Grecia. Apatris, il mensile diffuso gratuitamente in 15000 copie voce dell’anarchismo sociale in Grecia

http://apatris.info/

Apatris was born in Heraklion, Crete at 2009. It was the response of some people after the eviction threats against the local squat Evaggelismos in the summer of 2008. When the threats stopped, the uprising of  December  the same year boosted our ideas in a feasible project. It started as a local anarchist “free press” publication with a circulation of 3000 pcs, and it progressed as a nationalwide project starting at June 2013 and is still going on with a circulation of 15000 pcs.

apatris: without a homeland, apatride, apatrido

We see Apatris as a means of spreading the word of the A/A/A movement everywhere. We act as an amplifier of the different voices of the movement in a critical way and  promote the pluralism of it as something positive to a participation in a fertile discussion, based on mutual respect and leaving out any dogmatic interpretation of the surrounding situation.

Apatris is not an publication edited from anarchists and addressed to anarchists. We are referring to the society trying not to be an introvert project. This means that we strive to tackle subjects which also concern the people outside of the radical movements and  bring them closer to us.

As Apatris we don’t accept any kind of sponsors, advertisement material, or commodification of our work. The financial resources  consist of benefit bars and parties, contributions of the infoshops and the activist groups which want a considerable amount of copies to distribute, gigs and donation boxes for the economic assistance of our project. Every member of our project, participates in a voluntary manner and offers his/her skills and labor to the movement, without any kind of wage in return.

The structure of our project is decentralized so that the local characteristics after the transition to a nationwide edition can be preserved. So Apatris is at the same time an nationwide edition but with a strong locality due to the autonomy of the editorial teams. Right now there are seven editorial teams all over Greece which cooperate, discuss, organize and develope each publication.

The distribution network of Apatris aims to help small activist groups outside the big cities and the center of the metropolis, to distribute an overview of the present situation in a concise way. A great purpose 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 as also of other cities and villages. Aditionally, we try to amplify the voices of the people which cannot be heard and bring up highlight events and news that are hidden from the Mass Media. So we spread our aspect with correspondaces of local and international news, analysis, letters and original external contributions.

We also believe that the diy activist media must be an active part of the movement and not an external process. That’s why we persue  interaction  and cooperation in a local level with activist groups, by organizing  activities, events, open discussions and presentations and by participating indivisually or through other potical groups in the various social struggles.

We created a printed edition because we see that the benefits of still using the Gutenberg methods, are quite a lot. Accept the fact that printing in Greece is now cheaper than the ’80s due to the Crisis, we chose this way to have direct and face to face communication with the people and because we realize the importance of having a physical presence all over the public spaces. A printed edition is also less ephemeral  and less impersonal than the Internet and can target to the people which don’t have a good relation with technology and Internet (remote villages, old people -which tend to be more conservative).

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

Future plans, possibilities and perspectives

Since the summer of 2015 Apatris decided to go on with the creation of book editions. As we can see the radical movements publishing project is rising the last years and gives wide space for fertile political and theoretical thinking and critique as also for effective propaganda in the public. At the same time the publication and book sale can provide a critical supportive structure that can promote the financing of the project in a more political way- apart from bars and parties.

Additionally the creation and the configuration of a web-site 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 from the inside of the whole radical movement was always present as the mass media, official and unofficial are ruled by the authorities. Nevertheless some technological and political changes intensify the need of parts of the radical movement to participate in an organised way in the battle of the society’s informing and to expand the counter-informing to every aspect of everyday life.

What do we promote?

As a publishing project, we support  and seek the international cooperation between the 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 with future goals the inforcement of collaboration and the contribution to the advance of the radical movement.

The direct correspondence of riots, uprisings and other radical political events which nowadays have become a common phenomenon in the capitalistic metropolis, the transfer of the texts and the thesis of our  comrades  abroad who give a more realistic aspect of view closer to the movements’ reality, the interviews and the translations of important and notable analysis from and to Apatris as a result of unmediated informing and communication, gain a huge value in the age of the 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 the society so that we can take the information in our hands as also to use more effectively our power in multiple fronts. By this way counter- information can expand its role as a tool of a more and more bigger part of the movement.