Workers Solidarity Movement

Don’t visit Greece this summer, boycott it. This is not an order by the invisible hand of the markets, but a mere suggestion from someone who was born in the so-called Greek territory.

Why travel to a country that treats its own citizens as an enemy of the state and has no real problem, in the name of tourism, to release sadists, dressed as policemen, against protestors and even, well... tourists? Why support a country that stages a court martial which sentences 18-year olds to eleven years of imprisonment with no hard evidence, effectively creating perhaps the youngest political prisoners in Europe (as happened in the “Halandri” case)?

The more time PASOK (the ruling party) stays in power, the more obvious it becomes that the Prime Minister, George Papandreou (also pres- ident of the Socialist International, former President Mubarak of Egypt was a member) has put Greece up for sale in an effort to ease its debts in order to keep the EU, IMF and ECB happy. In the effort to convince the public that this loss of sovereignty is essential, they have mobilized once again their loyal news agencies (which go bankrupt one by one), their fascist friends and riot police that threaten to send fascists to your work place if they don’t really like your face (as happened to a group of immigrants in Athens).

Nevertheless, people go on to the streets being impolite and ruining the otherwise perfect picture of Greece to the outside world. There’s a thin line between politeness and being civilized and our leaders always try to mix these meanings together via the mass media that promotes the model of a European citizen: a polite smiling familyman who feels democratic every four years in front of a ballot box.

Now we experience the first steps of a society that starts from below and spreads horizontally. Plazas fill with infuriated people demanding direct democracy, independent workers unions’ form against the two major ones, boosted by the new cuts and unemployment rates of 16% to 20% (depending of your sources). From the events of 2008 and on, the anarchist and anti- capitalist movements have gained momentum, but now they need once again to redefine themselves and their ways. The events run faster than static social perspectives. Now we need to get down and dirty, mix with the masses and hear what they have to say. And this is not a suggestion, it is a fact!

Guest Contributor: Mario

From Workers Solidarity 123 Sept/Oct 2011