Public statement
of military service refusal
To the Hellenic National Defense General Staff and to all military recruitment authorities
What if someone told me, ‘What do you want then; to change humankind?’
I would answer, ‘No, something infinitely more moderate; I’d wish for humankind to change itself.’
—Cornelius Castoriadis
My name is Athanasios Karageorgiou. Since 1995 I had refused any service in the Greek army via an official statement sent to the military conscription office of Alexandroupolis (northern Greece), in which I had stated responsibly that I am a total objector.
Also now, that I was ordered to serve mandatory military service and to present myself on September 8th, 2011, at the naval base (aka Skaramaga), I declare that as an anti-authoritarian I refuse to serve any state mechanism of violence; a mechanism of power, absurdness and personality demolition; a mechanism that only serves to exert violence against others and those who are part of it.
I do not participate in it, and I have no obligation to serve fatherlands, religions and all that is behind these.
If there’s a meaning in the word ‘fatherland’ in your non-existent bourgeois democracy, for me there is none.
Public statement by Athanasios Karageorgiou
September 8th, 2011, Exarchia, Athens
source: www.antirrisies.gr