During that moments a direct witness of the event said that he heared the old man shouting:
"I don't want
to leave debt to my children"!
Policemen searched
his pockets to identify him
and they collected the gun
that he used to end his life.
They found also a message in his pockets that was written:
"The Tsolakoglou government* has annihilated all traces for my survival, which was based on a very dignified pension that I alone paid for 35 years with no help from the state. And since my advanced age does not allow me a way of dynamically reacting (although if a fellow Greek were to grab a Kalashnikov, I would be right behind him), I see no other solution than this dignified end to my life, so I don’t find myself fishing through garbage cans for my sustenance. I believe that young people with no future, will one day take up arms and hang the traitors of this country at Syntagma square, just like the Italians did to Mussolini in 1945"
People gather at the square...
*Georgios Tsolakoglou was the first collaborationist prime minister during Germany's occupation of Greece during the Second World War.
The reference has been widely interpreted as a comparison between the wartime collaborationist government and the current government of Lucas Papademos.
The suicide occured shortly before 9am, as people went about their business on the square. Christoulas, 77, shot himself while standing next to a tree on one of the grassy areas on the square. He died from a single shot to the head, reports say.
He was a retired pharmacist, with a wife and a daughter. He sold his pharmacy in 1994.
My species has lost its way, the mind overheating people hate each other, war of egos Twenty-first century, cynicism and mistrust Abuse of the Earth, guts full of madness borders, barricades, riots and screams, cries and blood baths, bombs exploding politics of fear, immoral science insurrection of a people, arms market New World Order, fusion of terror human the most predatory animal the system stinks death, assassins of life has killed memory to kill the future. heads full of Floppies disks , our senses deceive us 3rd eye open because our brain lies to us the human beings are lost, have forgotten their Force forgotten the moon, the sun and the atom. Inversions of poles heading towards hatred Forgotten the reason for an excuse that divides Egotism as a motto, miserable age Collective hatred against visceral rage A glimmer in the heart, a tear in the eye, a prayer in the head, an old pain Burning grave, there where forgiveness and faith dies where even the voice is scared, come on…
Laws made for the people and kings tyrannize… Brotherhoods and business at the top of the pyramid, the sponsors blood between tanks and uzis. Innocent, in a sky the color of plants, factories, a mournful silence, a stray bullet a whole family in tears, a child cut down militia of the State, paramilitaries, celebral folly, entire peoples laid low…
Shanty towns of poverty at the entrance of the palaces Freedom stolen, synonym for bureaucratic paperwork Humanity bartered for an illusory life
Between morning stress and evening anxieties head full of neuroses, nerves severed characterize modern man, often corrupt… …And when the city falls asleep, so many times occurs a silent death, a homeless in the cold… Prison of cement, behind the blinkers The fight is so long, for a little Light Families are torn apart and fathers are rare The children don’t laugh anymore, they build ramparts Mothers just keep going, one youth in three in jail
All this fucking shit is real, so we will struggle on It is "malatripa" that is eating our guts a bottle of vodka, a few grams of weed Some are not coming back, the constriction is brutal subutex injected in a puddle of blood Children are fighting, one knife cuts too many it is no longer exist the house that the kids return early they learn deception in a fit of rage formatting by the street, formatting at school Each one has his own disk, when the worlds meet it is cultural shock, or hatred of shame The barriers are here, in our heads, warm and cosy…
The hardest crack quickly, it’s the law of the reed No, nothing is rosy here, greyness remains in bruised hearts that are dying away like small fires Don’t cry my sister, because You carry the world Noble is your heart, believe in yourself and rise up again Don’t listen to those bastards who want to see you sad, even Mother Earth is sick, but Mother Earth resists! Man has built his world, apprentice creator who has upset everything, bloodthirsty predator Babylon is large but there is nothing to it but a vulgar farce, a masquerade with the scent of illusion, mistress of our credulous and naïve minds, massive conditioning, there where nerves are raw in the margins there’s rage, stronghold of galley slaves Together we are the world and the system is nothing Be aware, my brother, remain true to your heart Don’t trust the system, that lies and assassinates Keep away from the hate that jumps on our arm, Humane Humanity, only Love will save us Listen to the silence when your soul is at peace the light is there, the light has entered Truth is ourselves…Fruit of the creation Don’t forget your History, don’t forget your Mission Last generation with the power to change everything Life is with us,… don’t be afraid of danger so let’s raise our voices, so that we will not forget anymore Scrap of stardust, what are you waiting for to shine? All brothers and sisters, are remake the chain because we are but one, divided in a flesh Let’s find joy, and help one another once more, let’s rise up…
A glimmer is enough to melt the darkness and dissolve the shadows This time is running out of breath, a smell of sulphur the end can be felt, the Beast captivates the crowd symbols are inversed, funerals merge The Star that spins the wheel approaches our skies The earth in her death throes, ill-being is honored in the spotlight madness, defamation, little heart at the right time ignorance of happiness, and of the magic of life Shocked by the horror, trained to survive The time, the age, the worst, a part of the consequences good and evil, today choose your side The human beings are lost, too focused on their properties The stars come together to bring us back on the way, Tied control, but the Light passes through Have trust and confidence in Life, in the strength of your dreams everyone has an angel at their shoulder, always there if you see
When the heart is one, the spirit and the action The Great Day is being prepared, can’t you see the signs? Death doesn’t exist, it's just the end of cycles This end is appearing, humans decimate one another The Pleiades point to indigo hope, Raise your head and understand
Feel the Force in your being Go beyond the Babylon, clear up the mystery Nothing happens by chance, may heaven bless you Child of the Quinto Sol (Fifth Sun), read between the lines.
(spoken) read between the lines child quinto sol (child of the Fifth Sun) the Sun is in you the light is inside you,… shine!,… to clarify the chaos of their world we are not here by chance we designate the Pleiades Raise up your head, read between the lines listen to your heart Disobedience! Because we are the Truth Because the solution is within us Because Life is in all of us Because Life is in all of us
This important video is based in the book of Naomi Klain
The Shock Doctrine
and in this edition the film
is with Spanish subtitles
[please share and distribute this film]
In THE SHOCK DOCTRINE,
Naomi Klein explodes the myth that the global free market triumphed democratically. Exposing the thinking, the money trail and the puppet strings behind the world-changing crises and wars of the last four decades, The Shock Doctrine is the gripping story of how America’s “free market” policies have come to dominate the world-- through the exploitation of disaster-shocked people and countries.
At the most chaotic juncture in Iraq’s civil war, a new law is unveiled that would allow Shell and BP to claim the country’s vast oil reserves…. Immediately following September 11, the Bush Administration quietly out-sources the running of the “War on Terror” to Halliburton and Blackwater…. After a tsunami wipes out the coasts of Southeast Asia, the pristine beaches are auctioned off to tourist resorts.... New Orleans’s residents, scattered from Hurricane Katrina, discover that their public housing, hospitals and schools will never be reopened…. These events are examples of “the shock doctrine”: using the public’s disorientation following massive collective shocks – wars, terrorist attacks, or natural disasters -- to achieve control by imposing economic shock therapy. Sometimes, when the first two shocks don’t succeed in wiping out resistance, a third shock is employed: the electrode in the prison cell or the Taser gun on the streets.
Based on breakthrough historical research and four years of on-the-ground reporting in disaster zones, The Shock Doctrine vividly shows how disaster capitalism – the rapid-fire corporate reengineering of societies still reeling from shock – did not begin with September 11, 2001. The book traces its origins back fifty years, to the University of Chicago under Milton Friedman, which produced many of the leading neo-conservative and neo-liberal thinkers whose influence is still profound in Washington today. New, surprising connections are drawn between economic policy, “shock and awe” warfare and covert CIA-funded experiments in electroshock and sensory deprivation in the 1950s, research that helped write the torture manuals used today in Guantanamo Bay.
The Shock Doctrine follows the application of these ideas though our contemporary history, showing in riveting detail how well-known events of the recent past have been deliberate, active theatres for the shock doctrine, among them: Pinochet’s coup in Chile in 1973, the Falklands War in 1982, the Tiananmen Square Massacre in 1989, the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the Asian Financial crisis in 1997 and Hurricane Mitch in 1998.
As a single mother of five and a prominent activist who has come under threat by the police, government and now even the middle-class in her own community, Maureen Msisi asks for solidarity and advice to give her more courage to push forward the struggle of the poor. This is not the first time that Maureen’s life and family has been in danger because of her campaigns for the interests of poor people. In 1995, Maureen formed the branch of the ANC in Protea South hoping it would bring about a change that would better our lives. But members of the local civic at the time felt that she was challenging their power and they responded violently by attacking her. She was shot in the back and stabbed 3 times with a machete, breaking her leg and scarring her neck and hand. Almost 15 years into our new democracy, she continues struggling for the same changes in the lives of her people in Protea South, but now under the banner of the LPM. Today, she fears that if she continues on with the struggle, her life and her children’s futures will be in danger. On the 1st March 2009, Maureen, and 7 others, were arrested and charged with public violence, assault GBH, intimidation, and unlawful gathering, and it will soon be made clear to the public that they are innocent of all charges. The LPM in Protea South views these arrests as a method by the local government councillor to suppress any activism that undermines the government’s plans to remove all informal settlements from Protea South to a far away place called Doorenkop. Now that Maureen and the seven other comrades are going to court on the 25th March, the people in the bond houses in Protea South, the middle-class, are taking an additional step to ensure that Maureen does not remain in her community. They are signing a petition to say that she must be removed because she is promoting violence, only represents foreigners, and is blocking development in the area. The petition will submitted on the 25th March at Protea Magistrate Court as a piece of evidence to ensure that she is proven guilty. It is believed that this will assist the middle-class bond house owners because the informal settlements will go away, the bond houses will remain, and their property values will go up. The people in the bond houses seem to think that if our leader no longer lives in Protea South, the demands of the people to remain there will disappear and that people will live peacefully in Protea South. But in reality, if Maureen is forced to leave Protea South, this will not stop the people from organising and fighting for their right to choose whether or not they want to stay or go to Doorenkop and it will not stop the government from neglecting other basic demands that are made by the poor in Protea South. If Maureen is forced to leave, the government, the police, and the community, including those who own bond houses, will be in danger because chaos and aggression will win our people over. The truth of the matter is that Maureen has been at the forefront of maintaining peace and stability at a time when Protea South has been bordering on the edge of war. Maureen was responsible for stopping community members from attacking each other and burning each other’s shacks after a conflict on the 1st March when Community Policing Forum (CPF) members started to sing with the local government councillor while the LPM community were reading their memorandum. She convinced the community members that fighting another poor person weakens the struggle and strengthens the government’s system. After this, members of the community left Protea South to destroy the transit shack camps across the road, which are intended to accommodate people before they move to houses in Doorenkop. When the local government councillor of Protea South learned about this, even she acknowledged Maureen’s power to maintain peace in her community when she called Maureen, who was in her home at the time and did not know about the incident, to stop this destruction. Yesterday we had an urgent executive LPM meeting in Protea South to address the petition that was being made by the people living in the bond houses. Some members suggested that we call a mass meeting in Protea South to explain the truth that lies behind the petition against Maureen. But Maureen felt that if we call a mass meeting, it will create further divisions and also a war between the informal settlement and bond houses of Protea South. While the people living in the bond houses want the informal settlement to be removed, those in the informal settlements have actually been living there since the 1980s. The people living in bond houses are now claiming the land as their own, based on the fact that they own property, when in fact we arrived here first. Like our current government, they have made it a matter of who has money and who doesn’t because the informal settlement, those who are poor and landless, are now being asked to leave. By claiming that Maureen only represents foreigners and is promoting violence, the owners of the bond houses hope to suppress our basic demands. To achieve our demands without spilling blood in Protea South, the LPM has begun to create a counter petition which depicts the truth. The truth is that since 1995, Maureen has risked her life, and even been attacked, in order to represent the interests of the people living in Protea South. She continues to do so up until today as she remains committed to her people’s futures, despite the threats that she, and her family, are faced with. Her commitments, both as an activist and as a single parent of 5, have placed her in a situation that puts great pressure on her as an individual, and it is taking all of her strength to keep her morale high. She is calling upon all comrades to display solidarity with her if possible and wants to know if there is some advice or assistance she can get from comrades to make her more encouraged in this tough time. Written by -Bongani Xezwi ( 27 71-043-2221), youth organiser of LPM Protea South Branch and eldest son of Maureen Msisi -With Luke Sinwell, Researcher and Activist, University of Johannesburg Words of advice or solidarity can be sent to: Maureen at: 27 82-337-4514 Or emailed to: LSinwell@yahoo.com
the article submited in InterActivist Info Exchange on Mon, 03/16/2009
.JPG)
