Where is Syriza going? 11 July
If you don't find some aspects of the Greek situation difficult and confusing, it's probably because you haven't been paying attention. A left-reformist party, with a considerable anti-capitalist minority within its ranks, has been terrifying the Euro-billionaire establishment by threatening not to make the poor pay for the bankers' crisis.
I understand that in some ways, over recent months on the ground, anti-austerity policies have been carried out. But the government has generally relied on its own capacity to find clever tactics and to profit from divisions among the Eurogroup to get a compromise deal to finance social measures. This was unlikely to work, and seems to be quickly unravelling. There are two plausible outcomes : the first is that Tsipras gets his deal and imposes further austerity, pleading that the alternative would be overthrow and replacement by a vicious "national unity government" which has been seen in other countries at other times ( 1931 in the UK, perhaps). Using this argument, most of the Left of Syriza moves more or less into line, leaving a (smallish but crucial) minority to organize along with others, workers' resistance to austerity measures.
The second possibility is that the eurogroup decide to punish Tsipras for the crime of lèse majesté, more or less explicitly "pour encourager les autres" - to terrify the soft left in Spain, Italy, France, Portugal and elsewhere. In this case, Greece will be thrown out of the Euro and have to reorganize a new currency in a situation of economic collapse, with any imports becoming problematic and wide sections of industry at a standstill. The second case (like the first) means a lot of suffering in Greece, but could hold the seeds of a Europe-wide movement to seriously weaken the EU plutocrats.
In both scenarios the organization of grassroots resistance to austerity in Greece and across Europe is the key element. Also crucial is the use of the Greek situation to explain to hundreds of millions of Europeans how European 21st century capitalism works, and how it cannot be reformed to become a force for humanity rather than for the greed of a tiny minority.
Particularly uninteresting in this situation are football chants by non-Greek leftists saying their team was better and that everyone who supported Syriza was a traitor all along.
Every day new articles are published which help us understand (and I particularly recommend the coverage in the Australian anticapitalist newspaper "Red Flag"). This blog piece by Richard Seymour (who I very much disagree with on other issues) is well worth a look:
LENIN'S TOMB: Syriza. Defeat. Victory. Defeat.
I understand that in some ways, over recent months on the ground, anti-austerity policies have been carried out. But the government has generally relied on its own capacity to find clever tactics and to profit from divisions among the Eurogroup to get a compromise deal to finance social measures. This was unlikely to work, and seems to be quickly unravelling. There are two plausible outcomes : the first is that Tsipras gets his deal and imposes further austerity, pleading that the alternative would be overthrow and replacement by a vicious "national unity government" which has been seen in other countries at other times ( 1931 in the UK, perhaps). Using this argument, most of the Left of Syriza moves more or less into line, leaving a (smallish but crucial) minority to organize along with others, workers' resistance to austerity measures.
The second possibility is that the eurogroup decide to punish Tsipras for the crime of lèse majesté, more or less explicitly "pour encourager les autres" - to terrify the soft left in Spain, Italy, France, Portugal and elsewhere. In this case, Greece will be thrown out of the Euro and have to reorganize a new currency in a situation of economic collapse, with any imports becoming problematic and wide sections of industry at a standstill. The second case (like the first) means a lot of suffering in Greece, but could hold the seeds of a Europe-wide movement to seriously weaken the EU plutocrats.
In both scenarios the organization of grassroots resistance to austerity in Greece and across Europe is the key element. Also crucial is the use of the Greek situation to explain to hundreds of millions of Europeans how European 21st century capitalism works, and how it cannot be reformed to become a force for humanity rather than for the greed of a tiny minority.
Particularly uninteresting in this situation are football chants by non-Greek leftists saying their team was better and that everyone who supported Syriza was a traitor all along.
Every day new articles are published which help us understand (and I particularly recommend the coverage in the Australian anticapitalist newspaper "Red Flag"). This blog piece by Richard Seymour (who I very much disagree with on other issues) is well worth a look:
LENIN'S TOMB: Syriza. Defeat. Victory. Defeat.
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