The Emergency Assembly Against Fascism is inviting people from all anti-fascist forces in Cyprus for a gathering at Molos in Limassol Against Fascism, on Friday 7 February, at 19:00.
The call of the Assembly:
“The neo-fascist party ELAM calls a public and announced gathering at the Limassol city hall square on the same day and time, and we consider it very important to declare our opposition to this provocation. In a country where the actions of state officials can murder a migrant (see Khan Shoaib, Anis) and the police refusing to even give explanations while doing every manoeuvre to cover it up (as in the case of Thanasis Nikolaou), in a city where racist attacks on migrant workers have become a daily occurrence, ELAM comes to give political legitimacy and to support this violence, openly and publicly, in Limassol with a “rally against the criminality of illegal immigration”. In essence, a rally in support of the crimes against migrants. Fascist propaganda plays so much with the mind of public opinion that they say they are marching against crime when their goal is to make the already existing crimes legal and permanent. Crimes such as beatings, thefts, torture and murders of migrants. If this gathering takes place without opposition and resistance, things will get even worse, both for foreign workers, people of different sexual orientation, women, groups and youth that the fascists do not approve of and bully, and for every person who does not express the fascist delirium or collaborate with the fascists.
Nevertheless, ELAM’s central slogans against illegal immigration and allowances are only a cover. Just as in the 1940s the Nazis built their domination by pointing to Jews and Roma as the enemy of the nation, just as later international fascist forces and coups were carried out everywhere under the excuse of war against communism and leftists/socialists, so today global western fascism is trying to conquer every country using the issue of immigration, Muslims and LGBTI people. Similarly in Cyprus, they used to say that the problem was supposedly the leftists and Turkish Cypriots. They tried to exclude the leftists and Turkish Cypriots from social life and institutions and attacked them, while the state policy was specifically to lock Turkish Cypriots in ghettos. Today the same fascist minds are thinking and doing the same with immigrants and every identity that fascists find to make an enemy within. In reality what they need is a nationalist alibi to justify an authoritarian-police-controlled power over society as every fascist party in history has done.
ELAM’s connection with international fascism was proven by the official presence of ELAM at Trump’s inauguration, indicating that ideologically the incumbent US government is expressed by ELAM in Cyprus. The cooperation between fascism and imperialism is the most expected when the crisis in the system deepens and, as in ’74, so today, many crimes and betrayals are expected with the open cooperation of fascists and the superior imperialist power. Fascist propaganda is once again playing with the minds of public opinion. While proudly parading themselves in the inauguration of the dominant global power, with the whole gamut of billionaire techno-feudalists, at the same time they present themselves to us as an anti-systemic force and solution to society’s problems. Of course, ELAM’s fake anti-systemic stance has precedents, from its collaboration with the upper leadership of the church and its corrupt sections to every fascist tycoon in Cyprus, every fascist-eoka b supporter that the system has laundered, given position and power to.
Even on the issue of migrants, the truth is that the Elamites and all kinds of fascists do not actually oppose having immigrants in Cyprus. It wants them, but it wants them as slaves with no social life. Like the traditional fascists they are, they want and HAVE immigrants for their fields, their stables, their factories and their businesses, they want and HAVE them as maids for their elderly parents. At the same time, they want them to be poorly paid, to have bad and cheap living and housing conditions, and also, whenever the bosses want, to have them subjugated, beaten, left unpaid, and ultimately deported. In general, apart from servitude, the fascists want immigrant workers not to speak, not to be seen, not to be in public, not to demand, and of course not to act or come to Cyprus without the permission of the fascists and their bosses, unless servitude is needed. Because obviously, the fascist, especially the neo-fascist nouveau riche, would never want to put his hands where the immigrant puts their hands to sustain this society. As for the modern refugees, even there, the systemic nature and hypocrisy of Elam are now obvious to anyone who wants to see. At the same time that under the umbrella of “anti-Islamism” they support the genocide in Gaza and the state-murderer “Israel”, they are also trying to find every way to prevent the arrival of the refugees created by their allies. People need to open their eyes; the fascist propaganda has been clear and the same for 100 years. They are fascists and they want state power, money and military power, everything else is propaganda.
Regardless of the racist incidents, Limassol and especially its centre has a serious anti-fascist legacy. Starting from the resistance efforts during the coup to the present day, ELAM has never managed to keep an office open in the centre of Limassol without facing resistance and has not held an official march for years. Responding to the fascists requires maximum rallying on the street despite the differences that people who stand against fascism may have with each other. The rise of fascism and its legitimacy in the streets is a challenge to all of us. We are not necessarily raising the issue of a legal rights ideology or of any “agenda”. It is something much more immediate and vital. It is a question of social self-defence, a question of protecting our people and our values. Today, attacks and threats are being made against foreign workers and LGBTI people, groups of young people who come from different countries, people who are our colleagues, family members, friends, in other words ourselves. Soon their violence will move from social identities to political identities and violence will increase against people who express left-wing, progressive, anti-authoritarian discourse against nationalism, the state, the military, the church and the patriarchy; in order to silence us or make us disappear if possible.
We can’t wait for them to kill ‘a Pavlos Fyssas’ in Cyprus for us to wake up. And all these kids who the fascists beat or bully every day in schools, on the street, and at work, who they attack in their homes, are young people just like any other Fyssas, who came here to work or were born here. The fact that they are not Cypriot or Greek should not make their lives any less valuable. We cannot wait for the fascists to enter our homes, burn down associations and clubs, we cannot wait for them to conquer other territory, other neighbourhoods. The fascists must not prevail in Limassol and Cyprus, they must be dismantled ideologically and organizationally. In a society that is collapsing due to the local and global capitalist system, fascism, which is presented as an answer to the problems, actually represents the bottom, the final decay of society’s vital values, and the transformation of society into a herd with absolute violence and hierarchy, as in all fascist regimes. Whether this fascism is Greek, Turkish, Islamic, Christian, Trumpian, or Putinist, whatever mask it wears, the violent and genocidal power over people based on nationality, race, religion, and sexuality, and their push toward servitude, is the darkest and most reactionary side of our society and it must not prevail.
It is necessary to forward the political and moral intelligence of society to find solutions to the current systemic problems. We need to strengthen society’s vital values, solidarity and cooperation. It is necessary to rally, organise and reach out to our society. To protect our streets and our people by breaking the fascist monologue and fascist violence, creating modern strong communities and societies that can stop the downfall by bringing about a better world.
The enemies of society come in limousines not boats
They wear expensive clothes and ties, they are not delivery drivers.
Solidarity, cooperation and social self-defence against fascism and the system that feeds it.”
