Pilger writes: "An historic betrayal has consumed Greece. Having set aside the
mandate of the Greek electorate, the Syriza government has willfully ignored
last week's landslide 'No' vote and secretly agreed a raft of repressive,
impoverishing measures in return for a 'bailout' that means sinister foreign
control and a warning to the world."
John Pilger. (photo: Oli Scarff/Getty Images)
The Problem of Greece Is Not Only a Tragedy. It Is a Lie.
By John Pilger, CounterPunch
13 July 15
An historic betrayal has consumed Greece. Having set aside the mandate of the
Greek electorate, the Syriza government has willfully ignored last week’s
landslide “No” vote and secretly agreed a raft of repressive, impoverishing
measures in return for a “bailout” that means sinister foreign control and a
warning to the world.
Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras has pushed through parliament a proposal to cut
at least 13 billion euros from the public purse – 4 billion euros more than the
“austerity” figure rejected overwhelmingly by the majority of the Greek
population in a referendum on 5 July.
These reportedly include a 50 per cent increase in the cost of healthcare for
pensioners, almost 40 per cent of whom live in poverty; deep cuts in public
sector wages; the complete privatization of public facilities such as airports
and ports; a rise in value added tax to 23 per cent, now applied to the Greek
islands where people struggle to eke out a living. There is more to come.
“Anti-austerity party sweeps to stunning victory”, declared a Guardian headline
on January 25. “Radical leftists” the paper called Tsipras and his
impressively-educated comrades. They wore open neck shirts, and the finance
minister rode a motorbike and was described as a “rock star of economics”. It
was a façade. They were not radical in any sense of that cliched label, neither
were they “anti austerity”.
For six months Tsipras and the recently discarded finance minister, Yanis
Varoufakis, shuttled between Athens and Brussels, Berlin and the other centres
of European money power. Instead of social justice for Greece, they achieved a
new indebtedness, a deeper impoverishment that would merely replace a systemic
rottenness based on the theft of tax revenue by the Greek super-wealthy – in
accordance with European “neo-liberal” values — and cheap, highly profitable
loans from those now seeking Greece’s scalp.
Greece’s debt, reports an audit by the Greek parliament, “is illegal,
illegitimate and odious”. Proportionally, it is less than 30 per cent that of
the debit of Germany, its major creditor. It is less than the debt of European
banks whose “bailout” in 2007-8 was barely controversial and unpunished.
For a small country such as Greece, the euro is a colonial currency: a tether
to a capitalist ideology so extreme that even the Pope pronounces it
“intolerable” and “the dung of the devil”. The euro is to Greece what the US
dollar is to remote territories in the Pacific, whose poverty and servility is
guaranteed by their dependency.
In their travels to the court of the mighty in Brussels and Berlin, Tsipras and
Varoufakis presented themselves neither as radicals nor “leftists” nor even
honest social democrats, but as two slightly upstart supplicants in their pleas
and demands. Without underestimating the hostility they faced, it is fair to
say they displayed no political courage. More than once, the Greek people found
out about their “secret austerity plans” in leaks to the media: such as a 30
June letter published in the Financial Times, in which Tsipras promised the
heads of the EU, the European Central Bank and the IMF to accept their basic,
most vicious demands – which he has now accepted.
When the Greek electorate voted “no” on 5 July to this very kind of rotten
deal, Tsipras said, “Come Monday and the Greek government will be at the
negotiating table after the referendum with better terms for the Greek people”.
Greeks had not voted for “better terms”. They had voted for justice and for
sovereignty, as they had done on January 25.
The day after the January election a truly democratic and, yes, radical
government would have stopped every euro leaving the country, repudiated the
“illegal and odious” debt – as Argentina did successfully — and expedited a
plan to leave the crippling Eurozone. But there was no plan. There was only a
willingness to be “at the table” seeking “better terms”.
The true nature of Syriza has been seldom examined and explained. To the
foreign media it is no more than “leftist” or “far left” or “hardline” – the
usual misleading spray. Some of Syriza’s international supporters have reached,
at times, levels of cheer leading reminiscent of the rise of Barack Obama. Few
have asked: Who are these “radicals”? What do they believe in?
In 2013, Yanis Varoufakis wrote: “Should we welcome this crisis of European
capitalism as an opportunity to replace it with a better system? Or should we
be so worried about it as to embark upon a campaign for stabilising capitalism?
To me, the answer is clear. Europe’s crisis is far less likely to give birth to
a better alternative to capitalism …
“I bow to the criticism that I have campaigned on an agenda founded on the
assumption that the left was, and remains, squarely defeated …. Yes, I would
love to put forward [a] radical agenda. But, no, I am not prepared to commit
the [error of the British Labour Party following Thatcher’s victory].
“What good did we achieve in Britain in the early 1980s by promoting an agenda
of socialist change that British society scorned while falling headlong into
Thatcher’s neoliberal trip? Precisely none. What good will it do today to call
for a dismantling of the Eurozone, of the European Union itself …?”
Varoufakis omits all mention of the Social Democratic Party that split the
Labour vote and led to Blairism. In suggesting people in Britain “scorned
socialist change” – when they were given no real opportunity to bring about
that change – he echoes Blair.
The leaders of Syriza are revolutionaries of a kind – but their revolution is
the perverse, familiar appropriation of social democratic and parliamentary
movements by liberals groomed to comply with neo-liberal drivel and a social
engineering whose authentic face is that of Wolfgang Schauble, Germany’s
finance minister, an imperial thug. Like the Labour Party in Britain and its
equivalents among former social democratic parties such as the Labor Party in
Australia, still describing themselves as “liberal” or even “left”, Syriza is
the product of an affluent, highly privileged, educated middle class, “schooled
in postmodernism”, as Alex Lantier wrote.
For them, class is the unmentionable, let alone an enduring struggle,
regardless of the reality of the lives of most human beings. Syriza’s
luminaries are well-groomed; they lead not the resistance that ordinary people
crave, as the Greek electorate has so bravely demonstrated, but “better terms”
of a venal status quo that corrals and punishes the poor. When merged with
“identity politics” and its insidious distractions, the consequence is not
resistance, but subservience. “Mainstream” political life in Britain
exemplifies this.
This is not inevitable, a done deal, if we wake up from the long, postmodern
coma and reject the myths and deceptions of those who claim to represent us,
and fight.
<HTML><META HTTP-EQUIV="content-type"
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<BR>John Pilger. (photo: Oli Scarff/Getty Images)</P><P class="noslink"><A
href="http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/07/13/the-problem-of-greece-is-not-only-a-tragedy-it-is-a-lie/";
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href="http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/07/13/the-problem-of-greece-is-not-only-a-tragedy-it-is-a-lie/";
target="_blank"></A></P><p class="txtimg"><BR><H1 class="txttitle">The Problem
of Greece Is Not Only a Tragedy. It Is a Lie.</H1><P class="txtauthor">By John
Pilger, CounterPunch</P><P class="date">13 July 15</P><P> </P><P><IMG
src="/images/stories/alphabet/rsn-A.jpg" border="0">n historic betrayal has
consumed Greece. Having set aside the mandate of the Greek electorate, the
Syriza government has willfully ignored last week’s landslide “No†vote
and secretly agreed a raft of repressive, impoverishing measures in return for
a “bailout†that means sinister foreign control and a warning to the
world.</P><P class="indent">Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras has pushed through
parliament a proposal to cut at least 13 billion euros from the public purse
– 4 billion euros more than the “austerity†figure rejected
overwhelmingly by the majority of the Greek population in a referendum on 5
July.</P><P class="indent">These reportedly include a 50 per cent increase in
the cost of healthcare for pensioners, almost 40 per cent of whom live in
poverty; deep cuts in public sector wages; the complete privatization of public
facilities such as airports and ports; a rise in value added tax to 23 per
cent, now applied to the Greek islands where people struggle to eke out a
living. There is more to come.</P><P class="indent">“Anti-austerity party
sweeps to stunning victoryâ€, declared a Guardian headline on January 25.
“Radical leftists†the paper called Tsipras and his impressively-educated
comrades. They wore open neck shirts, and the finance minister rode a
motorbike and was described as a “rock star of economicsâ€. It was a
façade. They were not radical in any sense of that cliched label, neither were
they “anti austerityâ€.</P><P class="indent">For six months Tsipras and the
recently discarded finance minister, Yanis Varoufakis, shuttled between Athens
and Brussels, Berlin and the other centres of European money power. Instead of
social justice for Greece, they achieved a new indebtedness, a deeper
impoverishment that would merely replace a systemic rottenness based on the
theft of tax revenue by the Greek super-wealthy – in accordance with European
“neo-liberal†values — and cheap, highly profitable loans from those now
seeking Greece’s scalp.</P><P class="indent">Greece’s debt, reports an
audit by the Greek parliament, “is illegal, illegitimate and odiousâ€.
Proportionally, it is less than 30 per cent that of the debit of Germany, its
major creditor. It is less than the debt of European banks whose “bailoutâ€
in 2007-8 was barely controversial and unpunished.</P><P class="indent">For a
small country such as Greece, the euro is a colonial currency: a tether to a
capitalist ideology so extreme that even the Pope pronounces it
“intolerable†and “the dung of the devilâ€. The euro is to Greece what
the US dollar is to remote territories in the Pacific, whose poverty and
servility is guaranteed by their dependency.</P><P class="indent">In their
travels to the court of the mighty in Brussels and Berlin, Tsipras and
Varoufakis presented themselves neither as radicals nor “leftists†nor even
honest social democrats, but as two slightly upstart supplicants in their pleas
and demands. Without underestimating the hostility they faced, it is fair to
say they displayed no political courage. More than once, the Greek people found
out about their “secret austerity plans†in leaks to the media: such as a
30 June letter published in the Financial Times, in which Tsipras promised the
heads of the EU, the European Central Bank and the IMF to accept their basic,
most vicious demands – which he has now accepted.</P><P class="indent">When
the Greek electorate voted “no†on 5 July to this very kind of rotten deal,
Tsipras said, “Come Monday and the Greek government will be at the
negotiating table after the referendum with better terms for the Greek
peopleâ€. Greeks had not voted for “better termsâ€. They had voted for
justice and for sovereignty, as they had done on January 25.</P><P
class="indent">The day after the January election a truly democratic and, yes,
radical government would have stopped every euro leaving the country,
repudiated the “illegal and odious†debt – as Argentina did successfully
— and expedited a plan to leave the crippling Eurozone. But there was no
plan. There was only a willingness to be “at the table†seeking “better
termsâ€.</P><P class="indent">The true nature of Syriza has been seldom
examined and explained. To the foreign media it is no more than “leftistâ€
or “far left†or “hardline†– the usual misleading spray. Some of
Syriza’s international supporters have reached, at times, levels of cheer
leading reminiscent of the rise of Barack Obama. Few have asked: Who are these
“radicals� What do they believe in?</P><P class="indent">In 2013, Yanis
Varoufakis wrote: “Should we welcome this crisis of European capitalism as an
opportunity to replace it with a better system? Or should we be so worried
about it as to embark upon a campaign for stabilising capitalism? To me, the
answer is clear. Europe’s crisis is far less likely to give birth to a better
alternative to capitalism …</P><P class="indent">“I bow to the criticism
that I have campaigned on an agenda founded on the assumption that the left
was, and remains, squarely defeated …. Yes, I would love to put forward [a]
radical agenda. But, no, I am not prepared to commit the [error of the British
Labour Party following Thatcher’s victory].</P><P class="indent">“What good
did we achieve in Britain in the early 1980s by promoting an agenda of
socialist change that British society scorned while falling headlong into
Thatcher’s neoliberal trip? Precisely none. What good will it do today to
call for a dismantling of the Eurozone, of the European Union itself
…?â€</P><P class="indent">Varoufakis omits all mention of the Social
Democratic Party that split the Labour vote and led to Blairism. In suggesting
people in Britain “scorned socialist change†– when they were given no
real opportunity to bring about that change – he echoes Blair.</P><P
class="indent">The leaders of Syriza are revolutionaries of a kind – but
their revolution is the perverse, familiar appropriation of social democratic
and parliamentary movements by liberals groomed to comply with neo-liberal
drivel and a social engineering whose authentic face is that of Wolfgang
Schauble, Germany’s finance minister, an imperial thug. Like the Labour Party
in Britain and its equivalents among former social democratic parties such as
the Labor Party in Australia, still describing themselves as “liberal†or
even “leftâ€, Syriza is the product of an affluent, highly privileged,
educated middle class, “schooled in postmodernismâ€, as Alex Lantier
wrote.</P><P class="indent">For them, class is the unmentionable, let alone an
enduring struggle, regardless of the reality of the lives of most human beings.
Syriza’s luminaries are well-groomed; they lead not the resistance that
ordinary people crave, as the Greek electorate has so bravely demonstrated, but
“better terms†of a venal status quo that corrals and punishes the poor.
When merged with “identity politics†and its insidious distractions, the
consequence is not resistance, but subservience. “Mainstream†political
life in Britain exemplifies this.</P><P class="indent">This is not inevitable,
a done deal, if we wake up from the long, postmodern coma and reject the myths
and deceptions of those who claim to represent us, and fight.</P><BR></DIV><p
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