Greece Election Solidarity Rally : End the Dictatorship of Fear: Support the Greek People Where: 1pm, Dublin, Sat June 16th June 11, 2012
Posted by WorldbyStorm in European Politics, Irish Politics, The Left.trackback
Greece Election Solidarity Rally : End the Dictatorship of Fear:
Support the Greek People
Where: Spire O’Connell Street
When: 1pm Sat June 16th
On Sunday June 17, the people of Greece will have a choice.
They can vote, if they are moved by fear and threats, for political parties who will continue to oversee the enforced impoverishment of their country, in keeping the wishes of European leaders, the IMF, and big… European banks.
On the other hand, they can vote, moved by a desire for democracy, freedom, and dignity, for an end to the criminal debtocracy imposed on
them, and for a radically transformed Europe. A Europe based onsolidarity among all its citizens, and not the diktats of bankers, unelected technocrats, and neoliberal politicians who only represent themselves.
On, Saturday, June 16th, at 1pm at the Spire on O’Connell Street, we will take to the streets in Dublin in solidarity with the people in
Greece who will vote against fear, and in the hope and shared dream of a Europe based on justice, dignity and social solidarity.
Inspired by so many brave Greek people who have taken to the streets and squares, to resist the destruction of their country, and who now provide hope for millions of women and men across the European Union, we too have had enough of fear.
Since this crisis began, fear, threats and intimidation have become part of the fabric of daily life for tens of millions of people across
Europe. In Ireland, successive right-wing governments, bosses’ organisations, billionaire-owned newspapers and radio stations and
have churned out threat after threat. They spread constant fear about the catastrophe that will unfold unless we obey ‘the markets’ and
throw away our rights to decent public services and working conditions in order to pay off speculator debts.
But as the recent vote on the Fiscal Treaty has shown, giving in to fear and threats simply brings more fear, more threats, and more devastation.
The circuit of fear in Europe must be broken. The Greek people can make this break with a vote next Sunday for SYRIZA.
Then it will fall to us, the peoples of Europe, to smash the Frankfurt Consensus once and for all.
We will have to set about the task of building a common life together in a new continent, with open democratic institutions that serve the
citizens, not unaccountable bureaucracies that serve the crooks of the banking lobby and the liars of the political elite, whether New Democracy and PASOK, or Fine Gael and Labour.
The Greek people, with their rebellion and resistance in the face of vicious economic punishment designed to intimidate the rest of Europe,
have shown the way ahead, and we owe them our gratitude and support. If they vote against fear and economic terrorism, a new day for democracy beckons, in Europe and in Ireland.
We will be there on Saturday the 16th to support them, and we call on you to be there too. People still have the power. Our hearts beat with
theirs.
The Cedar Lounge Revolution 
thank you from Spain …we are all greeks
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The KKE had something to say about that ‘we are all greeks’ slogan:
http://inter.kke.gr/News/news2012/2012-02-17-allilleggi
Recently, demonstrations have been held in many countries across the world under the “umbrella” of slogans of “solidarity with Greece” and “we are all Greeks”. Working class and popular solidarity are powerful weapons in the struggle of the peoples. But the workers must deal with any attempt to mislead them.
Which Greece needs solidarity? The Greece of the capitalists, who seek to acquire new loans from the EU and the IMF in order to strengthen the profitability of their capital, to reinforce their position against the people, or the Greece of the working class and the other popular strata, who are suffering due to the consequences of the capitalist crisis, for which they bear no responsibility?
In many of these events this issue remained unclear. And this is the case because there is an effort by certain forces (mainly of social-democracy, the opportunists of the Party of the European Left and the “Greens”) to use vaguely the “solidarity with the Greek people” to whitewash their support which they had provided in the past to the Maastricht Treaty, and the other Euro-treaties, to the EU of capital itself, which is reactionary and in no way can be “democratised”, as they are even now claiming.
In addition there is an attempt for the issue of Greece to be utilised in the inter-imperialist rivalries, inside and outside the EU.
Yes, the workers in Greece want the solidarity of the workers in Europe and all over the world! But solidarity with their struggles, their strikes, their militant demands, the KKE, and the class-oriented trade union movement, PAME which is in the front line of the struggle and not the “solidarity”, which seeks the continuation of capitalist exploitation and the squeezing of the workers.
Regarding this issue the Press Office of the CC of the KKE issued the following statement:
“The KKE addresses a message to all the workers of Europe: It is not necessary for you to “become Greeks” in order to stand shoulder to shoulder with the people of Greece.
We call on you to join us on the same road for the contemporary rights of the working class and the poor popular strata, in order to impede and overthrow our common enemy, the dictatorship of the monopolies, the EU, the parties which serve them.
Their overthrow in every country or group of countries, the socialization of the monopolies, disengagement from the EU, NATO, with working class-people’s power will be the greatest contribution to the struggle of the peoples of Europe and the whole world.
The newest and most contemporary slogan, which is more timely than ever is: “Workers of all countries, Unite!”
Also Lenin’s Tomb had a useful piece the other day on the challenge facing SYRIZA:
http://www.leninology.com/2012/06/challenge-of-syriza.html
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“Yes, the workers in Greece want the solidarity of the workers in Europe and all over the world! But solidarity with their struggles, their strikes, their militant demands, the KKE, and the class-oriented trade union movement, PAME which is in the front line of the struggle and not the “solidarity”, which seeks the continuation of capitalist exploitation and the squeezing of the workers.”
Doesn’t this sum up everything that’s wrong with the KKE’S approach? EITHER you give solidarity to the KKE and its trade union arm, who are apparently the only ones ‘in the front line of the struggle’, OR you support those who seek ‘the continuation of capitalist exploitation and the squeezing of the workers’.
That would surely come as news to the large number of Greeks who want to break with the troika’s diktats but don’t support the KKE. In a nutshell, that shows why, instead of playing a positive role by putting constructive pressure on SYRIZA to stick to its pledges, they appear to be losing support, not gaining it.
It really would make you despair, this approach – if SYRIZA come first on Sunday, they’ll be put under intense pressure to abandon their programme; none of us know how strong Tspiras and the other leaders will prove to be under that pressure; it would do a power of good in that context if there was another strong left-wing party offering to support them as long as they remain firm while promising to challenge them if they don’t. Instead the KKE think it’s enough to say ‘we are the only ones leading the struggle’ and wait for SYRIZA to fail.
I can’t predict the future, but I’m fairly sure that if SYRIZA does fail, it won’t be the KKE who benefit—the initiative will pass to the right, probably on a fairly nasty authoritarian basis, and it’ll be no consolation being able to say ‘we told you so’ without having done anything to prevent it.
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‘we are all Greeks’ is a pretty useful way to undermine the Michael Noonan type contempt for the Greek people. I don’t think most people would think you were expressing solidarity with Aristotle Onassis.
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And the Onassis heir does not even speak Greek and has refused to even visit. Like the bold Smurfit these people belong nowhere.
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There was an interesting interview on Euronews over the weekend with a Syriza MP, Sofia Sakorafa, who spoke about paying back the EU/IMF over a longer period of at least 10 years. I can’t find the Euronews interview but she is here on a similar one in which she calls for a middle-ground to be found in which the debt can be paid “without destroying the Greek people” (but still repaid). She says the Greek people “have embraced a party (presumably Syriza) which does not promise to solve people’s problems the following day, but gives them a way out”. Interestingly she also says that Alexis Tspiras is a man who can be approached and that Syriza’s election “will be the key to EU developments” (see http://youtu.be/S8_B_DT8buk).
Sakorafa is an Athens MP was originally elected as a PASOK MP for Athens and was a member of Pasok’s Central Executive Comittee. She left Pasok in 2010.
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It would be a shame if the promise of SYRIZA was to become bogged down in the usual cynicism of radical rhetoric in the pre-election build-up followed by “what’s possible within the existing constraints of (pick your mantra)” in the post-election reality. The promise of SYRIZA is that they will change that reality. I say “promise” in the optimistic sense of possibilities. It demonstrates the difficulties that SYRIZA will face internally as well as externally that they will have a PASOK culture to contend with. Thems the cards they have to play with of course.
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It is possible that Syrizia will fail to meet the challenge. It might go in a coalition with the right as the KKE did in the past. This appears to be their program. A good starting point.
http://www.greanvillepost.com/2012/05/27/the-european-situation-syrizas-program/
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The ad hoc group organising the event decided consensually to alter this statement this evening by removing this specific mention of SYRIZA. – ‘The circuit of fear in Europe must be broken. The Greek people can make this break with a vote next Sunday for SYRIZA’. https://www.facebook.com/#!/events/237413049694776/permalink/238465276256220/?notif_t=like
The intent of the change was to be inclusive of and offer solidarity to greek left forces generally who are opposing punitive imposed austerity.
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That’s interesting. I was intrigued by specific mention, albeit I think it’s understandable why it would be made.
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SYRIZA are in summary the Greek formations that participated in the ‘No Global’ movements so it seemed natural to some of us to include a direct mention of them. Members of the Greek community helping organise the thing pointed out that it might be seen as unnecessarily partisan to mention them specifically. They were right – as the intent was to support the people generally who are being bullied and terrified by eu elites into voting for the status quo.
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We are going to make some hay out of fact that we without thinking about it ended up organising this for Bloomsday. Noonan should have thanked Greece for Joyce and Ulysees! We are considering having a Joyce figure serve breakfast to some of the Greek community. Ideas in the Joyce line welcome. We literally made this connection last night.
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Oh the things you could do with that! Joyce is full of references to the ancient Greeks. You could have the Sirens of the IMF/EU trying to woo the Greeks for instance.
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Incidentally, Ulysses references a protest that took place on June 16, 1904: it was the protestors expressing solidarity with the Boers in their fight against British Imperialism, I believe.
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A woman in petticoats on a four -poster bed with a Noonan mask on intoning ‘and I will say yes, yes, yes………’?
Won’t be able to make it, but good work ec
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Cheers SOS. Looks like Donal O’Kelly and a few other interesting people are coming to help make resistance ‘fecund’. Here’s what we’re using for our press release: End The Dictatorship of Fear! Support the Greek people
The Spire, O’Connell Street, 1pm.
“God, Kinch, if you and I could only work together we might do something for the island. Hellenise it”
This Saturday, Bloomsday, we will take to the streets of Dublin to show solidarity with the Greek people in their brave struggle against the destruction of their society by the Troika.
Our demonstration will take place on the eve of elections in which the Greek people can break the circuit of fear imposed on the peoples of Europe. This fear is imposed by political and economic elites whose intent is to do away with democracy altogether.
Without Greece, Bloomsday would have been simply unthinkable. James Joyce was deeply influenced by Greece –its philosophy, its literature, its language, its mythology.
Ulysses, the book celebrated by Bloomsday, ‘the revelation of all life in a single day’, as one writer put it, is based on Homer’s Odyssey. Joyce wanted the cover of Ulysses to show the colours of the Greek flag. Joyce would have been horrified at the destruction visited on present day Greek society.
If Leopold Bloom, Joyce’s modern Odysseus, were wandering the streets of Dublin this Saturday, he would make his way to the Spire.
Bloom, the central figure of Ulysses, is an internationalist. He longs for universality and democratic equality: the very things that the regimes imposed by the Troika place under attack.
In the European Commission, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund, Leopold Bloom would have seen his visions of ‘manufactured monsters for mutual murder’ made reality.
Universality and democratic equality: the Greek people can stand up for these values with their vote on Sunday.
On Bloomsday, that is what we will be standing up for too. We will not stand by and allow dreams of a democratic Europe to be destroyed by fear, or, as Leopold Bloom put it, by the ‘hideous hobgoblins produced by a horde of capitalistic lusts’.
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Irish Election Tshirt…
[…] to whitewash their support which they had provided in the past to the Maastric […]…
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Interesting among all the finger wagging for not voting pro memorandum parties. Paul Mason notes that in the effort to get Greece to leave, Brussels have deliberately offered no incentives to pull people back to the centre ahead of the election.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-18424279
also
‘one of the reasons Greeks remain so wedded to the euro project is the international guarantee of governance it provides: a check and balance on crooked politicians. Another reason is they feel they have contributed to the project historically – not just through Athenian democracy but in the liberation struggle against the Ottoman Empire, and through the heroic resistance to Nazism which still haunts the memories of elderly people here.
If, by a series of actions and non-actions, Berlin and Brussels allow the political centre to collapse here, so that you get the first government of left communists, feminists and ecologists in a western country, while fascists roam the streets, pulling migrants out of hospital beds as threatened, that might not be seen as Europe’s greatest act of statecraft.
It remains possible that you get a government of national unity with, as attempted before, ND, Pasok and the euro-communist Dem Left in coalition.
But all three of those parties still go into the election committed to a renegotiation of the austerity terms, so for such a last-ditch centrist government to cohere, Germany has to want Greece to stay in the Euro.
My sources within the euro policy world are indicating today, quite simply, that it does not. ‘
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