EU/IMF austerity package challenged by general strikes

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This is, however, presented by the governments and the mass media as a “rescue of Greece” through the “generous granting of credits.” At the same time, it is evident that the disastrous bankruptcy of the global banking and credit system in 2008, which was “bailed out “ by the governments of North America and Western Europe with $15 trillion U.S. (a worldwide and historically unprecedented redistribution of wealth from tax revenues to corporate coffers) led to the national debt crisis of the countries of the European periphery: Iceland, Ireland, Portugal, Spain and especially Greece.

At stake is the stability and even the existence of the euro, along with the functioning of the financial mechanisms in the EU, and consequently the dollar as well, which currently depends on the overvaluation of the euro.

It is not surprising therefore that at his recent meeting with German Chancellor Merkel, President Obama paid particular attention to the dangers of a possible Greek “national bankruptcy.” This would mean that Greece might be unable, or possibly refuse (!) to pay off its foreign debt. Obama stressed, no doubt rightly, the special role of Germany in the European-international “aid to the initiation of a forward process” that is designed to enable Greece “to grow and to better manage its debt problem.”

The difficulty, though, is that granting international rescue packages to maintain the solvency of Greece is diametrically opposed to maintaining a reasonably decent life for the workers and the huge mass of the Greek population. In other words, the conditions of the troika lead to a relentless bloodletting at the expense of about 85% of the Greek population and a dramatic decline in general living conditions. They do not open up any prospect for the situation in the coming years and decades to improve again. Greece will never be able to repay the interest and compound interest on the loans obtained.

Recognizing that, in fact, they have hardly anything to lose anymore, inspired by the successful first stage of the Egyptian revolution, the events in Tahrir square in Cairo, and finally the occupation of central squares of Madrid and Barcelona by rebellious young people, the massive resistance in Greece has reached a new level with the continuous occupation of Syntagma Square in Athens, directly in front of the Parliament, along with central locations in Thessaloniki and many other Greek cities. There have been multiple attempts to stop the policies of the Memorandum in the last 18 months, including a series of general strikes and many persistent strikes in affected areas, such as public transport. The result is that the reputation of the government trends towards zero.

Harbingers of a new mass radicalization have included months of an outright rebellion in Keratea, a small town southeast of Athens, against the establishment of a landfill site. This rebellion could not be broken even by the mass deployment of special police commandos and their brutal behavior toward the protesters. A successful hunger strike of 300 “illegal” immigrants from North Africa in March and April, even if it remained quite marginalized, was also important since it demonstrated that action is possible even against the dictates of the Memorandum.

It is characteristic of this new form of mass resistance that hundreds of thousands of people who previously were not willing to participate in combat now support the occupations, actively demonstrating their determination to stop the policy of the Memorandum and to force the government to retreat.

For different and at least partially understandable reasons, these layers have not been influenced much by the different parties or alliance formations of the reformist (KKE, SYN/SYRIZA) or anti-capitalist/revolutionary left (mainly ANTARSYA) and, in spite of everything, have taken a rather cautious attitude. The main slogans of the new movement are the replacement of the prevailing pseudo-democracy, or fraudulent democracy, by a true, direct democracy, where the majority of the affected population can put forward and implement their demands and needs.

This distinguishes itself sharply from the practice of the prevailing political model, where power is exercised on behalf of the people but without their consent or participation—not to mention the fact that the polls for the ruling PASOK, but also the right-wing bourgeois New Democracy (ND), always continue to trend downward. Thus, the existing partial legitimacy of bourgeois democracy and its main supporters has collapsed. The so-far limited but unambiguous content of the demands is expressed in the formula, “We owe nothing; we do not sell; we do not pay!”

The movement began with the occupation of Syntagma Square on May 25 and reached its first peak on June 5 with the participation of an estimated 500,000 protesters. The breadth of the movement inevitably creates, at least for the time being, a heterogeneous spectrum of ideological and political views. The participants from the start rejected the appearance of parties, political organizations, and trade unions, insisting on the principle that everyone represents only himself or herself.

This includes a strong mistrust of the party leaderships, including of the two left parties, also of the still-prevailing sectarianism of the left-wing organizations, along with a clear rejection of the hopeless bureaucracy of most trade unions (led in particular by PASOK officials). Some protesters on the “upper” part of the square carry Greek national flags and try, in this way, to express their view of national sovereignty. The upper part is generally the less “politicized,” least affected by the left, and where most protesters obviously participate in such actions for the first time.

The politically “harder core” of the movement has permanently established itself with tents on the lower part of the square and is the real engine of the protests. Every night around 9 o’clock “public meetings”

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Claudio Santana / AFP / Getty Images (Left) On May 20, in the midst of the student upsurge, people protested in front of the Moneda Palace against hydro-electric dams in Patagonia.

mately fell short of meeting the original demands of the “pingüinos.” It failed to address the fundamental axes: the role of the state and the profit motive. Bachelet’s backhanded deal sold out the true demands of the students; fundamental changes were not gained. It was a matter of time before Chilean students would rise again.

The current struggle for better education in Chile looks like it will continue to intensify; both the students and the government have dug in their heels. When Minister of Education Lavín offered the students a deal that did not address their fundamental demands it was rejected in the high schools and universities. In what is seen as a desperate attempt to demoralize and disband the student movement, Lavín responded by calling for an early start to winter break.

One of the high school students’ spokeswomen, Paloma Muñoz, upped the ante when she said, ‘We have analyzed it in the National Assembly of High School Students, we are ready to miss the entire year if it’s necessary, because we have to fulfill our end goal.’

Half a million participants took to the streets throughout Chile in response to united calls by both high school and university students on June 30. In Santiago, the march gathered approximately 200,000 protesters; double the numbers of the historic June 16 march. The