As long as there are those who are lost in battle, we will exist to continue the war
And when we die, we die like stars scattering light. Like that light that shone a year before the explosives explosion in the Ampelokipi apartment on 10/31, when the anarchist armed fighter Kyriakos Xymitiris was walking the last part of his journey, where everything is condensed into a moment, where his revolutionary consciousness aligns with the desire to put an end to this aging world that feeds on his flesh.
Filled with immense comradeship, determination and with no inclination to retreat, he committed himself to the struggle with a vision of freedom. With clear eyes, comrade Kyriakos Xymitiris made no concessions to emotion, he loved life, honouring it with every breath he took. Both in Berlin and in Athens, he participated in all the fields of struggle indiscriminately. In rallies and marches against gentrification, in anti-fascist and anti-patriarchal patrols, in mass poster pastings, in militant defences of occupations, in struggles against colonialism and prisons.
He stood firm in the convictions of anarchy. In this suffocating world built on powers that strangle the wild beauty of unbridled freedom, on predatory policies, on death politics and wars that Western centres set up in the countries of the “third world” by stepping on corpses, on cynical confessions of “whoever does not adapt, dies”, comrade Kyriakos Xymetiris did not turn his gaze away. In this world of manufactured emotions, standardized behaviours, social contracts, mass apathy, comrade Kyriakos Xymetiris lived uncompromisingly in the here and now. In a context of intensifying authoritarianism and militarisation, growing insecurity and widespread impoverishment, comrade Kyriakos Xymetiris achieved his own transcendence, denied his social privileges and assumed responsibility.
At a time when friendly relations are criminalised by filling pages of lengthy indictments, where systematic imprisonments try to send a resounding message of criminal terrorism, where the judicial mechanism shows its teeth to poor devils and turns its gaze away from state-capitalist crimes, comrade Kyriakos proved that the strategy of repression does not intimidate revolutionary consciences. At a time when the movement is experiencing a setback, from the internalization of repression, adaptability and integration, comrade Kyriakos Xymitiris decided not to compromise and to contribute to the historical shaping of subversive events. In defiance of the times, he looked at the path of political and revolutionary responsibilities. Armed with courage and determination, he chose to respond to the violence of domination.
His priority was the preservation of the revolutionary tradition of specific means of struggle, which over time had become inactive.
Against the monopoly of the violence of power, he responded by choosing liberating non-violence as a means to end the suffering experienced by the greater part of humanity. Comrade Kyriakos Xymitiris sharpened the dialectic and refused to accept that those who hold power are the only legitimate exponents of violence. He fought without guarantees, without watertight and safe conditions, with soul, faith and devotion.
Because it is a war. A class and social war. And for comrade Kyriakos Xymitiris, inaction did not even exist as a possibility.
In this war, choosing life, he fell fighting. His death is therefore an affirmation of life, and the preservation of his revolutionary memory is anything but a neutral process. It is a thorn in the side of oblivion and a crack in the imposed history of the rulers. It is part of our own struggle, our present and our future. It is living history. A history that was built on the smiles and conspiratorial gazes of our own people, our own friends, our own comrades.
And if some never returned, they live among us in every breath of freedom. And if some fell in battle, they stand by us in every action we take. And if some left early, they walk before us and pave the way for us. And they are all those who have filled the inkwell of revolutionary history with their blood. We may not have walked beside them, but we had walked alongside them. We may not have chosen the same path, but we were looking at the same sky. Because we had chosen resistance, the revolutionary vision, the hatred of this world and the love of life. And their subversive memory acts like fuel to our fires, like ink in our texts, like slogans in our marches and like stones in our pockets, giving meaning to their death, calling them for another battle. Again and again…
It is we who must preserve their memory, remember their explosive action and their sharpened determination. It is we who must transform common mourning into anger and aggressive formation. It is we who must give something for those who gave everything.
Let us transform October into a month of remembrance and insurgent struggle. Let us proudly stand next to our comrade Kyriakos Xymitiris through actions and interventions, through posters and barricades, through events and conspiracies. Let us keep his memory alive, defend his choices, make sure that he remains PRESENT.
Let us therefore create moments of anarchist expression by breaking the norm. Let us question the myth of state omnipotence and social peace by proposing solidarity, equality and freedom, let us overcome our limits, unfolding our subversive dispositions militantly on the street. Let us clash with the cannibalistic system by experiencing moments that take our breath away. Let us defend our agendas in practice, claiming life instead of survival, comradeship instead of alienation, freedom instead of submission, conflict instead of assimilation.
It is up to those who feel part of themselves to stand by Kyriakos and manifest in every possible and unlikely way the rupture with the world of power.
And our own hearts, from our own womb, will accompany you in every battle. Again and again…
We will never be the same again.
We must change deeply
The way things came
When comrades die
We mourn
When comrades die
We take revenge
When comrades die
We ask why
We must change deeply
The way things came
*poem by the Weather Underground after an explosion in a New York City residence in which Diana, Ted, and Terry, members of the Weather, died
Dimitra Zarafeta,
Marianna Manoura,
Korydallos Women’s Prison
———
via: athens.indymedia
Translated by Act for freedom now!
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