Greece

EU Showdown: Greece Takes On The Vampire Squid

January 8, 2015 Ellen Brown, www.truth-out.org Educate! European Union (EU), Finance and the Economy, Greece

Greece and the troika (the International Monetary Fund, the EU, and the European Central Bank) are in a dangerous game of chicken. The Greeks have been threatened with a “Cyprus-Style prolonged bank holiday” if they “vote wrong.” But they have been bullied for too long and are saying “no more.” A return to the polls was triggered in December, when the Parliament rejected Prime Minister Antonis Samaras’ pro-austerity candidate for president. In a general election, now set for January 25th, the EU-skeptic, anti-austerity, leftist Syriza party is likely to prevail. Syriza captured a 3% lead in the polls following mass public discontent over the harsh austerity measures Athens was forced to accept in return for a €240 billion bailout.

Major Opportunity For Anti-Austerity Left Party In Greece On Horizon

December 19, 2014 Helen Smith, www.theguardian.com Organize! Democracy, Greece

Early elections with the potential to destabilise the eurozone could be called in Greece next year, after the country’s 300 MPs failed to elect a president in their first round of voting. In a ballot of MPs that disappointed government officials, 160 lawmakers backed Stavros Dimas, the conservative-led coalition’s candidate and former European commissioner. “There are another two rounds ahead of us,” Antonis Samaras, the prime minister, said, emerging from the parliament after the vote. “I hold hope that a president will be elected. The conditions are difficult for the country, and I am certain that deputies are aware that the country must not enter troubled times.”

Tides Of Relief: Nikos Romanos Wins Victory In Hunger Strike

December 12, 2014 Foula Farmakidis, Spyros Marchetos and Christina Laskaridis, www.roarmag.org Resist! Education, Greece, Hunger Strike, Political Prisoner

Tides of relief emanated from Greece on Wednesday, when the anarchist prisoner Nikos Romanos ended his month-long hunger strike that sparked solidarity actions across the globe. His demands were essentially met, with the parliament decreeing that student prisoners will be allowed educational leave on certain conditions, including electronic security tagging. Romanos’ desperate struggle against an intransigent government brought up international memories of Bobby Sands and the other Irish republican prisoners who died in 1981. Now his victory, suggesting that the extreme right-wing Samaras government may be on its last throes, shows what a huge influence a person can have when they are unafraid to risk their own life and when they are backed by a resourceful solidarity movement.

Is Greece On The Verge Of Another Social Explosion?

December 7, 2014 Jerome Roos, www.roarmag.org Resist! Greece, Revolution

The hunger strike of an anarchist prisoner and the reaction on the streets are rekindling long-standing conflicts in Greek society going back to 1944. The Greek streets have been relatively quiet of late. After four years of devastating economic depression and continued state repression, the revolutionary zeal that once animated the spectacular mobilizations of the early years of the crisis has since given way to a widespread sense of despondence. This may now be changing. Students and anarchists have been mobilizing in force in recent weeks to show their solidarity with Nikos Romanos, the anarchist prisoner who has been on hunger strike since November 10. Both Nikos’ struggle and the response on the streets are laden with symbolic significance and historical resonance.

Anarchist Prisoner’s Hunger Strike Sparks Riots In Athens

December 4, 2014 Parthena Xanthopoulou-Dimitriadou, www.roarmag.org Resist! Greece, Hunger Strike, Protests, Riots, Student Activism

Yesterday, demonstrations in solidarity with the Greek anarchist Nikos Romanos — who has been on hunger strike for 24 days to demand his right to educational furlough — were called in big cities and islands across Greece. In Athens, more than 10.000 people marched, proving that no one is to be left alone in front of the vengeful fury of the state. Once again, however, it was confirmed that, when the twisted justifications of the repressive state don’t work, the batons of the police are ready to do the job. The demonstration started at Monastiraki and arrived at Syntagma Square, where Syrian refugees have been camping out for 15 days to demand state recognition of their political refugee status. Until its end, the march was followed by heavy police forces.

Hunger Strike In Greece: For A Breath Of Freedom

December 3, 2014 Danai Limneou, www.roarmag.org Resist! Greece, Hunger Strike

Twenty days ago anarchist prisoner Nikos Romanos went on hunger strike to demand his educational furlough. His situation is described as ‘critical’. Nikos Romanos’ name is closely tied to the equally well known Alexandros Grigoropoulos, the 15-year-old boy who was shot and killed by police officer Epaminondas Korkoneas in Athens, on December 6, 2008. Only 15 years of age himself, Romanos witnessed his best friend die in front of his eyes. The murder sparked weeks of nationwide rioting. Several years later, Romanos was caught together with four of his comrades while trying to flee from a bank robbery in Velvento. Following their arrest they were beaten up under police custody to such extent that the photographs released by the police had to be overtly photoshopped to hide their injuries.

Greece: Commemorate Revolt Against US-Backed Dictatorship

December 1, 2014 Sarah Lazare, www.commondreams.org Resist! Greece, Protests

Over 40,000 people marched to the American embassy in Athens, Greece on Monday to mark the 1973 student-led revolt against the country's former military dictatorship and to protest the U.S. role in backing the junta. The largest such anniversary commemoration in recent years, the procession was met with nearly 7,000 police, including many in riot gear, who reportedly fired teargas at the crowd. Dozens of students at Athens Polytechnic University were killed on November 17, 1973, when the army brutally suppressed a protest against the dictatorship, which lasted from 1967 to 1974. The revolt played a role in weakening the regime, which was backed by the U.S. government as a Cold War geopolitical maneuver.

Greece: Brutal Police Repression Of Mine Protest

November 26, 2014 Stavroula Poulimeni, www.revolution-news.com Resist! Energy, Environment, Greece, Mining

Once more a demonstration against Eldorado Gold’s Skouries mine in Halkidiki was met with tons of teargas by the riot police. More than 1.500 demonstrators of all ages marched to the location where Eldorado’s subsidiary, Hellas Gold, is developing a huge open-pit gold and copper mine right in the middle of what used to be a pristine forest. Approximately 180 hectares of forest have so far been cleared in order to make way for the mine, a processing plant and two monstrous tailings dams. For the past three years, the local people and the broader solidarity movement resisting the mine have faced extreme repression and penalization of their struggle.

Riot Police Attack Student Protesters In Athens

November 15, 2014 Markos Vogiatzoglou, www.roarmag.org Resist! Greece, Student Activism

It’s been some time since we last heard from the Greek movement. But, thanks to the Greek government and its riot police, today became a day of large student demonstrations, clashes with the cops, injuries and rising tension. First, let’s see what happened. Early in the morning, the Athens Law School students arrived at their university in order to carry out their assembly decision, which included a symbolic occupation of their university until the 17th of November — commemoration day of the 1973 student revolt against the military dictatorship. The problem was that the school was already occupied by the riot police. The Athenian Universities’ rectors had decided to apply a peculiar “lock out” of the students and employees, supposedly for “security reasons”. The government gave a helping hand by sending in hundreds of cops, in riot gear, to carry out the decision. The cops assaulted the students, seriously injuring a couple of them and dispersing the rest.

Reasons Greek Public Broadcasting Shutdown

November 4, 2014 Michael Nevradakis, www.truth-out.org Resist! Capitalism, Greece, Media, Public

The transfer of these valuable broadcast rights for dubious sums provides a strong hint as to the true reasons behind the sudden closure of ERT. These reasons likely have less to do with a desire to "trim waste," combat corruption, or to establish a more independent and transparent public broadcaster in its place. Instead, they have more to do with the interests of Greece's major media and business moguls, who own the country's largest national broadcasters and DIGEA, a consortium of Greece's six largest national private television stations. It is DIGEA that has benefitted the most from ERT's shutdown, as the events of the past year have proven.

Greek Politics: Age Of Euro Crisis & Urgency For Left Unity

October 27, 2014 C.J. Polychroniou, www.ruth-out.org Organize! Greece, History, Left

In a politically, economically and socially underdeveloped Balkan country in which corruption, cronyism and clientelism largely constitute the driving forces of "development," "social mobility" and "social progress," Greece's only hope of revival from its moral and social morass is a unified left. Sometime in the not-too-distant future, social and political anthropologists investigating the economic, political and cultural system in Greece during the time of the nation's debt crisis under the euro regime will undoubtedly be faced with the following questions: What were the mechanisms, the narratives and the rituals that propelled Greek voters to vote either in support of completely incompetent and obedient-to-foreign-powers governments or to refrain from actions of resistance and rebellion at the most critical juncture in the nation's modern history - a period dominated by the politics of debt peonage and national subjugation, and by the economics of poverty, misery and social exclusion?

Plastics, Plastics Everywhere — Even In Our Drinks

October 7, 2014 Carmen Russell-Sluchansky , www.mintpressnews.com Educate! Environment, Greece, pollution

ATHENS, Greece — The rocky shores of Anavyssos in southern Greece are a magnet for European travelers, who flock to the pristine blue sea, swimming spots, hotels and seafood restaurants. Right along the two lane highway that brings visitors just 30 miles south of Athens, one can walk a mere five feet off the road and jump into the refreshing — if incredibly salty — water. Little in the way of litter is seen on the beaches, as the tourist economy depends on maintaining the natural ambiance. This apparent cleanliness, however, belies the fact that thousands of tons of marine litter and debris lurk underwater off the shore in the Mediterranean Sea. This rubbish — mostly plastics — is finding its way into the ecology and the human food supply.

SYRIZA Rising: What’s Next For The Movements In Greece?

October 2, 2014 Antonis Broumas and Theodoros Karyotis, www.roarmag.com Educate! Greece, Left, Neoliberalism, Syriza

In this socio-historical context, the possibility of a left-wing government emerges in Europe, with the left-wing coalition of SYRIZA in Greece and newcomer Podemos in Spain in its vanguard, as a response to the prospect of neoliberal authoritarianism consolidated on a nationalist basis. Periods of crisis are moments of social antagonism, in which the positions of contesting social forces are liquefied. In the present crisis, autonomous social movements emerge from the contradictions of modern capitalism as the main collective subjects with a potential for radical transformation and social change. They constitute the main opponent of capitalist domination in the present social confrontation and any conflicts inside the state and government apparatus are essentially a reflection of the ebb and tide of social mobilizations.

Greek Cleaners Become Symbols Of Resistance

July 16, 2014 Maria Zepatou, www.youngist.org Resist! Europe, Greece, Policy, Resistance, Unions

It took nine months for the 396 cleaners that had been made redundant by the Greek Finance Ministry to gain their victory. Since September 2013, they have been on strike, selling T-shirts to survive and pay for banners and other activism materials, and facing police brutality. In May 2014, the court of Areios Pagos ruled that the women, who used to clean tax and customs offices across the country, should return to their posts immediately, since the layoffs were not supported by any study that proved them to be in the state’s best interests. However, this was only the beginning. The Greek government declined to comply with the court’s ruling, and applied for an appeal. The case will be transferred to a higher court in September, but, according to the cleaners’ lawyer, Yiannis Karouzos, the case can’t be re-examined, and the first decision will only be technically checked for legal errors. The Supreme Court that accepted the government’s request for an appeal issued the reasoning behind this decision, stating that “ensuring the continuation of the state’s financial policies (…) is linked with the general public interest, as opposed to the personal interest of each cleaner.”

Another World: Film About Grassroots In Greece

July 15, 2014 Films For Action, www.filmsforaction.org Organize! Arts, Finance and the Economy, Greece, Inequality

"Another World" is a film about the grassroots initiatives in Greece that form another world right here and now, away from the crisis and beyond capitalism (Greek narration, English subtitles in captions). We live in an upside world. Right now in the planet there is a unjust distribution and accumulation of wealth, inflation of social injustice, restriction of basic rights and freedom, and an unprecedented depletion of natural resources. Although global GDP has quintupled since 1980, the gap between rich and poor is expanding, while also the number of people living below the poverty line constantly increases. 1% of the richest in the world holds 40% of the world productive resources, while the richest 10% owns more than 85% of global wealth. The constant economic growth of the past decades with emphasis on dirty carbon economy, proved to be unsustainable since intensified inequalities, reduced the living standard destroyed natural resources and finally transformed itself into an underdevelopment disconnected from social welfare.

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