Exarcheia under siege: Behind the Saturday’s Riot They Don’t Want You to Understand (Athens, Greece)
On the Saturday night of April 12th 2025, dozens of anarchists attacked with Molotov the scores of riot policemen that had encircled a live gig taking place in Strefi Hill of Exarcheia, in support of the people in Palestine. The public discussion that followed the fierce riot that unfolded and the threats made by members of the greek government to crush the anarchist movement in the neighbourhood, was about the events of that night, but purposely avoided addressing the reasons that led to that.
Exarcheia has always been a place under siege and attack. But in the last few years, the transformation of the neighborhood is taking place through systemic violence, with gentrification as a weapon. Once a cradle of radical thought and political resistance, the neighborhood is now the site of what many describe as an occupation. On any given day, Exarcheia Square—the area’s only communal open space—is hemmed in by riot police. Three corners of the square are guarded 24 hours a day, their presence a constant reminder of the state’s menace to the people in the area. Since August 9, 2022, when construction began on a new metro station beneath the square, this militarized posture has only deepened. The project has been met with uncompromising local opposition, not only over the destruction of the sole green space but for what it symbolizes: the state’s determination to remake Exarcheia in its own image. Under the right wing New Democracy government, Exarcheia has become a symbol of ideological confrontation. Every day the police march in regimented formations, changing shifts with military-like choreography.
Their omnipresence has turned daily life into a tense theater of surveillance and intimidation. People often face arbitrary detentions and, in many cases, excessive force. This is not simply a story about urban renewal. It is a struggle over history, memory, and the right to dissent. Bulldozers and Batons: The Violence of Gentrification The construction of the metro station on Exarcheia square has become a flashpoint—not merely for environmental or logistical reasons, but because it is seen as the latest front in a campaign of displacement. To critics, this is gentrification with riot shields. Because it aims to seal off for a decade the main free space that people can gather, when there are other locations more suitable or useful for a metro station, like near the National Archaeological Museum with more than half a million visitors annually, only 2 blocks away from Exarcheia Square. Rents have soared. Prices jumped from €5.50 to €8.50 per square meter between 2017 and 2022, whilst recent listings show rates exceeding €10, effectively doubling. Longtime residents find themselves priced out, their leases ended to turn it to Airbnb. Local businesses struggle to coexist with boutique cafés, fine-dining restaurants, hipster shops that speak a different urban dialect. What is lost is not merely affordability, but identity. Gentrification is always violent, but here, it’s also ideological. It’s about erasing a memory.
The Tourist Trap of Rebellion Even as riot police tighten their grip, Exarcheia is being marketed to visitors as a bohemian enclave—gritty, “authentic,” and Instagram-ready. Guided tours invite tourists to “explore the radical side of Athens. Critics argue that tourism sanitizes the very history it seeks to showcase, turning sites of struggle into spectacles and collapsing resistance into branding. Meanwhile, dissent is punished with severity. All kinds of protests or political gatherings are usually met with tear gas and detentions. Graffiti disappears under fresh coats of paint. Squats are evicted.
The tension between image and reality is as palpable as the smell of tear gas that sometimes lingers in the air. Memory as a Battleground Urban transformation is rarely neutral. In Exarcheia, it is inextricably tied to an effort to overwrite a particular version of history—a history in which the neighborhood’s resistance to authoritarianism remains central. The construction sites and real estate billboards serve a dual function: physical development and symbolic conquest. “Urban cleansing,” some call it. The square, once a gathering place for people, is now a fenced-off construction site under constant surveillance. Its fate mirrors that of the neighborhood itself—under renovation, under guard, and, many fear, under erasure. Yet despite the pressure, Exarcheia’s spirit is not easily extinguished. Murals still bloom on alley walls. Political posters appear overnight. And each evening, as the sun dips behind Mount Lycabettus, the question lingers: How should people react against the silent killer of gentrification that one day finds you with your suitcases at hand, silently forcing you to leave your home forever?
source: Act for Freedom
https://abolitionmedia.noblogs.org/?p=18876
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