Glezos

Wednesday 22 March 2023

Greek Protest Movement Re-Emerges Part 5

Greek Train Crash Part 5
The social and economic crisis underpins the resurgence of a mass protest movement not seen since the IMF arrived in 2010-11. This movement both in size scope and age related participation shows it is a new dynamic which hasn’t overcome the defeats of the past, but by gaining momentum shows a new dynamic may be possible if it overcomes the dead end strategy of the past.

2010 IMF decade 
We went through 4 distinct phases. 

First Phase: The rise of the Aganaktismenous-Indignants phase with Occupations in Sindagma sq around 40 mini-establishment organised General Strikes with 48hr being maximums and at one stage near 1million people on the streets of Sindgama. Many times these demos were violently disrupted using tear gas and initially Bank Workers were burnt during one strike by agents provocateurs. Politically it led to an almost total collapse of New Democracy (reaching an all time low of 18%) and a rise of the new kids on the block, Syriza 

Second Phase: ND-PASOK coalition Samaras and Venizelos and a massive strike wave in 2014 which was brought to a standstill when the government introduced Junta style laws banning the right to strike in the public sector and sending out arrest warrants using the police to public sector workers if they continued their strikes. The strike phase ended once people realised that without a solid strike leadership they could only rely on electoral changes so they put all their faith in Syriza 

Third Phase:  Despite the blackmails via the shut banks and a limit on daily withdrawals with pensioners fainting in long queues with hot weather, the Greek establishment tried to sell the Referendum of 2015 as a pro-EU event stating quite brazenly a vote for OXI-NO would equal an ejection from the EU and a return to the Drachma. When 63% of the population voted NO and the KKE abstained it clearly showed peoples disposition if a correct leadership existed but instead we got the pro-EU Syriza clowns who instead like Samaras before them voted in the 3rd MoU 

Fourth Phase: The protests against the sell-off of the name Macedonia to a bunch of NWO Skopje clowns were wide and varied and whilst including a large base of the Patriotic Left had no organized banners from the Left and did involve a large base of the Patriotic Right. The main speech for the massive rally in Sindagma Sq was from Theodorakis and this was the last great speech from this composer who stigmatised Greek history from the struggle against the Nazi occupation till then end of the 2010 decade.
Hundreds of thousands took part in every major city in Greece surpassing left-right political divides. Despite that Syriza agreed and then lost power…

2020’s Decade 
Lockdowns R Us

Never one to cut short any fascistic implementations of restrictive measures PM Mitsotakis went above and beyond demanding Vaccine passports for the whole of the EU (whilst at the same time promoting open borders and the shipping of migrunts without any checks from one part of Greece to the other). Whereas most countries ended Convid PM Mitsotakis with his neo nazi Health Minister Plevris only brought back the 10k odd unvaxxed healthworkers but still with a stipulation to do twice weekly paid tests, he brought multilingual announcements on the metro to wear a mask and although banned at airports the message still rings out more than once in an hour. This clown show is allegedly to end 31st March but don’t hold your breath as there are adverts in place to speak to your doctor regarding endless boosters for your ….health. 

The pent up pressure of over two years of Lockdowns the disaster in the tourist economy and the 20-30% inflation in consumer goods over the last year has pummelled day to day living costs and we are at the dawn of a new social crisis that will dwarf the one of the last decade… 

Demos after Demos
Get Out Scumbags We Want Justice and Education 
Within the space of ten days we have had two mini General Strikes, endless protests by university students, school students with many banners stating ‘Down with the Government of Murderers’. Many were teargassed and the agents provocateurs resurfaced disrupting protests so the riot police could disperse them. In almost every Sunday league match banners anti-govt banners have appeared. Indicative of the situation is that the state controlled oligarchs media has had to put on an anti-govt face. In a research its stated around 2.5m people have been involved in protests and strikes in the last period. 

The widespread participation of youth indicates once again enough is enough and this is forcing the govts hand to try not react in the usual way. For the first time even in right wing media they assert the agents provocateurs who disrupt the rallies are paid informants dressed as anarchists. This is a new development. 

 There is clearly a split within the establishment ranks and the police itself as evident with the departure of the Chief of Police after one year in office without knowing if he was pushed or he resigned. Was the Chief of Police ordered to kill protesting Greeks? Attacking people for mourning their dead and unaccounted for in the Great Train Crash of 2023 doesn’t obviously sit well with elements of the government party and they have openly stated it through their spokesperson ‘that a train crash cannot bring down the government’, but that is exactly what will happen. PM Mitsotakis days are numbered and if he doesn’t win in the first round the knives will be out for him, if he lasts that far and we don’t have anymore engineered …crashes (air sea or road) with victims. 

Knowing full well a global crash was coming they postponed the inevitable with the Convid QE the central banks pumped in everywhere (2019-20) creating mass inflation and now millions are literally on the move it will difficult once more to cage them in. 

The difference with the 2010 decade is that there is no actual single political alternative on the horizon being promoted. The MSM promote Dendias (ND Foreign Minister) and also individuals like Varoufakis trying to spin an anti-IMF twist on his behalf. A coalition govt cannot of course have a single leader and the issue is whether it will be a mini coalition or a broad based one.

KKE as mainstream as they can get 
Having survived the 2010 decade by halving its electoral base and selling off as much as possible to maintain its professional parasites the KKE needs the votes to get an electoral subsidy. It has suddenly changed course and is no longer doing separate demos as it has done for the past 25 years. It now joins all demos with the rest of the people. The unions are no longer ‘class based’ which was the excuse used for its abstentionism.

The demonstrations for the KKE are to gain more supporters to vote for them, the politics is zero as usual. They don’t even call for the government to resign now and they don’t even leave Parliament as a sign of protest. They hope to ride it out get their 300.000 votes and join the next two Parliaments. This might not actually work out for them and this year may be the decisive break that occurs with the KKE that it is forced into a coalition government to survive economically as politically it is dead. 

 The next period ahead
The game of musical chairs now being played between all the organisations that are represented within and outside Parliament for a seat at the parliamentary trough will depend on what numbers emerge and with whom they govern as the one party victory seems too distant if not near enough impossible under a system of proportional representation for the first set of elections. 

The issue is whether the populist movement is able to impose any real populist solutions by acting outside the box, ie not limiting itself to set piece demos where riot police and black clad agents provocateurs decide who can and who cant demonstrate, whether they are able to target politicians like they did in Serres where ex-Minister of Transport Karamanlis had tens of thousands chanting ‘You aint getting re-elected’ and making life hell for all politicians touting for a vote. The political patronage system (whereby votes are granted for jobs and government contracts) makes it very impossible. Either which way the capitalist crisis aint going on holiday and it has come back with a vengeance. We need to respond accordingly. 

Evans Aggelissopoulos

No comments:

Post a Comment