Exarcheia, the subway station, and public space

By Yavor Tarinski

First of all it is important to underline that public transport (tram, subway, bus) is immensely important as it allows for ecological and inclusive movement throughout the city. With the usage of all the different types of public transport a vast and comfortable transportation network can be developed to challenge the domination of the private car on our streets – domination that makes urban life worse by air and noise pollution, frequent accidents, and the exclusion of the most marginalised economically.

Book launch: “Cities Without Capitalism”

Yavor Tarinski and other contributors to the anthology “Cities Without Capitalism” (edited by Hossein Sadri and Senem Zeybekoglou) present their chapters at the book launch, while also paying tribute to the memory of the great urban theorist Peter Marcuse.

Yavor Tarinski at the Humanity Now podcast

The Significance of Emancipated Neighborhoods for the Project of Direct Democracy

By Yavor Tarinski

Cities have the capability of providing something for everybody, only because, and only when, they are created by everybody.

~Jane Jacobs[1] 

The elites can’t stop climate change, but democratic cities can

By Yavor Tarinski

We should not kid ourselves: the climate catastrophe is an epic war of the rich on the poor; corporate criminality on a global scale.

~Dimitrios Roussopoulos[1]

Re-Embedding Citizenship in Revolutionary Politics

By Yavor Tarinski

To take no part in the running of the community’s affairs is to be either a beast or a god!

~Aristotle[1]

When exploring social change, one has to examine all aspects of it. Developing strategies and institutions that will help facilitate the coming into being and functioning of a democratic and ecological society is of an immense importance, and so is the anthropological type that will consist it. In this latter aspect, the concept of citizenship plays crucial role.

The Spatial Dimensions of Citizenship as an Antidote to Mob Rule

By Yavor Tarinski

The attraction of evil and crime for the mob mentality is nothing new. It has always been true that the mob will greet “deeds of violence with admiring remark: it may be mean but it is very clever.

-Hannah Arendt[1]

Among opponents of direct democracy there is this reoccurring argument of it being prone to the so-called “mob rule”[2], as if the people, once empowered, will most probably turn into a mob. But this line of thought, deeply submerged into oligarchic imaginary, is highly fallacious and deceptive. There are certain reasons because of which the people can degrade into mob, and Hanna Arendt’s work can provide clarity into distinguishing the former from the latter, as well as alternative civic routs that can lead to the emergence of an active citizenry instead.

Cities beyond bureaucracy: Exploring commons-based strategies

Urban researcher Nikos Vrantsis interviews Yavor Tarinski, author of Common Futures: Social Transformation and Political Ecology [co-authored with Alexandros Schismenos] (Black Rose Books, 2021), on the current bureaucratic state of cities and the democratic perspectives offered by autonomous urban movements. 

All Power to the Neighborhoods: Greece Rises Against Police Barbarity

By Yavor Tarinski

With cities, it is as with dreams: everything imaginable can be dreamed, but even the most unexpected dream is a rebus that conceals a desire or, its reverse, a fear. 

~Italo Calvino[1]

 In early March, this year, a group of motorized policemen reach a public square in the Athenian neighborhood of Nea Smyrni. There they begin checking the people around whether they have done the proper procedures according to the government’s anti-pandemic measures. Soon after that the policemen begin issuing fines to those who they deem to be outside in violation to the measures, which provoked disagreements among some of those gathered around, without however any sign of violence. Enraged by the calm and reasonable arguments of a young man, some of the officers attack him and start hitting him mercilessly with iron batons (that are not part of Greece’s standard police equipment)  all over his body, while he and all those around him beg them to stop. The whole incident is captured on video[2] by many of the passersby.

Public Assemblies in Early Cities

By Yavor Tarinski

The greatest achievement of these human beings was the creation of cities.
~Dimitrios Roussopoulos[1]