This article was downloaded by: [King's College London]On: 14 January 2013, At: 12:10Publisher: RoutledgeInforma Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954 Registeredoffice: Mortimer House, 37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK

City: analysis of urban trends, culture,theory, policy, actionPublication details, including instructions for authors andsubscription information:http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/ccit20

Athens in the Mediterranean‘movement of the piazzas’ Spontaneityin material and virtual public spacesLila Leontidou

To cite this article: Lila Leontidou (2012): Athens in the Mediterranean ‘movement of the piazzas’Spontaneity in material and virtual public spaces, City: analysis of urban trends, culture, theory,policy, action, 16:3, 299-312

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13604813.2012.687870

PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE

Full terms and conditions of use: http://www.tandfonline.com/page/terms-and-conditions

This article may be used for research, teaching, and private study purposes. Anysubstantial or systematic reproduction, redistribution, reselling, loan, sub-licensing,systematic supply, or distribution in any form to anyone is expressly forbidden.

The publisher does not give any warranty express or implied or make any representationthat the contents will be complete or accurate or up to date. The accuracy of anyinstructions, formulae, and drug doses should be independently verified with primarysources. The publisher shall not be liable for any loss, actions, claims, proceedings,demand, or costs or damages whatsoever or howsoever caused arising directly orindirectly in connection with or arising out of the use of this material.

Athens in the Mediterranean‘movement of the piazzas’Spontaneity in material andvirtual public spacesLila Leontidou

Mediterranean cities are carrying Gramsci’s concept of spontaneity into the 21st centurythrough massive social movements after the ‘Arab Spring’. This paper explores the ways inwhich the material and virtual cityscape interact with socio-political transformation duringthe ‘movement of the piazzas’ in Athens, Greece. After a discussion of the importance ofurban informality, porosity and land-use mixtures for social cohesion, of creeping ghettoizationin some enclaves and of the perils of urbicide, we proceed to an analysis of grassroots action inAthens in comparison with different cities of the Mediterranean and beyond. Social movementsare placed in their respective local and global context—their recurrent material landscapes andtheir cosmopolitan virtual spaces of digital interaction. This analysis leads to reflections on thepossible role of popular spontaneity in democratization and in European integration at thegrassroots level, against the onslaught of neoliberalism and accumulation by dispossession.

Key words: social movements, Gramsci, hegemony, spontaneity, democracy, agora, Arabspring, Europe, Greece, crisis

Spontaneity has built Mediterraneancities, their popular suburbs and theirkaleidoscopic landscapes; but then it

was curbed by governments, especiallyduring the period of South European dicta-torships until the mid-1970s (Leontidou,2006b [1990]). In this paper, we will reflecton the re-emergence of popular unmediatedaction on another level, borrowing Grams-ci’s concept again, as he defines it vis-a-visconscious leadership:

‘The term “spontaneity” can be variouslydefined, for the phenomenon to which itrefers is many-sided. Meanwhile it must bestressed that “pure” spontaneity does notexist in history [. . .] In the “most

spontaneous” movement it is simply thecase that the elements of “consciousleadership” cannot be checked, have left noreliable document. It may be said thatspontaneity is therefore characteristic ofthe “history of the subaltern classes” . . .’(1971, p. 196)

In the past, we have used ‘spontaneity’heuristically, to understand Mediterraneanurban development in the 20th century(Leontidou, 1990). Its relevance is moreliteral now, at the wake of new social move-ments (NSMs), the ‘Arab Spring’ and the‘movement of the piazzas’. Gramsci’sconcept of hegemony has been usedwidely—as counter-hegemony in this

ISSN 1360-4813 print/ISSN 1470-3629 online/12/030299–14 # 2012 Taylor & Francishttp://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13604813.2012.687870

CITY, VOL. 16, NO. 3, JUNE 2012

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Kin

g's

Col

lege

Lon

don]

at 1

2:10

14

Janu

ary

2013

paper—, but in addition his analysis ofpopular spontaneity is important in under-standing Mediterranean urban movementsand survival strategies today.

The concept is not very welcome inGreece and was criticized by ManolisGlezos, one of the most celebrated figuresof the Left.1 He argued during his speechin Syntagma in June 2011 that the ‘move-ment of the piazzas’ is conscious and there-fore not spontaneous (cf. also Sotiris, 2011,p. 165). Glezos seems to perceive spontane-ity as referring to sudden upheavals ratherthan conscious movements. However,Gramsci spoke of spontaneous movements,not upheavals, and did not preclude theconsciousness or awareness of the grass-roots when spontaneously mobilizing.Gramsci’s distinction between spontaneityand conscious leadership echoes recentevents in the Mediterranean, where, asFiliu (2011, p. 57) puts it, ‘Leaderless move-ments can win.’ They can indeed, in the‘Arab Spring’, not yet in Greece; but wewill argue that here, too, spontaneousmovements are emerging, which defyleaders, traditional political parties andtrade unions and seek direct democracy.As for grassroots survival strategies, theysupersede intermediaries in exchange andproduction, forming alternative networksof direct exchange between producers andconsumers via the Internet. In this explora-tory (and often self-reflexive) paper we willonly focus on the ways Athens as a materialand virtual cityscape hosts spontaneoussocial movements and is transformed inthe process. We will place it within a seriesof comparisons of grassroots action anddigital interaction in different cities.

1. The Athens cityscape: mixtures andsocial divisions

There are quite a few misconceptions abouturban development in Athens.2 This city hasbeen traditionally mixed and porose—a

palimpsest where land uses and activities, aswell as spaces of social groups and classes,have interpenetrated each other. In an east–west divide of social classes, the workingclass has been living in western and peripheralspontaneous settlements since the interwarperiod (Leontidou, 1990) and the upper andmiddle classes in a sector reaching from thesouth-west to the north-east. The cityscapeis marked by the inverse-Burgess model, clus-tering rather than strict segregation, inform-ality and a tradition of semi-squatting inperipheral settlements. This is just the oppo-site of the ordered and easily decipherableunequal urban landscape of the Anglo-American city. Moreover, nothing like theAmerican ghetto has emerged in Athens.Porosity, spontaneity, informal housing,small property ownership, but also theemployment linkage,3 have created a mixtureof activities and the vertical differentiation ofgroups and classes rather than neighbourhoodsegregation (Leontidou, 1990; Arapoglou andSayas, 2009). In this, Gramsci has offeredvaluable insights, discussing aspects of civilsociety in the high-rise tenements of Naples:

‘On the ground floor of these palaces andtenements are found the famous bassi inwhich the poorer families live; the upperclasses inhabit the upper floors of the samebuildings. This cohabitation accounts for theideological unity of all social groups in thesezones which many observers havecommented on.’4

Gramsci (1949, pp. 95–96) was the first tocomment on this ideological unity and tostress the spatial impact of vertical differen-tiation in the creation of social cohesion.Athens, too, has not automatically excludedor alienated ethnic minorities from particularareas for quite a long period. During the 21stcentury, however, vertical differentiation hasbecome perhaps the tragedy of Athens, withethnic hatred rising. Now neighbouringgroups live in tension in certain inner-cityenclaves. The ‘triangle’ of the city core is ano-go area for urban residents and tourists.

300 CITY VOL. 16, NO. 3

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Kin

g's

Col

lege

Lon

don]

at 1

2:10

14

Janu

ary

2013

It has fallen into the hands of destitutes andsmugglers, territorialities of gangs andethnic groups, which are chased away bythe police before election periods. To itsnorth, in the piazza of Agios Panteleimon,hardly any tensions emerged betweenforeigners and native Athenians until theextreme Right invaded the area, started toclash with ethnic groups, and found fertileground for the rejection of migrants (Kavou-lakos and Kandylis, 2012). Now the neigh-bourhood is constantly tortured by aneveryday civil war erupting in the piazzaand on doorsteps.

As the debt crisis deepens and impoverish-ment hits Athens, the city is transformed withemergent ghettoization trends in someenclaves.5 The urban core is dilapidating byclosures, destruction, arson, urbicide, as wellas criminality and the concentration of desti-tutes. Is this the standard process of purpose-ful dilapidation of the inner city to causedepreciation and low prices for the sell outto entrepreneurs, who will ensure hugeprofits from organized development and gen-trification? A relevant research project is longoverdue. This may well be the possible fate ofthe Athens centre, but also of formerOlympic sites. The dramatic 12 February2012 arson attacks on historic buildings,described below, have destroyed the areaexactly next to the dilapidated sections ofthe city core. This kind of urbicide maywell not be a random event. Arson attacksexpanded the area eligible for real estatespeculation by opening further valuablecentral plots to decay to be followed by‘organized’ redevelopment. Contrary to anyeffort of restoration of the burnt section ofthe city, a few weeks later the governmentannounced that its plan to pedestrianize thecentral Panepistimiou Avenue, adjacent tothe decaying centre, will be realized instead.This can be hardly called ‘gentrification’,given the good condition of the avenue. Itraises important questions as to the function,timing and location of this intervention, nextto the burnt and decaying sections of theinner city, which are left to decline. Public

funds are allocated to the pedestrianization,leaving private interests to profit from thegentrification of the dilapidated inner cityadjoining Panepistimiou Avenue.

Arson, violence and urbicide have oftenoccurred in Athens since the 2004 Olympics.Peaceful demonstrations are systematicallyinterrupted by violence: attacks with chemi-cals and brutality of the riot police (MAT)follow or precede demolitions, arson andlooting by youths in hoods, the proverbial‘koukouloforoi’, who after 2008 have beencalled ‘bahalakides’ (the ones creating havoc)and are not always acting spontaneously.Some of them are angry young anarchists,some hooligans, while in some other casesthere have been allegations and photos of pro-vocateurs who infiltrate peaceful demon-strations to scare off citizens and to givepretexts to the riot police to unleash violenceagainst the crowds of protesters. In fact,though spontaneity may emancipate peopleand make a success of movements withoutleaders (Filiu, 2011), it may also sometimesbreed monsters. Gramsci again stressed theimportance of spontaneity in politics, butalso reflected on its vulnerability andprompted activists not to despise it:

‘Neglecting, or worse still despising, so-called“spontaneous” movements, i.e. failing to givethem a conscious leadership or to raise themto a higher plane by inserting them intopolitics, may often have extremely seriousconsequences. It is almost always the case thata “spontaneous” movement of the subalternclasses is accompanied by a reactionarymovement of the right-wing of the dominantclass, for concomitant reasons.’ (1971, p. 199)

Gramsci here draws attention to the impor-tance of the margins of capitalist modernityand cautions against their political manipu-lation. He affirms spontaneity, but also pro-poses to raise it to a higher plane politically,with the help of leadership, in order toprevent its absorption by right-wing forces.In light of his experience of the rise offascism in Italy in his own time, this questionwas painfully relevant. Remarkably, this is

LEONTIDOU: ATHENS IN THE MEDITERRANEAN ‘MOVEMENT OF THE PIAZZAS’ 301

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Kin

g's

Col

lege

Lon

don]

at 1

2:10

14

Janu

ary

2013

also the case for the rest of Europe in the 21stcentury. As we were thinking that the recur-ring experience of dictatorships in SouthernEurope until the 1970s was behind us, weare suddenly witnessing in 2011 the appoint-ment of extra-parliamentary bankers (with apast in Goldman Sachs), simultaneously, asprime ministers in Greece and Italy, andthen the ascent of the extreme Right in theGreek elections of 6 May 2012. . . .

Urbicide is only one part of the story, over-emphasized by media and attributed to ‘anar-chists’. There are also massive peacefulmovements of hundreds of thousands ofpeople, inscribed into the kaleidoscopicAthenian landscape, which is the city’spower and its peril. As porose and mixed asAthens is, with all the risks involvedtherein, so are its public spaces, the multi-activity and hybrid piazzas.

We do insist on ‘piazzas’ rather than‘squares’ in order to denote the open andthe nodal centre of material and virtual com-munication rather than an enclosed squareand its defined landscape. It is worthstaying a little longer at certain contrastinguses of urban public space in Europeancities. Mixed land use, informality and streetlife in the South create the particular speciesof the piazza, where open-air living andcomplex activities take place. Political uphea-val brought these public spaces close to theancient Greek agora. This was a complexspace between the oikos, the private house,and the ecclesia, the public parliament(Bauman, 2011). It was a space between theindividual and the State, where civil societyemerged, and which was passed to theRoman forum (Canniffe, 2008). Agora lit-erally meant marketplace where commercewas centred, but it was actually a publicspace of leisure and consumption, shoppingand workshops, small parks and kiosks, aswell as encounter and communication, butalso of participation, a place where citizen-ship was forged, where the whole urban com-munity was centred (Leontidou, 2009).

This agora of classic antiquity, this politi-cally charged public space of political

participation, discussion and debate, returnedto Athens during the ‘movement of thepiazzas’ in 2011, when the urban piazzasopened up to the popular assemblies for dis-cussion and interaction, as we shall soonsee. The active ‘public’ realm open to politicalparticipation (Leontidou, 2009; Bauman,2011) was revived. Back in previous centuries,the ‘public’ existed as a ‘purely spiritual col-lectivity, as a dissemination of physically sep-arated individuals whose cohesion is entirelymental’ (Tarde cited in Laclau, 2005, p. 44).Publics emerged with the invention of theprinting press in the 16th century, but nowthey acquire new force, vitality and indeedreality in the material piazzas and in thevirtual spaces of the Internet, that is, in localand global public spaces, as discussed below.

2. The movement of the piazzas

Mapping urban landscapes and piazzas ofinsurrections is important in understandingthe role of the urban landscape and the recur-rent spatialities in political transitions.Certain piazzas and urban public placeshave come to be the recurrent locations ofmobilizations through time. The most fam-iliar long-lasting example is Paris. The barri-cades of the 1871 Commune, those againstthe Germans in 1944 and those of theFrench May of 1968 were erected in exactlythe same places in the city, in the QuartierLatin (Hobsbawm, 1968; Leontidou, 2006a;cf. also Harvey, 2003b). This can even becarried further, to the 21st century andanother May, that of the year 2005, wheninsurrections started massively from theperipheral banlieu and then, by impressivelyrapid digital interaction, exploded in allcities of France, as well as in the centre ofParis: the suburban population demonstratedtogether with students again on the north-east of the Luxemburg Gardens and the Sor-bonne, at the Quartier Latin, while violentconflicts extended to the Place des Invalidesin the spring of 2006 (Leontidou, 2006a).

302 CITY VOL. 16, NO. 3

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Kin

g's

Col

lege

Lon

don]

at 1

2:10

14

Janu

ary

2013

In fact, no matter how cities are restruc-tured and technology changes and resurrec-tions differ, material spaces are oftenrecurrent: the same spaces are used for differ-ent political activities through time. This isnot premeditated by revolutionaries (Hobs-bawm, 1968; Leontidou, 2006a). It is ratherspontaneous, a response perhaps to combi-nations of spatial symbolism, urban layoutwith respect to protection and effectiveness,centrality and land use. However, spatialrecurrence has to be kept apart from com-parisons among movements taking place inthese spaces. Activists love comparing, as itseems and as we will now show, startingfrom Figure 1, where Athens in 2011 is com-pared with Paris in 1968.

The tendency of certain authors tocompare revolts in Athens in December19446 and December 2008 gives us an oppor-tunity for a conceptual clarification of politi-cal cultures before and after the fall of theBerlin wall. The ‘Dekemvriana’ of 3 Decem-ber 1944 in Athens, that bloody Sundaywith so many communists killed, belongs toa different era. The communists of the early20th century, Europe’s ‘others’ and USA’s‘threat’, are no longer the vanguard of socialprotest in the post-socialist world. TheGreek civil war in the mid-1940s is worldsapart from the current protest movements—their class composition and their quest for

direct democracy beyond the party system.After 1989, NSMs (Tarrow, 2006; Leontidou,2010) are crystallized in the consumer societyand digital communication, raising issues ofidentity, globalization, exploitation and dis-possession, very different from class conflictin the period of producers in our industrialpast.7

The sharp difference of NSMs from coldwar politics cannot be overestimated in thecase of Greece. The country has seen severalsocial splits and dualisms, ‘dihasmous’, butin these ones, December 1944 and 2008, theonly coincidence (besides the month) hasbeen spatial. Clashes in 1944 exploded inthe same city, Athens, and in the samepiazza, Syntagma, where the December2008 clashes took place—though startingfrom Exarcheia—and where the indignantcitizens gathered in 2011. Syntagma is infact not the self-evident piazza, becauseAthens’ city centre is bifocal: there is alsoOmonia Square as a possible alternative.However, it has always been Syntagma,which concentrated mass rallies and shapedGreek politics, the focal public space withthe Parliament buildings (the former palace).It hosted two Decembers, the one whichignited the civil war and the other whichmarked the beginning of massive movementsfor direct democracy, politicizing grassrootsprotest against accumulation by disposses-sion (Harvey, 2003a), as the debt crisis hasbeen deepening.

December 2008 diverges sharply frommovements of the cold war. Like manyother new movements of revolt around theworld, it started from an incident of policebrutality. On 6 December 2008, the policeshot the teenager Alexis Grigoropoulos.This triggered a massive protest fromthe centre of the neighbourhood of Exarch-eia, and urban violence spread throughoutthe city, snowballing with digital communi-cation (Economides and Monastiriotis eds2009; Vradis and Dalakoglou eds 2011).

Exarcheia presents yet another case ofspatial recurrence hosting socio-politicaldifference. This area around the

Figure 1 Banner posted in Syntagma by the Theatre deSoleil on 18 June 2011 to celebrate solidarity betweenAthens and Paris (Photo: L. Leontidou).

LEONTIDOU: ATHENS IN THE MEDITERRANEAN ‘MOVEMENT OF THE PIAZZAS’ 303

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Kin

g's

Col

lege

Lon

don]

at 1

2:10

14

Janu

ary

2013

Polytechneio (National Technical Univer-sity, Athens) was also the place of thestudent revolt of 1973, which broughtdown the junta. Then it became the tra-ditional hub of rebels and occasional upris-ings (Bratsis, 2010; Mentinis, 2010;Petropoulou, 2010; Sotiris, 2010; Vradisand Dalakoglou, 2011). The change ofregime in the 1970s, called ‘metapolitefsi’,was the beginning of democracy, or ratherthe democratic deficit and leadership gap,merged with clientelism, which are still tor-turing Greece at present. This has been wellunderstood by the activists of December2008 and was explicitly phrased in sloganssuch as ‘do away with the “generation ofmetapolitefsi”’, which is at present sellingout the country with the financial crisis asa pretext (Giovanopoulos and Dalakoglou,2011). In 2011, the dominant rhymingmotto of the Athens ‘aganaktismenoi’(indignant citizens), chanted and written onpanels in Syntagma Square, is a masterpieceof inventive intertextuality. It starts withan anti-dictatorial slogan of the 1970s andthen attacks the generation that inspired it:‘Bread, Education, Freedom. The junta didnot end in 1973. We ourselves will bury itin this piazza’ (see Figure 2).

Social movements in Athens have beenoccasionally compared with Anglo-Ameri-can movements (Vradis and Dalakoglou,

2011): LA in 1992, Northern England in2001 and London in 2011. One similarityconsists of police brutality preceding theseevents: most recently, the shootings ofAlexis Grigoropoulos in Athens, 2008, andMark Duggan in London, 2011 (Douzinas,2011). However, these were very differentyouths: a middle-class pupil in Athens didnot awaken anti-racist sentiments and racialtension like ethnic minorities assaulted inLondon in August 2011, as well as LA in1992 and Northern England in 2001. In this,Anglo-American riots seem more similarwith those of the Paris banlieue in 2005,where minorities revolted and triggeredviolent conflicts for four months. However,the strong element of protest against racismwas here succeeded by solidarity in spring2006, when the banlieue residents came tothe centre of Paris to demonstrate togetherwith students. Victory was celebrated on 11April 2006, ironically, with dances aroundthe Arc de Triomphe (Leontidou, 2006a).

By contrast, the shooting of Alexis inAthens 2008, which ended up in urbicide,did not raise an ethnic question, butbrought together a wide variety of youthsabused by neoliberalism (Giovanopoulosand Dalakoglou, 2011). Youths against neoli-beralism also trigger other movements, whichare more appropriate to compare withAthens. These are all very recent andinclude European ones (UK, France, Italy),but also California and Chile (Sotiris, 2011,p. 159), and the Anglo-American Occupymovements; but a lot of space would beneeded for all these comparisons, which areequally difficult with the ones discussedabove.

The Athens December 2008 was not a‘missed opportunity’ (Giovanopoulos andDalakoglou, 2011, p. 112), since it had aseries of positive and negative results. Thelatter have been overexposed by the media.The positive results have been underesti-mated, though they are possibly longlasting. Besides the uprising for the ‘right tothe city’, opening up new sites of confronta-tion (Leontidou, 2010; Dalakoglou and

Figure 2 Banners with slogans, including the main onereferring to 1973, in front of the Greek Parliament inSyntagma, Athens, June 2011 (Photo: L. Leontidou).

304 CITY VOL. 16, NO. 3

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Kin

g's

Col

lege

Lon

don]

at 1

2:10

14

Janu

ary

2013

Vradis, 2011), longer term collectivities andsolidarities emerged then. Wider Mediterra-nean social movements did not appear sud-denly in 2011, but have been incubated overlong periods of time in their respectiveweak civil societies (Leontidou, 2010). TheEgyptian ones go back to at least 2005 (ElHamamsy, 2011). The Greek ones wereincubated between frequent rallies after the2004 Olympics (Afouxenidis, 2006) andcosmopolitan networks protesting againstneoliberal globalization. Greeks kept takingpart in NSMs and demonstrations againstsummit meetings (Tarrow, 2006; Routledgeand Cumbers, 2009; Leontidou, 2010),where people and collectivities from severalcountries communicated digitally andtravelled, in a way like flaneur activists(Leontidou, 2006b), demanding democraticglobalization. For some years, digital

activism and involvement in social networksby very young people strengthened activistcentres and groups and their internationalnetworking. After December 2008 and aus-terity measures in subsequent years, protestmovements became more massive. In fact,the bulky bibliography on new urban move-ments includes works that put Greece intothe picture (Bratsis, 2010; Leontidou, 2006b,2010; Mentinis, 2010; Petropoulou, 2010;Routledge, 2010; Sotiris, 2010; Vradis andDalakoglou, 2011; Giovanopoulos andMitropoulos, 2011).

The Greek ‘movement of the piazzas’ inSyntagma, Athens, seems to have been incu-bated in the new century and to have its rootsin cosmopolitan networks, as well as the vio-lence of previous uprisings since December2008; but it was peaceful. It was initiallythought to imitate the indignados of Spain,

Figure 3 Solidarity performance in Syntagma by the Theatre de Soleil on 18 June 2011, centred around a woundedJustice puppet and several banners with verses from Sophocles and other Greek classical authors (Photo: L. Leontidou).

LEONTIDOU: ATHENS IN THE MEDITERRANEAN ‘MOVEMENT OF THE PIAZZAS’ 305

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Kin

g's

Col

lege

Lon

don]

at 1

2:10

14

Janu

ary

2013

but grew to be enormous and lasted for overtwo months, from 25 May 2011 until 30 July,when the police ‘cleared’ the piazza of tentsand equipment—or rather, destroyed them.The number of previously ‘invisible’ citizens(Douzinas, 2011), who either peacefully occu-pied or passed regularly from Syntagma toprotest, is difficult to calculate, but couldhave been 2.6 million (Sotiris, 2011, p. 157).Indignant citizens also filled several otherneighbourhood squares in Athens, surroundedthe White Tower in Thessaloniki, occupiedmany provincial piazzas and forged anunprecedented counter-hegemonic movement(Douzinas, 2011; Giovanopoulos and Mitro-poulos, 2011).

Syntagma became for two months a mixed-use hybrid space, an agora, a ‘public’ realm.Direct democracy was cultivated duringthose unforgettable days and nights of the2011 occupation, a time of cultural events,alternative activities, concerts, solidarityperformances by Tiger Lillies, Theatre deSoleil (see Figure 3) and so many otherEuropeans, and of course popular assembliesin Syntagma Square. There was a duality inthe piazza:8 the ‘upper piazza’ in front ofthe Parliament (see Figure 4) concentratedpeople with rough tactics of anger, pragma-tists or others with wide varieties of politicalaffiliations and different political imaginationthan those in the ‘lower piazza’. The latterwas occupied by progressive people closerto the Left (see Figure 5), who debated thepreconditions of direct democracy and orga-nized for self-help, mutual aid, solidarityand collective action. The centre of Syntagmawas occupied by two of the several thematic,support and work groups, the importantCommunication/Multimedia group and theHealth group with doctors active duringevery police assault.

The two Syntagmas merged, as mostpeople passed through both piazzas everynight and expressed common reflections onthe corruption of political parties, the exploi-tative nature of neoliberalism and the debtcrisis, the importance of independent socialmovements. There was thus solidarity,synergy, and an aversion to political partiesand traditional trade unions. Party represen-tatives were not allowed as such in thepopular assemblies of lower Syntagma.They could only speak as individuals inan assembly where random numbers wereallocated to all people and lots were drawnso as to call speakers to the podium. Theagora, as defined above, was thus revivedin the ‘lower piazza’, where processes ofdirect democracy included the random selec-tion of speakers to the popular assembly.Direct democracy was actively sought andspontaneity was chosen, over and aboverepresentative democracy and consciousleadership.

Figure 4 The ‘upper piazza’ in front of the Parliamentin Syntagma, with people flying the banner with the heli-copter, which they hope that the ousted government willboard to fly away from Greece

Figure 5 Panoramic view of the massive popularassembly in the ‘lower piazza’ in Syntagma, Athens(Both photos: L. Leontidou).

306 CITY VOL. 16, NO. 3

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Kin

g's

Col

lege

Lon

don]

at 1

2:10

14

Janu

ary

2013

3. Virtual public spaces

Many of the movements discussed abovebelong to a genre of social movements orig-inating in popular outbursts responding tolocal events—police brutality or suicideswith a political essence—, which spreadrapidly through digital communication toinvolve massive waves of protest, up to theurban and maybe the global level. In 2011,the two strands, i.e. events igniting localgrassroots protest and global social move-ments, met spectacularly in the ‘ArabSpring’. The event of M. Bouazizi’s self-immolation in Sidi Bouzid, Tunisia, wasreported widely via social media andsparked social protest, which snowballedthroughout the Mediterranean (Filiu, 2011;El Hamamsy, 2011). Digital interactionsbetween Tunisia and Egypt have been estab-lished, as have those between Spain andGreece. What we do not know is the degreeof interaction between the South and theNorth of the Mediterranean. The languagebarrier should not be underestimated.However, what we do know is the wide-spread use of digital social networks and theInternet. The ‘Arab Spring’ and the ‘move-ment of the piazzas’ were synchronous spon-taneous uprisings that made social media aslegendary as the piazzas of Cairo and thoseof the indignados of Madrid and Athens.The demonstration effect of Tunisian citiesas pioneers ignited massive protests inCairo’s Tahrir Square (Filiu, 2011; ElHamamsy, 2011). Puerta del Sol in Madrid,the movement of 12 March 2011 in Lisbonand Syntagma in Athens on 25 May 2011followed. All these have transformed therespective capital cities and the whole of theMediterranean urban network, and haveaffected cities at the global level.

‘Public spaces’ are therefore not onlymaterial and local, but virtual and global,too, in the cities of the 21st century. Spon-taneous digital communication is driven byeach individual but becomes collective orpublic, as spontaneous interaction among somany people escalates. Collectivities emerge

that may be international, and crowdsgather in the most unpredictable time-spaceoccasions. All social movements in Mediter-ranean Europe and Africa took place invirtual as well as material public spaces,where people communicated directly andspontaneously via the Internet, includingWeb 2.0 and social networking sites, such asFacebook and Twitter, YouTube, LinkedInand MySpace, etc. Also Web 1.0 applications,blogging and SMS have been used for quitesome time now (Papadimitriou, 2006). Spon-taneity comes naturally in the abstract spacesof social media, and must have inspired manyof the slogans, not least the one for directdemocracy. However, collectivities can onlybe formed in material spaces, where trust isforged: in person to person live communi-cation in the piazzas but also, occasionally,in Internet cafes (Filiu, 2011) and in youthsquats and social centres (Makrygianni andTsavdaroglou, 2011, pp. 37–41).

The remarkable dynamics of digital activismand communication were evident in the instantgathering of people in the piazzas after everyInternet call and in the coordination of theirslogans; but also in the communication amongcities. Syntagma in Athens was virtuallylinked with Madrid by Skype, and the twopopular assemblies were in conversation inJune 2011 (see Figure 6). Demonstrationsaround the world were organized throughsocial media to coincide on the same days indifferent cities of the world, with the slogan‘we are all Greek’: on 18 February and in earlyMarch 2012 (see Figure 7); throughout 2011,intellectuals in blogs, newspapers and journals(also this one; cf. Catterall, 2011a, 2011b)expressed solidarity and gave support witharticles and sustained interest in the ‘movementof the piazzas’, at a period when the mainstreamEU press stigmatized the Greeks in an oftenopenly racist discourse (e.g. German magazinesFocus, Bild, Spiegel, etc.). Artists gave solidarityperformances in the piazzas and concretesupport in blogs and YouTube.

Cyberspace is thought to create newhuman types and aspirations with sensi-tivities about the footprint of freedom

LEONTIDOU: ATHENS IN THE MEDITERRANEAN ‘MOVEMENT OF THE PIAZZAS’ 307

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Kin

g's

Col

lege

Lon

don]

at 1

2:10

14

Janu

ary

2013

(Mason, 2012). Digital interaction and influ-ence came to have such significance inMediterranean politics, that Hosni Mubarakwas ousted from power while trying tomanipulate the Internet (El Hamamsy,2011). When he interfered with communi-cations, people rushed to the streets to seewhat was happening, and Tahrir Squareonce again came alive. In Athens, the binaryvirtual/material reality was reversed by thegovernment, which was trying to manipulatethe material realm: the riot police wererepeatedly unleashed against the people inthe belief that chasing demonstrators awayfrom their material spatial opportunitieswould dissolve the movement.

By August 2011, the police had destroyedall tents and were busy attacking every dem-onstration in the central piazza: SyntagmaSquare, the main spatial focus of the move-ment, was to be kept ‘clean’ by tear gas andassaults. It is remarkable (and lamentable)that on 12 February 2012 the whole riotpolice force was concentrated there toattack peaceful demonstrators, while theother part of central Athens was beingburnt! (see Figure 8). This strategy of there-establishment of fear is now consideredeffective by the Greek government. It wasput into action from July 2011 and culmi-nated after the suicide of D. Christoulas on4 April 2012:9 the riot police was unleashedagainst demonstrators gathered to honourthe retired pharmacist, who shot himself inthe middle of Syntagma piazza. Tear gas,beating and kicking followed, which sentpeople to hospitals, including journalistsand the president of the photo reporters’union, M. Lolos, who underwent headsurgery.

A constant effort by the Greek govern-ments after the summer of 2011, is thusobviously to re-establish fear in those spaceswhere the ‘movement of the piazzas’ had dis-solved fears and had forged trust, solidarityand hope. However, the grassroots move-ment survives in decentralized piazzas andother material places, as well as in the

Figure 6 Skyping with Puerta del Sol in Madrid andvoting in the popular assembly of Syntagma in June 2011

Figure 7 Londoners march in solidarity with the Greekpeople on 18 February 2012, after a digital worldwidecity call for solidarity, ‘we are all Greek’ (Both photos:L. Leontidou).

Figure 8 Burnt heritage; the architectural masterpieceof Zieller after urbicide and arson—the destructive fire inAthens, 12 February 2012 (Photo: L. Leontidou).

308 CITY VOL. 16, NO. 3

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Kin

g's

Col

lege

Lon

don]

at 1

2:10

14

Janu

ary

2013

virtual spaces of the Internet and the blogo-sphere. It has surfaced in the Greek electionsof 6 May 2012, when Greece, and especiallythe cities, was swept by a vote to the Left,which may be repeated or even strengthenedvery soon. Time will tell.

4. Conclusive reflections

Several dualisms and couplets have emergedin this short paper: spontaneity vs. consciousleadership, material vs. virtual reality, localvs. global spaces, private vs. public realm;we spoke of collectivities and solidarities,but also of divisions and polarizations.Among the latter, we will now end withreflections on the North/South, or rathercore/periphery, polarization within Europeas the material context of the ‘movement ofthe piazzas’. The re-emergence of neocoloni-alism in its neoliberal version in post-colonialEurope (Leontidou, 2012) cuts through theEU rhetoric and illusion and exposes theEU as an utopia: from an eutopia of unifica-tion and solidarity that never flowered, it isnow turning into a dystopia of accumulationby dispossession. Social movements protestexactly against this failure.

Africans have to deal with autocracies.However, Europeans are also suffering froma democratic deficit. The debt crisis is a spec-tacle of spreads, hedge funds, rating agencies,‘Troika’, politicians, virtual ‘saviours’ andKafkaesque postponements of the punish-ment of the people (Douzinas, 2011). Thecrisis has reshuffled uneven developmentlevels, economics, debts, livelihoods, butalso social relations, incomes, employmentopportunities, cultural identities, politicalparticipation. It has exposed the suppressionof weak nations by the strong ones, accumu-lation by dispossession, the separation ofpower from parliamentary politics (Bauman,2011), the leadership gap in the EU. Nationalpolitical figures are also insufficient or inertin this process and new leaders emerge,attempting to counter the sweep of neocolo-nialism. In the recent past, only few

exceptional leaders have resisted neoliberal-ism, like the president of Iceland OlafurRagnar Grımsson, who acted against whathe called ‘the privatization of profit and thenationalization of loss’, repeatedly sendingunjust laws to national referenda.

In other countries, however, nationalparliamentary inertia combined with thedemocratic deficit in the EU make amockery of social cohesion, sustainabilityand several similar ‘euro-words’, which havenow become vacant. The very word ‘solidar-ity’ has been recuperated by the Greekgovernment to name a ‘special’ tax levied inthe context of the overall social injustice ofausterity measures. Recuperation has been aconstant strategy, evident in the use of theInternet to present governance as transparent(opengov) or in naming a law ‘for participa-tory and direct democracy’ that concernsthe use of referenda for the legitimation ofgovernmental policies. Recuperation must beseen as an attempt by the Greek establishmentat reproducing the symbiotic or ‘deferentiallyintertwined cultures’ prevalent in Greeksociety for so long (Afouxenidis, 2006).

In today’s post-colonial Europe we arewatching, impotent, the reconstruction ofthe ‘European South’, worse than thatfound in Gramsci (Leontidou, 2012). Thefierce neocolonial financial war betweenNorth and South includes all kinds ofweapons besides military intervention:rating agencies, speculators and usurers whoinflate interest rates but are never punished;stigmatization, open racism, accumulationby dispossession, tear gas and plastic bullets.The EU South is dispossessed, stigmatizedby ‘other’ EU member states, victimized byneoliberalism, with a leadership vacuum.

Greece suffers from a process of accumu-lation by dispossession brought about bycruel neoliberal measures, which have no par-liamentary legitimation. The Greeks have tobear with unscrupulous governments,10 poli-ticians crudely dealing with the debt crisisaccording to orders from an EU–IMF–ECB ‘Troika’, but indifferent to rising unem-ployment levels and the brain drain caused by

LEONTIDOU: ATHENS IN THE MEDITERRANEAN ‘MOVEMENT OF THE PIAZZAS’ 309

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Kin

g's

Col

lege

Lon

don]

at 1

2:10

14

Janu

ary

2013

the emigration of the young educated unem-ployed Greeks. These governments dis-mantled the already weak welfare state,destroyed the Workers’ Housing Organis-ation, health and education, and keptpumping out money from the poor to feedthe banks, the usurers and the tax evaderswho took much of the country’s wealthabroad. They also keep releasing the riotpolice with tear gas and other chemicalsharmful to human health, whenever crowdsgather to protest.

This war is taking place in virtual andmaterial public spaces. People of the Southcongregate to defend themselves as cosmo-politan and as local citizens. The interplaybetween their abstract or digital and theirmaterial presence in this war endows themwith double efficiency, global and local. Are-invention of politics is on its way allaround the Mediterranean by the young gen-eration. The only ray of hope in the gloomycrisis is this youth protest movement, con-sisting of yesterday’s pupils occupyingschools, teenagers of December 2008,together with impoverished middle classes,redundant clerks, unemployed and precar-ious workers, dispossessed pensioners. Theresult of the electioins of 6 May 2012 in thecities, is an indication that this emergingurban grassroots tends to democratizationand the creation of new historic blocs(Gramsci, 1971). Solidarity among Eur-opeans may also lead to an alternativecounter-hegemonic grassroots way to Euro-pean integration, now that the official oneis failing. This is where Athens belongsnow. There is a lot more to be expected, interms of cultural regeneration and alternativepolitics, from the dynamics of unmediatedspontaneous grassroots action in a city thathas not lost all hope.

Notes

1 During German occupation, M. Glezos removed theswastika flag from the Acropolis together withA. Santas on the night of 30–31 May 1941.According to De Gaulle, he was ‘the first partisan of

Europe’. Glezos is still fighting for justice in therepayment of German reparations and debts toGreece, for democracyand the right toprotest, thoughhe was sent to hospital after police attacks in 2011.

2 Many are concentrated in Makrygianni andTsavdaroglou (2011) and include the relation ofantiparochi (a system of exchange arrangementsin building multi-storey apartment buildings inAthens) with social classes and the Marshall plan,the purported suppression of the Left by planners,wild ghettoization and redevelopment before the2004 Olympics, the scale of emergence ofsquats, simplifications for areas of the rich andthe poor, and other undocumented impressions ata distance from published research for the city inquestion.

3 The employment linkage, that is, the neighbouringbetween workplace and residence in precapitalistsocieties (Vance, 1966), was not broken in Athensuntil the 20th century (Leontidou, 1990).

4 Allum (1973, p. 59); he cites as ‘observers’ somepost-war authors (Meyer, Luongo and Oliva,Vitiello), although Gramsci (1949, pp. 95–96) wasapparently the first to observe this. See alsoLeontidou (1990, p. 12). The porosity of Naplesalso fascinated Benjamin (1979).

5 In this we would not agree with some authors inVradis and Dalakoglou (2011), especially pp. 30–31, 33 and 53, who see in Athens so many parallelswith American ghettoes. In Greece, this is a newphenomenon, restricted to enclaves.

6 Not 1946, as in Kallianos (2011, p. 164), whocompares the two Greek Decembers—see alsoVradis (2009). We should be very cautious inconsidering authors as historically sensitive orreflexive when they span long periods and comparesuch dissimilar movements. The anthropologicalapproach and long-term perspective, whichCatterall (2011a) praises in certain authors inVradis and Dalakoglou (2011; cf. also Catterall,2011b), can be sometimes a trap.

7 Bauman (2011) and Leontidou (2012). There is ofcourse a debate on this and issues arising; for asummary, which includes Greece, see Kourliouros(2003).

8 The duality, by no means polarization, of thetwo piazzas is countered by Stavrou (2011,pp. 36–37), but has been witnessed by reports andeyewitnesses, including the author herself. Therewere also other divisions for the duration of the‘movement of the piazzas’, such as the polarizationbetween the grassroots and the aristocracy oflabour nurtured by the traditional communist party(KKE). Though this cannot be presented herebecause of space limitations, it should be noted thatthe KKE vehemently criticizes ‘the other’ Left, scornsany movement not organized under sectoralemployment unions, and is thus blind to

310 CITY VOL. 16, NO. 3

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Kin

g's

Col

lege

Lon

don]

at 1

2:10

14

Janu

ary

2013

unemployment and poverty—not to mention anyspontaneous movements. KKE (PAME) rallies areorganized in separate piazzas from ‘the others’.The KKE only accepts mobilizations ‘rooted inplaces of work’, ignoring the fact that almost half theurban population has no work whatsoever, or is indisguised unemployment or in ‘flexible’ multipleemployment!

9 Suicides for debts and desperation have increasedsharply to two per day in Greece for the last twoyears, the highest rate in Europe.

10 At least since 23 April 2010, when Prime MinisterPapandreou chose the border island of Kastellorizoin order to announce the arrival of the IMF to theGreeks, undermining his own credibility, as a fewmonths earlier he had publicly declared that ‘thereis money’ in Greece. A change is under way afterMay 2012, which was paved in May 2011.

References

Afouxenidis, A. (2006) ‘Urban social movements in SouthernEuropeancities: reflectionsonToniNegri’s TheMassandthe Metropolis’, City 10(3), pp. 287–294.

Allum, P. (1973) Politics and Society in Post-war Naples.Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Arapoglou, V.P. and Sayas, J. (2009) ‘New facets of urbansegregation in Southern Europe: gender, migrationand social class change in Athens’, European Urbanand Regional Studies 16(4), pp. 345–362.

Bauman, Z. (2011) Collateral Damage: Social Inequalitiesin a Global Age. Cambridge: Polity.

Benjamin, W. (1979) One Way Street. London: Verso.Bratsis, P. (2010) ‘Legitimation crisis and the Greek

explosion’, International Journal of Urban andRegional Research 34(1), pp. 190–196.

Canniffe, E. (2008) The Politics of the Piazza: The Historyand Meaning of the Italian Square. Aldershot:Ashgate.

Catterall, B. (2011a) ‘Endpiece: Is it all coming together?Thoughts on urban studies and the present crisis: (23)The Greek crisis?’, City 15(3–4), pp. 491–497.

Catterall, B. (2011b) ‘Is it all coming together? Thoughts onurban studies and the present crisis: (24) Whosespace is this time? Insurrection, politics—and“magic”?’, City 15(5), pp. 605–612.

Dalakoglou, D. and Vradis, A. (2011) ‘Spatial legacies ofDecember and the right to the city’, in A. Vradis andD. Dalakoglou (eds) Revolt and Crisis in Greece:Between a Present Yet to Pass and a Future Still toCome, pp. 77–88. London: AK Press and OccupiedLondon.

Douzinas, C. (2011) Resistance and Philosophy in theCrisis: Politics, Ethics and Syntagma Station, Athens:Alexandria, (in Greek).

Economides, S. & Monastiriotis, V., eds (2009) The Returnof Street Politics? Essays on the December Riots in

Greece. London: Hellenic Observatory, The LondonSchool of Economics

El Hamamsy, W. (2011) ‘BB¼BlackBerry or Big Brother:digital media and the Egyptian revolution’, Journal ofPostcolonial Writing 47(4), pp. 454–466.

Filiu, J.-P. (2011) The Arab Revolution: Ten Lessons fromthe Democratic Uprising. London: Hurst.

Giovanopoulos, Ch. and Dalakoglou, D. (2011) ‘Fromruptures to eruption: a genealogy of post-dictatorialrevolts in Greece’, in A. Vradis and D. Dalakoglou(eds) Revolt and Crisis in Greece: Between a PresentYet to Pass and a Future Still to Come, pp. 91–114.London: AK Press and Occupied London.

Gramsci, A. (1949) Il Risorgimento, Torino: Einaudi (inGreek).

Gramsci, A. (1971) Q.N. Hoare and G. Smith (eds),Selections from the Prison Notebooks New York:International.

Harvey, D. (2003a) The New Imperialism. Oxford: Clar-endon Press.

Harvey, D. (2003b) Paris, Capital of Modernity. London:Routledge.

Hobsbawm, E. (1968) ‘Cities and insurrections’, Archi-tectural Design 7(6), pp. 579–588.

Kallianos, Y. (2011) ‘December as an event in Greekradical politics’, in A. Vradis and D. Dalakoglou(eds) Revolt and Crisis in Greece: Between aPresent Yet to Pass and a Future Still to Come,pp. 151–166. London: AK Press and OccupiedLondon.

Kavoulakos, K. and Kandylis, G. (2012) ‘New forms ofurban conflict in Athens: the socio-political context,discourse, and practices of rejection of migrants’, inA. Afouxenidis (ed.) Inequality in the Period of theCrisis: Theoretical and Empirical Investigations,pp. 79–100. Athens: Propobos, (in Greek).

Kourliouros, E. (2003) ‘Reflections on the economic–noneconomic debate: a radical geographical per-spective from the European South’, Antipode 35,pp. 781–789.

Laclau, E. (2005) On Populist Reason. London: Verso.Leontidou, L. (1990) The Mediterranean City in Transition:

Social Change and Urban Development. Cambridge:Cambridge University Press.

Leontidou, L. (2006a) ‘The conflictual city: Europeanlandscapes of insurrections, riots and exclusions’,Elelef, Journal of the University of Athens, (bilingualedition), pp. 95–104.

Leontidou, L. (2006b) ‘Urban social movements: from the“right to the city” to transnational spatialities andflaneur activists’, City 10(3), pp. 259–268.

Leontidou, L. (2009) ‘Mediterranean spatialities ofurbanism and public spaces as agoras in Europeancities’, in D. Diamantini and G. Martinotti (eds) UrbanCivilizations from Yesterday to the Next Day,pp. 107–126. Napoli: Scriptaweb.

Leontidou, L. (2010) ‘Urban social movements in “weak”civil societies: the right to the city and cosmopolitan

LEONTIDOU: ATHENS IN THE MEDITERRANEAN ‘MOVEMENT OF THE PIAZZAS’ 311

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Kin

g's

Col

lege

Lon

don]

at 1

2:10

14

Janu

ary

2013

activism in Southern Europe’, Urban Studies 47(6),pp. 1179–1203.

Leontidou, L. (2012) ‘The reconstruction of the “EuropeanSouth” in post-colonial Europe: from class conflict tocultural identities’, in A. Afouxenidis (ed.) Inequality inthe Period of the Crisis: Theoretical and EmpiricalInvestigations, pp. 25–42. Athens: Propobos (in Greek.

Makrygianni, V. and Tsavdaroglou, H. (2011) ‘Urbanplanning and revolt: a spatial analysis of theDecember 2008 uprising in Athens’, in A. Vradis andD. Dalakoglou (eds) Revolt and Crisis in Greece:Between a Present Yet to Pass and a Future Still toCome, pp. 29–58. London: AK Press and OccupiedLondon.

Mason, P. (2012) Why it’s Kicking Off Everywhere: TheNew Global Revolutions. London: Verso.

Mentinis, M. (2010) ‘Remember remember the 6th ofDecember . . . A rebellion or the constituting momentof a radical morphoma?’, IJURR 34(1), pp. 197–202.

Papadimitriou, F. (2006) ‘A geography of “Notopia”:hackers et al., hactivism, urban cyber-groups/cyber-cultures and digital social movements’, City 10(3),pp. 317–326.

Park, R.E. and Burgess, E.W. (1967) The City. Chicago:University of Chicago Press.

Petropoulou, C. (2010) ‘From the December youth upris-ing to the rebirth of urban social movements: a space-time approach’, IJURR 34(1), pp. 217–224.

Routledge, P. (2010) ‘Cities, justice and conflict’, UrbanStudies 47(6), pp. 1165–1178.

Routledge, P. and Cumbers, A. (2009) Global JusticeNetworks: Geographies of Transnational Solidarity.Manchester: Manchester University Press.

Sotiris, P. (2010) ‘Rebels with a cause: the December 2008

Greek youth movement as the condensation of deepersocial and political contradictions’, IJURR 34(1),pp. 203–209.

Sotiris, P. (2011) ‘The period of uprisings and the Left:thoughts for the “piazzas” and politics’, in Ch. Giova-nopoulos and D. Mitropoulos (eds) Democracy underConstruction: From the Roads to the Piazzas, pp. 157–168. Athens: A-synecheia Editions, (in Greek).

Stavrou, A. (2011) ‘The “upper piazza” or when themasses talk: “oe we rose from the sofa”’, in Ch.Giovanopoulos and D. Mitropoulos (eds) Democracyunder Construction: From the Roads to the Piazzas,pp. 31–40. Athens: A-synecheia Editions, (in Greek).

Tarrow, S. (2006) The New Transnational Activism. Cam-bridge: Cambridge University Press.

Vance, J.E. Jr (1966) ‘Housing the worker: the employmentlinkage as a force in urban structure’, EconomicGeography 42(4), pp. 294–325.

Vradis, A. (2009) ‘Greece’s winter of discontent’, City13(1), pp. 146–149.

Vradis, A. and Dalakoglou, D., eds (2011) Revolt andCrisis in Greece: Between a Present Yet to Pass and aFuture Still to Come. London: AK Press and OccupiedLondon.

Lila Leontidou is Professor of Geography andEuropean Culture at the Hellenic OpenUniversity and Senior Fellow at the HellenicObservatory, London School of Economicsand Political Science. Email: leontidou@eap.gr;L.Leontidou@lse.ac.uk

312 CITY VOL. 16, NO. 3

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Kin

g's

Col

lege

Lon

don]

at 1

2:10

14

Janu

ary

2013