Let us begin with
some jottings from history. In our imagination Greece occupies the bedrock of
key Western ideas with its first city states and the idea of democracy, but
that was ancient Greece. Modern Greece, as we know, has had an important place
in Europe after it emerged breaking free from the Ottoman empire in the 1820s
with the intervention of France, Britain and Russia. A very poor and
essentially rural country then with a limited state under the deep sway of
corrupt elites. Located at the confluence of Southern Europe and the Balkans,
it was deeply marked by wars with Turkey (also a traumatic transfer of populations
agreement with Turkey), a far Right dictatorship in the mid 1930s, the German
occupation, its own civil war till 1949. Post civil-war Greece of the 1950s and
1960s remained authoritarian and underdeveloped. The United States called the
shots in these Cold War years and then came a spell of dictatorship from 1967 to
1974 to pre-empt the rise of the Left. Greeks have had it very hard and have a
great tradition of resistance acknowledged in Europe.
Europe was marked by
widespread anti-fascist resistance to overcome the wars that had destroyed and
economically drained its people; peace was then seen as crucial for democracy. Communists
were at the forefront of the struggle against the colonels’ regime in Greece,
in particular the Athens Polytechnic uprising of 1973. Repression of the
uprising led to mass mobilisation that resulted in the overthrow of the dictatorship.
The 1974 democratic and peaceful transition in Greece was hailed across Europe.
It had alternating governments of the Centre-Left PASOK and the New Democracy
Conservatives as the two principal political actors.
In 1992 Greece (along
with post-Franco Spain and Portugal) signed the Maastricht Treaty and in 2001
it joined the Eurozone—countries with a common currency. Greece has been in the
thick of its most severe economic crisis since 2010. The backdrop for this
crisis dates to the 2008 financial meltdown that affected the world economy and
the Eurozone. Across Europe the economic crisis has fuelled the rise of quick
fix, ‘anti-political’ and ‘anti-systemic’ movements and also of the far Right
while taking the sheen of the old established mainstream political parties
leading to loss of influence. The story of decline of the old Left parties of
Europe is independent of this and that started in the 1980s and reached its
zenith in the crisis years starting 2007 on.
There has been much
excitement among Left circles in Europe and across the world ever since a
coalition of the far Left Syriza formed a government in Greece. Syriza is a
broad network of political activists from different currents of the far Left,
the feminists, ecologists, anti corruptioniks and all of the resistance
struggles against austerity of recent years as part of it.
The origins of Syriza
go back to the period 2004-2008, the Coalition of the Radical Left, developed
through the past years marked by crisis, but expanded its popularity in a
somewhat alarming way in 2011. The open secret here is that during the long
drawn 2011 Syntagma Square occupations in Athens, Leftwing anti-imperialists
and ultra-nationalists rubbed shoulders on the same side in a toxic entente.
This has created a short-term spill-over effect where the Right/Left,
Left/Right axis appear in a blurred spectrum with a shifting base in crisis-marked
Greece.
By the 2012
elections, the Coalition of the Radical Left, Syriza, went from having five per
cent to 27 per cent of the votes and making it the second-biggest party in
Greece. In the January 2015 elections Syriza won 36.3 per cent votes giving it
149 seats in the 300-seat Greek parliament. It had to tie up with
sovereigntyist Right-wing ANEL party [Independent Greeks] to obtain the majority
required to form the government; as a result the new government has a rabidly reactionary
Defence Minister. Syriza’s own Foreign Minister is a nutty ideologue of the ‘patriotic
Left’ (formerly with the still unadulterated Stalinist Communist Party of
Greece, the KKE).
Europe’s old Left
parties, which were mass parties, have sunk in popularity and ceded ground to
the far Right parties that are quite popular with the labouring classes (an
uncomfortable reality mostly unacknowledged by the Left). The two though share
‘national sovereignty’ as the common repertoire and a rejection of the Eurozone
and espouse economic autarchy vis-a-vis the
European economic
union as a solution. We have seen something similar in and around the world
where the Left and Right came to share a common language with regard to
globalisation.
The past few years
has seen a number of governments in Greece collapse while trying to implement a
slew of economic austerity measures imposed by the European Commission, the European
Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund (the Troika). The scale of the
crisis has been enormous leading to the collapse of the basic social
infrastructure in Greece, to the denial of access to health care for three million
people, quite dramatic for a European country with a population of 11 million.
According to the
Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) figures of March
2014, 30 per cent of the Greek population live below the poverty line and 17
per cent of the people are unable to meet their daily food requirements.
Umpteen media reports have described the huge increase in disease, suicide and
preventable death. A large social crisis emerged, also providing fertile ground
for the rise of the far Right and neo-Nazi Golden Dawn party; they went about
distributing food to the needy while pushing ultra-nationalism. (Half a million
people voted for it.)
The election of a
pro-poor Left Government committed to oppose neo-liberal policies and
adjustment measures resulting in mass unemploy-ment has the airs of a “Greek
spring” with vast support of the population, larger than its real strength.
Syriza’s opposition to externally imposed austerity policies is formulated in
simple terms of defending national sovereignty against an outsider—the Troika.
Syriza’s political campaign has relied a great deal on a patriotic and populist
idiom, deploying a ‘saving-the-nation’ device and tapped into the vast reservoir
of resentment within Greece. (It is a matter of history now that in 1979-80, the
iconic founder and leader of PASOK, Andreas Papandreou, had opposed membership
to both the EEC and NATO saying they were part of the same syndicate; but those
were different times.)
However, it accepts
that political action in and against the European Union is the route to take.
In a bold and internationalist stance, the Syriza has broken with the
anti-European rhetoric of the old Left and has opposed an exit from the Euro,
saying it will be disastrous for the future of Europe. But they are caught in a
vortex as they try to negotiate their way with bankers and EU
officialdom. The size
of the Greek public debt is gigantic—323 billion Euros— and the hands of the
Left Government are tied to prevailing economic agreements across Europe. Syriza
is arguing for a bailout package with the EU that would create a new solidarity
in Europe based on fair fiscal, and social and labour policies. Millions of
people haven’t been paid wages, pensions and unemployment benefits. Discontent
has chiselled space for acceptance of violence in daily
politics. Syriza,
while it gets down to providing economic relief to citizens, must now to draw
the line without fear of breaking its ties with the street, by not closing its
eyes to banalisation of xenophobia and anti-outsider/immigrant sentiment. It is
an explosive situation. In a time of economic and social unrest the European
Union was awarded the 2012 Nobel Prize for keeping the Peace and Tolerance in
Europe. Be that as it may, Europe cannot look away from the
serious social crisis
in Greece; it has a special responsibility to come up with a social Marshall
plan.
Tucked within the
Greek turmoil has been another crisis that has been spinning out of
control—xenophobic violence against migrants and asylumseekers, on Roma, on
Gays and on Leftists, mob violence against migrants from Afghanistan,
Bangladesh, Pakistan, North and sub-Saharan Africa; these have been witnessed
right through the years 2013 and 2014.
EU officials have
agreed to extend the Greek economic bailout for four months at the end of
February 2015, allowing the nation a little breathing space not to impose new
austerity measures, but also requiring Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras and co. to
continue paying back the European Union. The Syriza Government’s economists are
framing—with the Troika breathing down their necks—proposals to expand the
income generation of the Greek state and reduce its expenditure. At the same time,
the new Greek Government is moving to raise pension and the minimum wage levels
and ending the previous government’s privatisation programme. A very daunting
task. Syriza has come up with its first proposed legislation to partly deal
with the humanitarian crisis, but so far it has ducked the class question with
regard to structural inequalities in Greece to craft practicable alternatives
expected by the movements of the unemployed, poor and disenfranchised that
brought Syriza to power. This can be counter-productive in the long run.
In Greece’s economic
pyramid, the big untouchables have been the Greek Orthodox Church, always
exempt from paying taxes on its vast properties, and The shipping oligarchs who
wield immense power and evade taxes and influence political futures. Syriza
plans to tax the rich and clamp down on tax evasion, as part of austerity
measures; some of these may not pass with the EU. Moreover Greece’s immensely
powerful shipping magnates, faced with a property tax dragnet, are likely to fund
any forces that undermine and bring down Syriza. The beleaguered far Right
Golden Dawn party is likely to see a rise in its funding from dubious sources
to destabilise Greece and tie down Syriza.
Syriza’s Left project
will certainly have mass popular support to stave off opposition from the
wealthy oligarchs inside Greece, but it cannot use its popular support to
challenge the unfair demands of the European monetarists in the driving seat at
the EU. Syriza has the goodwill and support of a wide number of intellectuals
from across Europe. It must therefore internationalise
the campaign across
Europe to get support from social movements, trade unions etc. for organising
giant protests against austerity in Brussels, Berlin or Paris.
But the prime responsibility
for this will have to be shouldered by the European Left. The Spanish, French,
Italian and German democrats, labour organisers and social justice campaigners
should jointly organise mass actions to hold back the “Troika” from strangling
the government in Greece. The common interest of Europe is at stake: today it
is Greece, tomorrow it will be other countries. It is difficult to say how long
the Syriza Government will survive in Greece and whether it will be successful;
but if this is looked at only as a national problem and not taken to be an
opportunity by the Left groups across Europe everyone will miss the bus. A
failure of the Syriza Government will certainly open the floodgates in terms of
rise in the social and electoral prospects of the far Right formations within
Greece. Let us not forget that Golden Dawn had had 21 MPs in parliament and got
some seven per cent of votes. Elsewhere in Europe too we are already seeing a
phenomenal rise of ultra-nationalist extremist forces.
An intense
cross-border European solidarity can help shift the question of national
sovereignty into a call for democratisation and a Europeanised economic policy.
The EU has to stop being a technocratic instrument of economic policing and
become socially accountable to the people. A whole new model is needed to deal
with the crisis across Europe, the public debt burden and a common poverty and
social alleviation programme should be Europeanised without leaving it to
national governments. A radical new Euro- Left strategic vision is the key
here: A basic requirement would be to shelve the age-old baggage of Left
nationalism. It should campaign for a Europe-wide common approach so that the
EU doesn’t treat each affected country in a piecemeal manner by placing the
burden of crisis separately. It should resist all calls for pre-Schengen closed
borders within Europe. It must also actively mobilise to face head-on the
growing mutation of nationalist sentiments into fascist hysteria—a grave danger
to Europe.
Nurtured and educated
by the groundswell of radical grassroots movements against austerity, a new
Trans-European Left alliance can (re)emerge as a popular force among the
precarious layers of the new labouring poor, not just its traditional forte—the
proletariat; with enough bargaining power to refashion a Europe that isn’t just
in the service of big elites and capital. Will they rise to the occasion? This
isn’t about capture of state power but about capture of people’s imaginations,
the Left’s own imagination and energies that connect the local, national struggles
with common European (and international) ones. The continued economic crisis is
undermining Europe’s
common political and
economic future, it is time to take the bull by the horns before it is too
late; or else nationalists, populists, and isolationists will have a field day.
The
author is a Left-leaning activist who spent several decades in France and
runs the South Asia Citizens Web [http://sacw.net]
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