69
messages: they actively, and independently, seek these messages which are at the same
time considered entertaining and subversive66.
Nikos continued to explain that even during protests he often used mobile text
technology to coordinate people on the ground - the same strategy employed by student
organizers of the 2006 school occupation∕protest which saw high schools shut their doors
for months around the country67. Email and the internet had also been useful tools for the
anarchist movement. People interested in their actions would navigate to particular
websites68 where anarchist groups post newsletters and other media and where those
interested could sign on to particular email lists and have messages from these groups
delivered as they were released. All this, Nikos explained, was helping fuel the
movement which had lost steam in the 1980s. Indeed, despite an indefinite and
fluctuating following (there is, after all, no official anarchist or anarchist-sympathizer
registry), today’s calls to gather at protests often attracted hundreds if not thousands of
people with youth-oriented issues bringing the biggest numbers. It follows that some of
Nikos’s best contacts were student organizers, both at high schools and
colleges∕universities. These individuals had huge networks and could communicate
quickly.
661 was only successful in receiving one of these messages on a day I followed a group of teenagers to a
café in the Pangrati area. The message, a video, depicted a series of violent protests interspersed with
pornographic images set in rapid motion to a popular techno song. The red anarchist symbol (a capitol “A”
enclosed in a circle) flashed at the end of the video.
67 This was a protest he was involved in, but refused to discuss with me at any great length. Student
protests and occupation of schools is famously linked with anarchist involvement. Following 199 Istudent
uprising during which nearly 1500 schools were occupied and shut down, the number of anarchists swelled.
These new recruits to the movement have remained involved with formal and informal student organizers.
68 See for example: http://anarchy.gr/ (the main website for Greek Anarchy; includes news and community
activities); http://www.geocities.com/a_deltio/ (an online newsletter distribution site);
http://www.geocities.com/anarcores/7200810 (point of information, or “counter-information” distribution);
http://www.chekov.org/anarcho/index.php (a more internationally focused Greek anarchy site).