Greece in the Tomb, by Petros Papakonstantinou

[This scratch is a translation of Petros Papakonstantinou's response to recent events in Athens and developments in the EU. This analysis concerns us all Europeans – whatever that means.]

The ECOFIN meeting on Monday 16 May was, for [Greek finance minister] George Papakonstantinou, a nightmare. His European colleagues spoke in the language of the German populist newspaper Bild, which a year ago was calling on us [Greeks] to sell the Acropolis and the islands to come even for the debt. “It's measures, measures, measures, and then maybe there can be re-profiling”, cynically demanded Jean-Claude Juncker, the mighty prime minister of Luxembourg. “Greece had so far failed to act on its original promise to raise €17 billion”, which should be rapidly accelerated in order to reach the “satisfactory volume” of €50 billion, said the French finance minister Christine Lagarde. “You can't promise privatisations and then do otherwise. If you deceived us to enter the Eurozone, now you have to go faster in order to catch up with us”, said her Austrian counterpart, Maria Fekter with less Gaulish politeness.

A day later, seeing that his insolent statement did not generate any kind of response from the Mediterranean Banana Republic, Juncker came back harsher: “Greece must realise huge reforms. Greece needs to speed up its process of privatization. If Greece makes all these efforts, we will have to see if we can go for a soft restructuring (that is, some kind of prolongation) of Greek debt”. As for the possibility of a “major” restructuring, in which case foreign banks would be forced to erase part of the debt and the interest they collect, forget it!

They would not speak with such impudence not even to an imposed NATO-planted government of Kosovo or Bosnia. They forced, with George Papandreou's complicity, an exhaustive memorandum, knowing in advance that it would completely fail in relation to its declared targets -that is, dealing with the debt and deficit problems- in order to go forward with their real aims: to turn Greece into the Guinea pig for the realisation of a counter-reform of incredible depth and barbarity in Ireland, Portugal and Spain today, on a European scale tomorrow. And now that the wholly predictable bankruptcy is upon us, they move on to “plan B”: clearance of all state enterprises of strategic importance; shrinking of the public sector , by turning [nation-wide recruitment system] ASEP into an organisation for redundancies, instead of recruitment of public sector workers; China-isation of labour conditions and labour cost.

It is time for the Greek bourgeoisie to finally see off [former Greek prime ministers] Konstantinos Karamanlis and Kostas Simitis' dreams for an equal participation in the first gear of a prosperous Europe. It is time that the modified intermediary Greek oligarchy of bankers and ship owners came to terms with the idea of a country peripheral in the imperialist chain, a “Germany's Mexico in the Mediterranean” that will attract funds (in Berlin there is already talk of a German Marshall plan) due to its destroyed salaries and trade unions, a la Turkey and Estonia. This spineless bourgeoisie that, when the crisis begun, was fast to export its capital-power, buying properties in London, before calling upon the workers to fierce sacrifices in the name of the nation's salvage, it is ready to wholly sell-out to international capital, delivering even its own banks, including the “National” bank, in order to deteriorate to the role of the sub-contractor of Europe in the Balkans; or the second in order subcontractor, below Turkey.

Greece for the second time becomes the Guinea pig, this time for the imposition of a model of a “multi-geared Europe”, which will institutionalise the hegemonic role of Germany and its Northern allies. Exemplary of this is the German-Dutch proposal, increasingly popular among EU leading circles, towards establishing an international committee that will oversee the clearance of... Greek state enterprises and the placement of EU commissioners in all Greek economy-related ministries! The son of the socialist who came to power with the slogan “Greece to the Greeks” is ready to take us lower than the bottom of shame, the bottom Greece hit when under international economic control, after Trikoupis' [December 1893] “unfortunately we are bankrupt”. For the first time after the German occupation and the National Liberation Front's epic, the labour movement's class, socialist potential is so closely related to the prevention of a macabre national collapse into the abyss.

This social medievalism and national decline cannot be imposed by the usual means of the, even restricted, bourgeois democracy. The leading players, in Greece and Europe, need some sort of counter-democratic deviation, some sort of state of emergency – which, of course, will not be Fascism in the traditional sense; and it's being prepared.

Hence the European Commission's unheard-of intervention in Greece's internal political affairs, with Olli Rehn's demand that “Memorandum 2” be endorsed, not only by the government, but also by the leading opposition party, as a prerequisite for the country to get the second instalment of the loan! The excuse: “this is not about party politics, it is a national issue”, said Mr. Rehn! In other words: the sell-off of your country is beyond party differences, it is a national necessity! And the cowardly, ever-consenting and will-lacking spokesmen, with or without a voice, such as [government's] Petalotis and [opposition's] Panagiotopoulos, fight each other on Mega [Channel] in a contest of consent and efficient implementation of the Gauleiters' directives for privatisations! This, in essence, is an attempt to dispense with politics itself; an attempt to ostracise any kind of popular, left-wing opposition to this illegitimate kind of ideology and politics.

Hence the atmosphere of gloom, violence and blood that lately spreads above Athens and the other urban centres [of Greece]. It is pretty clear that the riot police's murderous violence during the latest general strike was a consciously planned state-terrorism operation [1]. The government and its mandators want deaths by the riot police and the Nazis of “Chrissi Avgi”, who are left undisturbed to organise their pogroms against immigrants in order to terrorise society at large and to deteriorate class-struggle into a hooliganist “war of the extremes”; between fascists and anarchists. For the same reason they want one, two and more incidents such as the one in Marfin Bank [2], utilising professionals of political provocation and cretins of nihilist violence, as in the criminal assault of the police department on Kallidromiou Street [3]. This atmosphere of illegitimacy and crime, similar to that of Los Angeles, serves well the imposition of authoritarianism and the prevalence of the two-party consensus, in the name of law and order.

The conclusion is that the economic bankruptcy of Greek capitalism is transformed into a social and political crisis of historic significance. The explosion is inevitable, like the fire in a pine forest under the blazing sun and the winds of August; but the outcome is not at all given. The challenges are immense and the weight of historical responsibility before the working classes is too heavy for any one left-wing political force. The critical demand for a large-scale, militant popular front, capable of overturning the memorandum, overthrowing the government, imprisoning those guilty for the grand theft and leading the way towards an anti-capitalist perspective, emerges; and this concerns us all: if not now, when?

by Petros Papakonstantinou
published at http://aristerovima.gr/details.php?id=2315 (Aristero Vima)
on 18/05/2011


[1]
On the general strike of May 11 2011 protesters were attacked by riot police, leaving tens injured and one with severe injuries.
[2]
On May 5 2010, during one of the largest demonstrations of the last few years against government austerity, several people were trapped inside a Marfin Bank branch. Three of them died. The attackers remain unknown.
[3]
On May 14 2011, during a 'week of violence', three people were injured, one of them critically, after an attack on the police department of Exarcheia.

(translated by PH and DE)