While our comrades in Rochester Students for a Democratic Society rushed their streets a few hours to the west, participants from the Syracuse Solidarity Network, Activists of Oswego County, and Binghamton Not Bombs gathered in the snow around a banner reading "Solidarity with the Greek Unrest, No State Murders!"
After reading a letter from friends of Alexis entitled "Our rage is a love for life," about 15 of us took over the roads with "Fight for your right to party" blasting from a boombox. We blocked traffic and marched right through the middle of the busy downtown bus stop area. The quiet night air of our rustbelt ghost town was shattered by anti-police chants and rowdy music from KRS-ONE and the Infernal Noise Brigade.
Dancing through the lanes swinging black flags and a jolly roger, a megaphone proclaimed solidarity with Greece, with the immigrant struggles, with autonomous workers and students occupying buildings from Athens to NYC. We let people know we were there to remember victims of state murder from Alexis to Syracuse native Johnny Gammage, from Sean Bell to Amadou Diallo.
Chants included "What's the direction? Insurrection! Whats the solution? Revolution!" "We're tired, we're cranky, we'll burn your fucking banky!" "No justice, no peace!" and the popular "From Syracuse to Greece, Fuck the police!"
We circled the city Christmas tree caroling "Merry Crisis!," where families were ice skating to holiday music and one confused cop looked on. As MIA surreally blasted through the cheer, we were met by a range of reactions by the assumed parents, but most of the children waved and laughed. A few shouts of "Recess never ends!" "Schools out forever!" and "Abolish adults!" and we returned to warm up with friends old and new.
Upstate New York is an angry, beaten-down constellation of city, town and country. We know solidarity means attacking our own oppressions and exploitations, fighting the system right here on stolen land. There's a sense among Upstate anti-authoritarians that despite increasing visibility, new projects popping up, and connections built through the North East Anarchist Network, we're only getting started.
Its not only Christmas trees and banks that have been set alight in Athens, but also our dreams and our imaginations. Our hearts are with our friends in Greece and across the world. From one pissed off, hopeless dot on the map to another, we are everywhere and we are not alone. We won't forget Alexis, and we won't forgive the present.
In solidarity, against the repression and for the coming insurrection!
Participants in the Syracuse Solidarity Network, an affiliate of the North East Anarchist Network
http://SyracuseSolNet.wordpress.com [1]
http://myspace.com/SyracuseSolidarityNetwork [2]
North East Anarchist Network
