which there were in the decade of 1990, so 2008 and 2012 could not became a social revolution.
The immigrants are the first target to get attacked by the state because we as immigrants are the must weak people in the society; that is why any time the state wants it can attack us, and in order to give legitimacy to its attacks, the state criminalizes us through its media. The real robbers are capitalists and the real criminals are politicians. We are not dangerous for the society; those cops are dangerous for the society and the only terrorists are the state and capitalism.
Unfortunately, must of the solidarities that the locals give to immigrants is based on victimizing the immigrants and in a reformist way. I believe the immigrants crises cannot be solved by changing the laws because capitalism and states created the immigrants crises, so as long as the creator of immigrants crises exist, the crises exist too and that is why the solidarities to the immigrants should have anti-state and anti-capitalist characteristics. In my opinion, at the moment, solidarity means attack and we need a movement of solidarities that have anti-capitalism and anti-state characteristics in Greece. We must attack the interests of state and capitalism in solidarity with immigrants.
Since a few days ago, thousands of immigrants are in the border of Greece/Turkey and try to get inside EU, but the cops and soldiers used war bullets and tear gas against immigrants. While I believe we should not get inside the political game of the states, right now, the most useful solidarity to the immigrants who are at the border is to arm them because the answer to bullets should be bullets back and this is the only way to open the border for all the immigrants. We as immigrants should fight for what we need and at the moment, our first need is survival, so we must destroy those who are killing us; we have nothing to lose but our fear.
We as immigrants who are inside EU, we should not be silent and we should come to the streets together with locals against what is going on at the border of Turkey/Greece. I know many of us had a hard life in the counries that we came from, but we should not think individually for our personal goals. This situation remind me of a poem in the time when Nazis had the power in Germany: When they came for socialists, I did nothing because I was not a socialist; when they came for communists, I did nothing because I was not a communist; when they came for Jews, I did nothing because I was not Jewish; and in the end, when they came for me, there was nobody to defend me. I believe when they are finished with immigrants at the border, they will come to us as immigrants in the EU.
Abtin Parsa 3/6/2020
