The appearance: Call to an event that was canceled 7 hours before its holding

On June 13, 2016, a call from the “Self-organized libertarian assembly Paliacate Zapatista" to an event-debate entitled "The Sixth: Rebellion and resistance in the mountains and cities of Mexico" is published on the internet. The call is published on the website of the "Assembly of anarchists-communists for the class attack against the U.E.", as at that time the "assembly" Paliacate Zapatista had no website. The event would take place 4 days later, on 17/6/2016, at 7:30 p.m., in the "political space" of S. Trikoupi Street, 44, which in the past had been used by several leftist projects and by the "Assembly of anarchists-communists for the class attack against the EU".

This was the first appearance of Paliacate, and it was on internet. We have searched the Internet a lot, but we have not found neither any open call of any initiative to the creation of this assembly or any other call to this “assembly” before 13/6/2016. It is probably an initiative founded with unpublished internal processes, which decided to call to an event also with unpublished internal processes, or with a non-open assembly, which in some of its unpublished sessions decided to publish an open call to an event. In both cases the processes that led to the call were not open and unpublished.

Three days later, on June 16, 2016, one day before the event was held, the call is published in Athens Indymedia. Next day, 6/17/2016, at 12:26, 7 (seven) hours before the event (!), a Paliacate statement is published in Athens Indymedia, in which the event-debate is canceled…

8.5 months of silence

For the next 8.5 months, that is, from 17/6/2016 to 3/3/2017, there is no trace of Paliacate either on the internet or anywhere else.

Call to an event one day before its realization

On March 3, 2017, a call to the same event is published on the internet. The event would be held 1 (one) day later, on March 4, 2017. This time, in addition to Athens Indymedia, the call is also published in the Paliacate’s website. At that time, there was only one entry published at this website: That of the call...

The appearance of the website and the appropriation of material

A few days later the website is enriched with more entries. Are they texts (or in general material) of the ¨assembly¨? Of course not! Here comes the first surprise (unless the above mentioned is not a surprise): The texts published on the website are some Zapatistas’ texts translated into Greek. In the past, these texts had been written and published on different dates, but long before the appearance of Paliacate. However, on Paliacate’s website they are called "material belonging to the collective" (here the assembly turns into a collective…), without specifying what exactly this means. How could it be “collective’s material”, as this material had been published in other web pages several years before the appearance-creation of the Paliacate’s web page? (It is quite difficult for us to call Paliacate a collective. However, we will talk about this issue later).

One more question has arisen: Well, how come this "self-organized libertarian assembly" has not published a text of its own for so long? In spite of our surprise we will not insist on this question, because when we had a look at the dates of the other entries, we came across an even greater surprise.

A web page that appears in 2017 with entries dated in 2007

The dates of the entries on the website (except that of the call) are from February 2017 to November 2017! Miracle! How is it possible for a website founded in 2016 to have entries dated in 2007? Well, this can be easily done by pressing a button. The question is not of a technical nature, it is of a political nature. How is it possible for an assembly (even if it is not an open one...) appeared in 2016 to have on its website translations dated from 2007 to 2017? We gave two answers to this question. However, there are several comments that can be made on this issue.

1. Paliacate exists at least since 2007 as a secret assembly. For ten years time it has been translating a few Zapatistas’ texts (it may have held an event only for its members, "members only"), but for this 10 years time it never appeared with this name. Suddenly in 2016 it published its first call to an event. But could this be true? How possible might this be?

On its website the translations are called "collective’s material", without specifying what exactly does this mean. If these are translations made by members of the collective-assembly before its foundation, how come do they belong to the collective? Therefore, it is obvious that when the texts of the Zapatistas were translated, Paliacate did not exist. Now, let's proceed to the second answer.

2. The texts were translated before Paliacate appeared. Paliacate simply included them on its website. However, Paliacate claims that they constitute its own material! This is quite a libertarian argument, right?

When these texts were translated, they were published on several web pages by several people. Well, if some of these people at some time founded Paliacate (with processes which were not open at all), this does not at all mean that the texts constitute "collective’s material". You have to be politically illiterate to believe that because of having translated a text years ago as a person, and because recently you founded a "collective", this text constitutes material of the collective. The texts are material of those who use them for the purposes that they were translated. In any case, in libertarian thought and cosmovision no-one owes nothing.

More self-organized, libertarian and asambleary surprises

Browsing the same website we came across more surprises.

By now Paliacate Zapatista has published on its website just 1 (one) text, that of its self-presentation. In the "texts" category the entry is dated 6/2016, while in the "booklets" category it is dated 9/2016...

We would like to make few comments on this.

1. The text of the self-presentation is signed by the "self-organized libertarian assembly Paliacate Zapatista", and it is dated 6/2016 (or 9/2016 ...). With what kind of processes was this text written? Surely not with open processes, since by June 2016 no open assembly had been called by Paliacate Zapatista! Therefore, if in the future Paliacate calls to an open assembly (this is just a working hypothesis), those who will participate in it (except those who called to it, that is, the authors of the self-presentation text), will participate in a assembly whose framework will not have formed by all of its members, since it will have been formed a priori by some of them, with some processes which will be not open, and as such these few members will have presented it to the “assembly”. How horizontal and libertarian is all this?

2. In the same text it is mentioned that the Zapatista-communal organization, apart from Chiapas, is also being applied ¨in the urban framework of the modern city¨. What geographical area does the author of the text refer to? In which city has this way of organization been applied?

3. The so called "assembly" claims to be a member of the Sixth: "Through the Sixth we seek the common space of those who resist from below" ... What exactly is this “stuff” that claims to be a member of the Sixth? Is it possible that a supposed assembly of solidarity with the Zapatistas, which by now has not published any call to an open assembly, that is, something that is not an assembly, is a member of the Sixth? It would be interesting if Paliacate let us know whether it has communicated this decision of its to the Zapatistas ... And of course nowhere can be found a political argumentation on which the ¨assembly " was based in order to say: ¨With the Sixth we seek the common space of those who resist from below¨… Let us remember you again that the text is signed by the self-proclaimed "self-organized libertarian assembly Paliacate Zapatista"...

4. The Paliacate "assembly" says: "Since 1994, we have individually or collectively expressed our political solidarity with the Zapatista rebellion in practice" ... As we cannot believe that it exists as an assembly since 1994, we assume that it speaks in the name of some of its members, which in the past had been members of other assemblies and collectivities, and have participated (together with others, who are not members of the "assembly") in what they call solidarity in practice. But, does this newly founded "assembly" have the right to appropriate actions done long before its foundation by one of its members, among others, and to present these actions as its own? How compatible is all this stuff with the cosmovision and practice of the Zapatistas?

A few questions

Four questions to the "assembly":

a. Do you have the right to call yourself an "assembly" since you have not held any open assembly? If an assembly has been held among its members, then this is not an assembly, it is a political group, since among its members there is a political agreement which allows them to participate in this group. So, why does a web page or a small group insist so badly on calling itself an assembly?

b. How can you be in solidarity with the Zapatistas, if you don't respect their ways?

c. How can you use the term "libertarian" for non-libertarian modes of organization?

d. The political space with which you identify yourself, that is, the Solidarity editions, has very specific political characteristics: They are Leninist-Stalinists. And this is more than obvious. What could the Zapatistas have in common with these red Khmer?

Everyone is welcome…

Now let us talk about the following appearances of Paliacate.

On June 27, 2017, a statement about an event of Paliacate is published on its website. This event would take place 3 (three) days later, on June 30, 2017 at the Kouvelou squat. On the following day, June 28, 2017, the same statement about the event is published on the squat's website. The same statement is published in Athens Indymedia one day after its publication on the squat's website, on 29/6/2017, 1 (one) day before the event is held.

4 months of summer vacations

The summer vacations of Paliacate will last several months. It will appear again on 31/10/2017 in a rally outside the Argentine embassy.

Participation in a concentration without an open assembly previously held

Paliacate's call for this concentration is laconic. Ten lines, nothing more. Another ten lines forthe informative text of the concentration, published a few days later. "Brevity is the soul of ingenuity" ... In the informative text we read that there was a Paliacate banner with a slogan of solidarity with the Mapuche people. We wonder with what processes was taken the decision of the participation of Paliacate in this concentration and the decision of the use this slogan on the banner. An open assembly was never held. So…

Its next appearance will be three months later, on 28/1/2018, at an event held in Stegastro. One more event about the National Indigenous Congress took place on 23/2/2018, in the so called Libertarian Workshop. 8 months later another one follows, in Larisa, in the social center Para tod@s.

Some political questions to those who offered hospitality to Paliacate

We have some doubts-comments to make and we want to ask some questions to the Kouvelou squat, to Stegastro, to the Workshop and to Para Tod@s, that is, to the collectives in whose space Paliacate events were held.

1. With what sort of political processes and criteria (that is, with what political argumentation) did they decide the concession of their space to Paliacate as a "self-organized libertarian assembly"? We insist on these last words, because as such they offered it their space, not as a web page or a "closed" group. We would like to know the political argumentation on which these groups were based in order to discuss whether Paliacate is a libertarian assembly or not, of course whether such a debate took place ... We have exposed an argumentation based on published texts. If there is something more than that, something unpublished, something that these groups know and we don’t, then this “something” belongs to the spectrum of personal relationships and it is not politics. Even if there are some contacts or personal relationships on which these collectives based their decision to offer hospitality to Paliacate, then we must say that this kind of action is an apolitical one and it does not cancel anything of the above mentioned by us. The question, then, can be asked in a different way: Were the processes and criteria with which they decided to offer hospitality to Paliacate political or personal?

2. We assume that the concession of the space of the Kouvelou squat, Stegastro and the Libertarian Workshop was decided in assemblies. If these assemblies were really held, was there any doubt, objection or opposition based on political arguments, for example, on some of the arguments exposed before by us, or on other arguments regarding the self-organized or libertarian character of Paliacate? Did anyone wonder how does Paliacate dare to present itself as an assembly? Was the concession decided just because Paliacate declares to be a libertarian and self-organized assembly (in this "political" space you are what you declare to be) and because some members of these collective know someone from Paliacate?

3. Do these collectives still believe that Paliacate is a self-organized libertarian assembly?

4. If some members of these groups have changed their opinion about this issue, or they are thinking in a manner similar to ours, we would like them to share these thoughts of theirs with us. For sure, someone, somewhere and sometime will have said: "how can it be possible that this stuff is an assembly, and particularly a libertarian one?"

See you

During the three months since the last public appearance of the "assembly", by today, 18/2/2019, no other call has been made from Paliacate.

https://wp.me/paK7oC-l