This online article was published in March of 2013 on the website Transition Europe.

“Neither the haircut, nor the hairdresser” – a text by cypriot anarchists regarding recent events on the island.

The haircut of bank savings and the other memorandum measures forthcoming cannot be explained through the prism of a good or a bad management of the economy. After all, only a week ago, the government of this place was in the hands of the left-wing AKEL, which accepted and pushed through memorandum laws without even having agreed on the final memorandum – and of course, without ever receiving any money from the much-hyped loan. The vast disappointment of the people for the financial decay was shown in the last elections with the bringing about to power of DISY.

The socialisation of the damages at the expense of the small savers should not come as any surprise. The neoliberal logic demands the nullification of social achievements [in the sense of previous social/labour victories –– trans.] the privatisation of public wealth and capital’s compensation for its damages to be paid by the workers, at any give moment.

It was very quickly proven that Anastasiadis [trans: the Cypriot president] was unable to stand by his pre-electoral pledges and to convince the neoliberal “friends of his” in Europe to support the policies he himself had announced. [Outside] support for the local elites that Anastasiadis was hoping for crashed against the interests of the stronger, supra-national elites which aimed at gaining from the domestic wealth. The haircut of all savings was a desperate pledge by the government to limit the losses of domestic capital, whose interests it represents.

In the period ahead, the state will utilise a number of strategies to attempt to absorb the social shock: it will pledge national interests and the prospect of natural gas –– and for those who won’t buy neither, it will deploy brutal repression in the name of law and order.

As observed at the first few gatherings against the proposed law for the savings’ haircut, reaction to it come from across the entire political spectrum. We, as part of the wider anti-authoritarian space, do not consider any authority to be able to manage our lives. We do not de facto align ourselves with anyone who articulates an anti-memorandum discourse, nor do we believe that there can be any socially just solution under the current capitalist system. Today’s systemic crisis is for us yet another field of action for the development of a social movement of subversion. And we will therefore cooperate with all who share this perspective.

Crouch of the disorderly

comrades from the anarchist/ anti-authoritarian space

Nicosia, March 19 2013

The text above was distributed in Nicosia during the protest gathering outside the cypriot parliament