Skip Nav | Home | Mobile | Editorial Guidelines | Mission Statement | About Us | Contact | Help | Security | Support Us

World

Slightly tear gazed - the Athens European Social Forum

Fabian Frenzel | 20.05.2006 18:08 | WSF 2006 | Globalisation | Migration | Social Struggles | Sheffield | World

From 4th to 7th May in Athens the European Social Forum met for the 4th time. Around 20.000 activists came together to celebrate resistance, form stronger links and protest against neo-liberal policy all across the continent and beyond. Up to 100.000 joined the concluding demonstration. Police used tear gaz and arrested several activists in clashes near Greek governement buildings and the American and British embassies.

Euroforum installation in Athens
Euroforum installation in Athens

Forum area
Forum area

forum the insider's pov
forum the insider's pov

complex issues - simple solutions
complex issues - simple solutions

Internal social politics
Internal social politics

NGOs?
NGOs?

symbolic action
symbolic action

Preparing for demo
Preparing for demo

Migrants right bloc
Migrants right bloc

on the demo
on the demo

burning car near police headquarters
burning car near police headquarters

on the march
on the march

in front of greek parliament (one is still allowed to protest there)
in front of greek parliament (one is still allowed to protest there)

same procedure....
same procedure....

...as every year, james!
...as every year, james!


Euro-Diversity

100s of activists from Northern Africa, Russia, the Balkans, Turkey and the Middle East ensured the diversity of perspectives on Europe and the hosting groups from the Greek social forum managed to mobilize thousands of local activists. While the Stalinist communists in Greece oppose the Social Forum as „essentially American“, several autonomist groups held their own meetings parallel to the forum. Yet in difference to London, where Trozkist and populist labour-lefties dominated the organizing process, rendering the autonomous spaces the only real democratic (and interesting) part of the forum, in Greece the forum itself proved to be openly organized and therefore the place to be, while the four separated autonomous and anarchist meetings (all opposing each other) were hardly visited and rather insignificant.

Social Forum Kitsch
The usual Social Forum Kitsch prevailed on the large site of the forum, a former airport area, including delegations from national tourism boards advertising their countries as prime destinations and a range of internal interventions, demonstrations of various groups inside the forum (rather than outside!). In the same time, NGOs, local activists and campaigns presented their projects. The networking process of the program group proved to be a full success. Various groups working on similar issues were organising their thematic axes in advance thereby avoiding parallel discussions on the same issues.

Massive Demo
The program remained massive, though feasible, including a nice proportion of action and a massive demo, some said of 100.000 people that also caused slight disturbances. Several outlets of global chains got trashed in the course of the march, a few cars were burned and the police tear gazed the demo whenever it stopped for too long. Yet – as Greek activists were pointing out – the police was relatively passive in order to not give impressions of violent behaviour to the international audience. The assembly at the end of the forum made significant decisions for further European mobilisation, specifically in regards to migrant’s rights and the opposition to war.

Migrants Rights: Euro-African Day of Action on 7th October 2006
Migrant rights and the issue of Migration were core themes at the European Social Forum in Athens. While in a variety of workshops the knowledge of African and European activists and researchers was shared and enriched, migrants and supporters also took to the street in action, occupying a police station in Athens, in which foreigner were being held without trial and marching in a strong block at the front of the massive demonstration of the social forum.

The Assembly of the Movements of the 4th European Social Forum called for a days of action in support of migrants:
„We appeal for a international day of action and mobilization the 7th of October 2006 in Europe and Africa, for a European unconditional legalization and equal rights to all migrants; for the closure of all detention centres in Europe, for the stop to externalization, for the stop to deportations; against the precariousness and for the uncoupling of the link between resident permit and the labour contract, for a residence citizenship.“ (From the declaration,  http://athens.fse-esf.org/)

Fabian Frenzel

Publish

Publish your news

Do you need help with publishing?

/regional publish include --> /regional search include -->

World Topics

Afghanistan
Analysis
Animal Liberation
Anti-Nuclear
Anti-militarism
Anti-racism
Bio-technology
Climate Chaos
Culture
Ecology
Education
Energy Crisis
Fracking
Free Spaces
Gender
Globalisation
Health
History
Indymedia
Iraq
Migration
Ocean Defence
Other Press
Palestine
Policing
Public sector cuts
Repression
Social Struggles
Technology
Terror War
Workers' Movements
Zapatista

Kollektives

Birmingham
Cambridge
Liverpool
London
Oxford
Sheffield
South Coast
Wales
World

Other UK IMCs
Bristol/South West
London
Northern Indymedia
Scotland

Server Appeal Radio Page Video Page Indymedia Cinema Offline Newsheet

secure Encrypted Page

You are viewing this page using an encrypted connection. If you bookmark this page or send its address in an email you might want to use the un-encrypted address of this page.

If you recieved a warning about an untrusted root certificate please install the CAcert root certificate, for more information see the security page.

IMCs


www.indymedia.org

Projects
print
radio
satellite tv
video

Africa

Europe
antwerpen
armenia
athens
austria
barcelona
belarus
belgium
belgrade
brussels
bulgaria
calabria
croatia
cyprus
emilia-romagna
estrecho / madiaq
galiza
germany
grenoble
hungary
ireland
istanbul
italy
la plana
liege
liguria
lille
linksunten
lombardia
madrid
malta
marseille
nantes
napoli
netherlands
northern england
nottingham imc
paris/île-de-france
patras
piemonte
poland
portugal
roma
romania
russia
sardegna
scotland
sverige
switzerland
torun
toscana
ukraine
united kingdom
valencia

Latin America
argentina
bolivia
chiapas
chile
chile sur
cmi brasil
cmi sucre
colombia
ecuador
mexico
peru
puerto rico
qollasuyu
rosario
santiago
tijuana
uruguay
valparaiso
venezuela

Oceania
aotearoa
brisbane
burma
darwin
jakarta
manila
melbourne
perth
qc
sydney

South Asia
india


United States
arizona
arkansas
asheville
atlanta
Austin
binghamton
boston
buffalo
chicago
cleveland
colorado
columbus
dc
hawaii
houston
hudson mohawk
kansas city
la
madison
maine
miami
michigan
milwaukee
minneapolis/st. paul
new hampshire
new jersey
new mexico
new orleans
north carolina
north texas
nyc
oklahoma
philadelphia
pittsburgh
portland
richmond
rochester
rogue valley
saint louis
san diego
san francisco
san francisco bay area
santa barbara
santa cruz, ca
sarasota
seattle
tampa bay
united states
urbana-champaign
vermont
western mass
worcester

West Asia
Armenia
Beirut
Israel
Palestine

Topics
biotech

Process
fbi/legal updates
mailing lists
process & imc docs
tech