💾 Archived View for library.inu.red › file › kostas-avrimidis-greece-the-crisis.gmi captured on 2023-01-29 at 11:41:19. Gemini links have been rewritten to link to archived content
-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Title: Greece & the crisis Author: Kostas Avrimidis Date: 19 October 2011 Language: en Topics: Greece, financial crisis, hope, Irish Anarchist Review Source: Retrieved on 24th December 2021 from http://www.wsm.ie/c/greece-crisis-seeds-hope Notes: Published in the Irish Anarchist Review Issue 4.
There is no doubt that the political history of Greece is full of
oppression and political struggle — from dictatorships to political
prosecutions, jailings, exiles, shootings, torture, civil war, and
countless strikes, demonstrations, occupations and protests that are put
down by extreme state violence.
But no matter how much the people are trying their best, again and again
they end up falling short of pulling off a full scale revolution, even
though the potential to do so is there – or so it appears.
In my opinion there are two main reasons for this: Firstly, the massive
patronising of the people by the political parties and especially by the
parties of the left and secondly, the lack of political education of the
people that will help them to build political thought and judgement.
But now it appears, for the very first time, that things may have
changed. It seems that in recent times many more people don’t buy the
rhetoric of the parties and they are beginning to try to understand
politics for themselves. One of the big stumbling blocks that remains is
the lack of political education – in that it should have started at
least 3 decades back, so that when people came across the current
political and social situation they would have been able to cope
relatively easily. This did not happen so people are trying to
understand so much in so short a time.
Another very important aspect of the current political climate is the
grassroots campaigns that have been built by communities of people that
lead the way outside the influence of political parties. It’s worth
mentioning a few of them. Starting with Keratea, where a town of 16,000
people, situated southeast of Athens, are opposing en masse the decision
of the state to build a huge open dump to accommodate Athens city’s
needs in the near by archaeological site of Ovriokastro. The beauty of
the villagers’ struggle is the manner in which they have organised —
direct democracy- and the length of time, militancy and effort that they
have put into fighting the campaign.
All of this has occurred in the face of massive pressure from the state
with hundreds of riot police attacking people with tear gas and beating
them with clubs. They have faced media dismissal — mostly pretending
that is not happening at all, and a great deal of mocking when their
struggle is commented on at all. Nevertheless the people of Keratea are
still winning.
Another battle of significance is the struggles of small communities in
Northern Greece, and more specifically in the ‘counties’ of Chalkidiki
and Komotini where people are opposing on health and environmental
grounds the extraction of gold which was found in their areas. Again
they have had to face a massive campaign against them by the media –
both state owned and private — and they have had to balance things
between the dilemma of the potential job creation- in areas of Greece
with the highest unemployment and emigration for decades now — and
serious health and environmental concerns.
Again their tactics of choice have been mass mobilisation of
communities, open public meetings, demonstrations, the closure of main
road arteries — and all these from people with little or no experience
in political struggle. In the face of all this they have managed
substantial victories, built political awareness for themselves and set
an example for other campaigns.
Another very different but nevertheless very empowering campaign is the
refusal of payment of motorway tolls, that has created a movement of
thousands of people actively involved from all walks of life in defiance
of the private companies that operate the tolls and the state. This
campaign is amazing both in its strength and in the general knowledge
and understanding of the purpose behind it. What we have here is the
state assigning the construction of massive motorways to private
companies and giving them the right to levy enormous amounts of tolls on
the people using them — Direct private taxation on the public with the
blessings of the state!
Last but not least is the Real Democracy Now movement, with the mass
occupation of town squares that ignited like fire from town to town all
over Greece and gave hope to people in a society were people have
started to realise, to an extent, that parties and unions are not going
to deliver the goods for them and that the social and political problems
that they are facing have to be resolved in a more “DIY” manner.
One of the main problems of Greek politics and culture, quoting from an
old comrade that has followed things for the best part of the last 50
years is “institutionalised misery”. No matter how cornered people
become, the vast majority of them stop short of doing something about it
by moaning and accepting their fate as if it is predetermined from
someone or something from high above. Recently I saw on the back door of
a toilet a piece of graffiti that reads “All it takes is one wheel to
start a revolution — or a fucking backbone”. That actually is very close
to what people are lacking in Greece and indeed in the world in general.
I don’t know if the people in Greece can pull off a full scale
uncompromising revolution even though everything at present is heading
in the right direction. What is against them is time — all these
movements and campaigns and more, should have started a long time back,
from a smaller neighbourhood level and in relatively less pressured
times.
But having said that, I’m not implying even for a second that the
governments and politicians that have humiliated and continue to
humiliate the Greek people so much over all these years will find it
easy to maintain their seats and status. One thing is for sure — they
will need a whole fleet of helicopters to escape with their lives
intact, them and their families, when the shit does hit the fan!