Greek students against “black colonels”: how November 17 became university freedom day

Greek students against the “Black Colonels”:
How November 17 became University Freedom Day

Can a university be free of politics if it is not free of police?

Editor of moloko plus and co-chairman of the Union of Journalists Pavel Nikulin, in his column, reflects on how the right of extraterritoriality is related to the discussion about “a university outside of politics” and recalls the speech of Greek students against the dictatorship of the “Black Colonels”.

The column was prepared based on a lecture given by the author at the “University in a Pit” event , held on August 30 at the Sakharov Center.

Disclaimer: the opinion of the author of the column may not coincide with the opinion of the editors.

I am writing this column based on a short lecture I gave at the Sakharov Center. I was preparing a lecture for a completely different place. I, like many of you, had to be in the Pit - an open public space where the cops and city authorities forbade us to gather. They told us no, we agreed and left. They fenced off the pit and brought in cop equipment. Then the cops were brought to us, to Sakharovsky. It seems that some operative from the center for countering extremism listened to my speech. Nothing. It will be useful for him.

Before giving my lecture, I was walking on a pleasant summer night in the Moscow State University area. You probably know that this university has a simply gigantic territory on which there is a weather station, an observatory, a botanical garden and a bunch of laboratories that constantly produce sounds worthy of a good industrial album. I even found a demonstration area with different types of lawns and two rotting Volga cars.

But what impressed me most on the territory of Moscow State University were the cops.

In a couple of hours of walking, I met five patrols from the local police department, which is conveniently located in the main building of Moscow State University. Stepping away from the Russian context, I understand that there is nothing scary in the presence of police on the territory of the university. However, it is not very safe for a Russian resident to distance himself from the Russian context for a long time. I won’t lie and say that I see the cops not as people responsible for my life and health, but as rapists, sadists and murderers.

I am writing these lines not because I decided on the pages of a student publication to incite hatred towards this professional community, which, among other things, is known for its vulnerability (blogger Vladislav Sinitsa was recently sent to prison for 5 years for a tweet about the children of security forces), but because I already work in the press I’m 10 years old and I can read court verdicts, reports from the Investigative Committee and the prosecutor’s office.

I am writing this because I still have the habit of reading the news and I know that in Anapa the cops raped a minor athlete, in Bryansk a guy severely beaten by a cop died without waking up from a coma, and in Buryatia he was given a suspended sentence (in contrast to the sentence of Sinitsa this news looks monstrous) sentence for the cops who abused the detainees: they threw them up to the ceiling, choked them and hit them in the face with a toilet brush.

And these same people in uniform patrol the territory of Moscow State University, drink tea in their department and feel very comfortable there. Sometimes it seems to me that I am even more comfortable than the students, who, in theory, should feel like masters of this territory. At your leisure, take an interest in how security is organized inside this university.
- frameworks, security, control, supervision and all this, as we understand, is not for student safety, but rather for the safety of walls and property.

This is how I started my lecture. I asked myself a question: why are there cops walking around the territory of the Russian university, and on the territory of the Greek Polytechnic University [ Athens Polytechnic University . — editor's note ] - no? Why is it that in Athens the sweetish smell of marijuana wafts through the territory of the Polytechnic University, students can drink a couple of beers and go to a concert they organized, and the dormitories of Russian universities can be turned upside down during a police raid?

I think I know the answer to this question. In order to answer it, you just need to turn to Greek history, and not the ancient one, in which three hundred Spartans die at Thermopylae or the Athenians defeat the Persians at Marathon, but quite recent.

In 1967, a military junta, better known as the junta of the “black colonels,” came to power in Greece through a military coup (and in 1999 it became known that not without the help of the United States). Greece's politics at that time were not doing well. The country suffered for more than 30 years from a protracted crisis caused by the confrontation between republicans, monarchists and the military, and experienced Nazi occupation and a civil war between the forces of the communist underground resistance and the returning government in exile. The atmosphere of the Greek 1967 is best conveyed by the film Zeta , directed by Costa-Gavras.

The government, relying on conservatives and reactionaries, is trying to fight the left opposition. The authorities stage an assassination attempt on the life of a communist leader, an opposition figure and a presidential candidate. When it becomes clear that the participation of the top government in the murder cannot be hidden, a military coup is organized.

The Greek junta was a rather unpleasant phenomenon; its leaders began to fight the “communist danger”, by which they meant literally everything that did not fit into the framework of their ideas - for example, Western rock music. Greek women were prohibited from wearing skirts higher than 15 centimeters from the floor. Literature and music were censored. Greece's relations with its “Western partners” have deteriorated.

Repression? Human rights violations? Of course. A junta is a junta.

At the end of 1973, Greek authorities decided to intervene in university elections. Student unions protested and occupied the territory of the Polytechnic University of Athens (Polytechnio) on November 14th. From the territory of the Polytechnic they declared a fight against the government. Of course, they didn’t have telegram, Instagram or Twitter then, but the students approached the uprising creatively and assembled a radio station in one of the laboratories.

“Polytechnio speaking! People of Greece, Polytechnio carries the flag of our struggle and your struggle, our common struggle against dictatorship and for democracy!” - with this slogan, partisan radio burst onto the airwaves.

Thousands of students and workers began to flock to the university. In one of the issues of moloko plus we cited the main slogans of the student uprising: “Bread. Education. Freedom”, “People, break your chains!”, “USA out!”, “Down with the junta”, “Down with fascism”. Banners were hung from the windows of the university, and graffiti was painted on the walls. Students, and opponents of the junta who joined them, passed leaflets to the windows of passing trolleybuses and cars. In the center of Athens, barricades began to be erected, and students fought with cops. Shots were heard. The police were unable to cope with the rebels. On the night of November 16, the army intervened. Tanks moved toward the campus and the university was cut off from power. For some time, students coped with the help of university generators. Shortly before the assault, the radio went on the air for the last time.

The voice of a young man called the military “brothers” and asked not to attack the students. The "brothers" did not listen.

In the early morning of November 17, one of the tanks demolished the steel gates, and a clearing of the university began, during which 24 people were killed, more than a thousand were wounded, and hundreds were imprisoned.

The uprising was drowned in blood, but the junta lasted less than a year after that. The power of the “black colonels” ended in 1974 after an unsuccessful geopolitical adventure - in an effort to make Hellas great again, they organized a putsch in Cyprus. The plans were for a small victorious war and the unification of all Greeks in one state. It didn’t turn out very well: the final solution to the Cyprus issue did not take place, the island was divided into Greek and Turkish parts.

Since the restoration of democracy, universities enjoy broad autonomy, and rebel students are revered as martyrs. The demolished gates still lie on the territory of the Polytechnic University. Not far from them, a monument was erected in honor of the rebel students - a large stone head, which is buried in flowers on November 17 of each year.

Another tribute to the memory of students: since the restoration of democracy in Greece, universities have perhaps the most important privilege, in my opinion, of extraterritoriality. Police can only enter the university with special permission. (In addition to the obvious advantages, there are also problematic aspects. For example, if you are unlucky enough to die on a Friday evening on the campus of a university, then most likely the police will come to your body only on Monday, as was the case on the university campus in Thessaloniki, where my friend studied) .

The extraterritoriality of universities is used not only by students, but by anyone in general. I even came across the phrase “academic refuge.” If you are Greek, you have unresolved conflicts with the police, and you need to hide, you can run to the university.

By the way, this is not only a privilege, but also a long tradition. Those persecuted by the authorities have previously sought refuge in religious cults, which in a sense makes the University a sacred place and isolated from politics. Here it is necessary to clarify that since we live in Russia, by politics I, of course, mean, first of all, a police baton. And so far the protesters have only been able to hide from her in Orthodox churches .

I myself was hiding on the territory of that same Polytechnic University. The streets of the left district of Exarchia, surrounding the Polytechnio, were shrouded in tear gas and smoke, Molotov cocktails were flying from behind the walls at the Greek cops, and new Molotovs were being made in the small building where the musicians had performed a week ago.

The police stood at the border like vampires who could not cross the threshold of a house without an invitation.

The atmosphere of that day is best conveyed by a video directed by Romain Gavras (son of the author of “Zeta”) featuring Kanye West and Jay-Z. Watch the video for the song No church in the wild at your leisure and pay attention to the chevrons with the Greek flag on the police uniforms.

Fire, smoke, pyrotechnics, violence. Faces in gas masks and motorcycle helmets. Burning cars. This is not just a retelling of the clip. This is how students celebrate the anniversary of November 17th. And not only at the Polytechnic University, but throughout all of Greece: in Athens, Thessaloniki, Patras.

On other days, in the evenings at universities you can come across concerts organized by students. For example, anti-fascist hip-hop in Greek, English, Turkish, Maltese and Serbo-Croatian languages, or punk rock, which raises money for political prisoners of anarchists, including Russian ones.

Walls on campus are usually covered in graffiti. Main topics: political prisoners, Kurds, feminism, anti-fascism and an abbreviation of the letters “pi”, “mu” and “delta” - the encrypted slogan 'μπατσοι γουρουνια δολοφονοι' (Greek - cops, pigs, murderers), an analogue of the English ACAB.

— How did you manage to organize this? I asked, walking through university corridors lined with leftist and anarchist press.

Some party was sitting in the lecture hall. It was an independent book fair. At one of the tables I even met a real Greek terrorist who had served time for kidnapping a businessman (the police never found the ransom paid). The terrorist looked like a modest junior researcher at the physics or chemistry department and was reading some Greek samizdat. In principle, nothing surprising. Members of the Red Brigades recently gave speeches at the Polytechnic Institute, and sometimes you can listen to a lecture by yet another Greek terrorist serving a long sentence for expropriation and urban guerrilla warfare.

“We just told the university administration that we would come,” answered my Greek friend.

- What if they didn’t let you in?

- In terms of? - he either didn’t understand the question, or couldn’t imagine that this was possible in reality

-What if they told you no?

“We would have come anyway,” he smiled.

It was clear that he, in principle, was ready to resolve the issue with the premises by force.

Now the new authorities in Greece have come out against the extraterritoriality of universities, and have also decided to clear the area around the Polytechnic from squats. Students and all concerned people who join them respond with riots. It is obvious that they will not give up easily.

If you are confused by such a setting, then think about the autonomy of universities from the other side: you will never be called to the rector by police or FSB agents who did not like what you write on your social networks.

You will not be expelled for participating in a rally, and investigators in the “Moscow case” will not burst into your dorm and search it.

I am writing this column based on a short lecture I gave at the Sakharov Center. I was preparing a lecture for a completely different place. I, like many of you, had to be in the Pit - an open public space where the cops and city authorities forbade us to gather. They told us no, we agreed and left. They fenced off the pit and brought in cop equipment. Then the cops were brought to us, to the Sakharov Center. And, as I wrote above, some operative from the center for countering extremism listened to my speech.

Perhaps he is reading this column now and wondering whether I can be prosecuted for it. He peers into the lines about Molotov cocktails and the uprising, and looks for veiled calls there to do the same. Therefore, I will express my thought about the difference between Russian and Greek universities once again.

When I talk about uprisings, violence and fights with cops, I am only talking about a particular example of a high art that we have not yet properly mastered. An art that the Greeks have duly mastered since 1973. It may seem to you that I’m talking about the art of caring for an AK-47 (also a veiled phrase, since AK-47 is not only the name of an assault rifle, but also a type of marijuana), but this is not so.

I'm talking about the art of being free without asking anyone for permission.