FOLKKÖK i solidaritet med Apatris, en anarkistisk själv-organiserad tidning i Grekland.

Ekonomiskt stöd till Apatris, en anarchist själv-organiserad tidning i Grekland.

Plats: Sofielunds Folkets Hus, Rolfsgatan 16

När: söndag 18 juni, 12.30 – 15.00

Veganskt kök (falafel, Cretan rusk salad & mere)

Apatris was born in Heraklion, Crete in Greece in 2009. It was the response of some people to the eviction threats against the local squat Evaggelismos, in the summer of 2008. When the threats stopped, the uprising which took place on December of the same year boosted our ideas into a feasible project. Apatris started as a local anarchist “free press” publication with a circulation of 3000 pcs and it progressed into a nationwide project since June 2013. The publication continues up to date with a circulation of 15000 pcs.

apatris: without a homeland, apatride, apatrido

We see Apatris as a means of spreading the word of the Anarchist/Autonomous/Anti-authoritarian movement everywhere. We act as an amplifier of the different voices in the movement in a critical way and promote pluralism as something positive for participation in fertile discussions, based on mutual respect and leaving out any dogmatic interpretation of the surrounding situation.

Apatris is not a publication edited from anarchists and addressed to anarchists. We are referring to society trying not to be an introvert project. This means that we strive to tackle subjects which also concern people outside radical movements and attempt to draw these people closer to our values.

In Apatris, we do not accept any kind of sponsors, advertisement material, or commodification of our work. Our financial resources consist of benefit bars and parties, contributions of the infoshops and the activist groups which distribute a considerable number of copies, gigs and donation boxes for the economic assistance of our project. Every member of our project participates in a voluntary manner and offers their skills and labor to the movement, without any kind of remuneration in return.

The structure of our project is decentralized so that the local characteristics -after the transition to a nationwide edition- could be preserved. In that sense, Apatris is at the same time a nationwide edition but features strong local characteristics, due to the autonomy of the editorial teams. Until recently, there were seven editorial teams all over Greece which cooperated, discussed, organized, and developed each publication. This number is fluctuating and today is lower, since we strive to live up to the expectation of considering an editorial team as such, only when it fully functioning.

The distribution network of Apatris aims to help small activist groups outside the big cities and the city-center of Athens, to distribute an overview of the present situation in a concise way. One of our main goals is to better organize the distribution of the newspaper so that it becomes a stable source of counter-information that is systematically available to as many neighbourhoods and suburbs of the metropolis and to other cities and villages. Additionally, we try to amplify the voices of the people which cannot be heard, and bring forward and highlight events that are hidden from the newsfeed of Mass Media. So, we share our aspects with correspondences of local and international news, analyses, letters, and original contributions from external partners.

We strongly believe that the DIY activist media must be an active part of the movement and not an external process. That is why we pursue interaction and cooperation in a local level with activist groups, by organizing activities, events, open discussions and presentations and by participating individually or through other political groups in various social struggles.

We opted for a printed edition because we see that the benefits of still using Gutenberg’s methods are manifold. Except for the fact that printing in Greece was for many years cheaper than in the 1980s due to the Crisis (a situation which is rapidly changing due to recent developments), we chose this way to have direct and face to face communication with the people to whom we are distributing and because we realize the importance of having a physical presence in many public spaces. A printed edition is also less ephemeral and less impersonal than the Internet and can target people who have a poor relation with technology and the Internet (remote villages, old people -which tend to be more conservative).

So, apart for the distribution at squats and social centers, we give out the newspaper hand to hand at demonstrations, markets, working places, public facilities, state organizations (as the tax office, the employment office), hospitals, passenger stations, in the street, in free press stands etc. Finally, there is a steadily distribution of the newspaper inside Greek prisons, with remarkable feedback from the inmates (political or not).

Future, potential and perspectives

Since the summer of 2015, Apatris decided to proceed with the creation of book editions. We have witnessed the radical movement’s publishing project rising in the last years, which provides space for fertile political and theoretical discussion and critique. Moreover, book editions help towards a wide diffusion of A/A/A thought in the public. At the same time the publishing and selling books provides a critical supportive structure, which promotes the financing of the project in a more political way- apart from bars and parties.

Additionally, to the publication efforts, the creation and configuration of a website (apatris.info) is also a great bet for us, especially nowadays with the last political changes, in which the counter-information not controlled or affected by the government or other government-friendly circles is noticeably shrinking.

The counter-information projects as a radical movement’s tool at the current situation.

The need of a counter-information project born and raised inside the radical movement was always present, as the mass media, are officially or unofficially ruled by the authorities. Nevertheless, some technological and political changes intensify the need for parts of the radical movement to participate in an organised way in the social battle over information and to expand counter-information to all aspects of everyday life.

What do we stand for?

As a publishing project, we support and seek international cooperation between radical movements. Especially in the field of communication and information we try to cooperate towards the establishment of a web of trust between radical DIY media of different countries, which share as common goals the enforcement of collaboration and the contribution to the advancement of the radical movement.

The direct reporting on riots, uprisings and other radical political events which nowadays have become a common phenomenon in the capitalist metropoles, the exchange of texts and theses from our comrades abroad, who give a more realistic aspect, closer to the movements’ reality, the interviews and the translations of important and notable analyses from and to Apatris as a result of unmediated informing and communication, are of huge value in the age of globalised information. Apatris has already created a cooperation network (national and international) that can become a basic structure for further evolution. All this, bring up the need of creating a strong translators’ network as well.

We strongly believe that this kind of self-organised and unmediated projects must be secured, aided, and spread in society, so that we can take information in our hands and to also use more effectively our power in multiple fronts. In this way, counter- information can expand its role as a tool in even bigger parts of the movement.

Apatris, 2023

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