108
One of the occupying youth later told me that this café sharing scheme and the language
lessons were inspired by similar programs at the Migrant ,s Place at Platia Exarchion.
The language lessons are particularly interesting: whereas the main goal of the language
program at the Migrant’s Place is to teach Greek to newcomers, the language program at
the Prapopoulou Squat aims to teach foreign languages to local Greek youth. The site
had also been adapted to accommodate several computers, a recreation∕games room, and
a library with comfortable furniture, all of which were available for anyone to use free of
charge. The site’s blog, which was maintained by one of the regular users from inside the
property, was linked with the online network of other international occupied sites and
was advertised, and itself advertised, the indymedia.org website which was in turn run by
a local anarchist group116.
*
Presently, it is common to find five or six small groups of two or three young
people using the site during the week. On the weekends they usually hold parties or host
concerts, which attract larger numbers. It is important to emphasize that young people
are not acting collectively as in a “unified virtual youth community”, but, again, in small,
not necessarily politically self-aware groups based on social networks. Of note,
Habermas would doubt that these kinds of groups are in fact political (Cohen & Arato
1992:212), but the following demonstrates that they do act according to a specific
116 On March 25th, 2008, Greece’s national Independence Day, unknown persons entered the Propopoulou
estate at 3:30 AM, stole a computer tower and set fire to the structure (Squat 2008). Within a few minutes
the fire consιπned the first floor and spread to the upper level causing the roof to collapse. Local residents
called the fire department which arrived in time to save little more than the bumt-out shell of the building.
Similar attacks on occupied sites were subsequently carried out across Greece in the months that followed,
but the culprits were never discovered. However, in the weeks following the fire the young people who
frequent the site held a benefit concert and protest on the property to raise support for the repair of the
building. Nearly five hundred people from the community and beyond participated in the event. Presently,
the site has been restored to functionality and is improving daily.