[Campaignforrealdemocracy] Greece - Democracy in Action

[Mark Barrett]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/jun/15/greece-europe-outraged-protests

When Stéphane Hessel wrote in Time for
Outrage!<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_for_Outrage!>that
indignation with injustice should turn to "a peaceful insurrection"
perhaps he did not expect that the movement of
*indignados*<http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/may/21/spain-reveals-pain-cuts-unemployment>in
Spain and
*aganaktismenoi* (outraged) in Greece would take his advice to heart so soon
and so spectacularly.

The Greek resistance<http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/may/09/greece-debt-crisis-euro-imf>to
the catastrophic economic measures was expected. Throughout modern
history the Greeks have resisted foreign occupation and domestic
dictatorship with determination and sacrifice. The measures imposed by the
IMF, EU and European Central Bank with the full accord, if not invitation,
of the Greek government, have led to 11 one-day general strikes, numerous
regional strikes and imaginative acts of resistance. Domestic and foreign
media avidly reported the confrontations between youths and the riot police
that followed major demonstrations and left a thick cloud of teargas hanging
over Athens. Led by the parties of the left and some unions, these protests
outshone the anti-austerity demonstrations in the rest of Europe. But the
relentless scare campaign by establishment media, experts and elite
intellectuals spread fear and guilt to the majority of the population and
soon succeeded in limiting resistance.

Three weeks ago, things changed. A motley multitude of indignant men and
women of all ideologies, ages, occupations, including the many unemployed,
began occupying
Syntagma<http://roarmag.org/2011/05/greek-revolution-protests-live-stream-syntagma-square/>–
the central square of Athens opposite parliament; the area around
White
Tower in Thessaloniki; and public spaces in other major cities. The daily
occupations and rallies, sometimes involving more than 100,000 people, have
been peaceful, with the police observing from a distance. Calling themselves
the "outraged", the people have attacked the unjust pauperising of working
Greeks, the loss of sovereignty that has turned the country into a
neocolonial fiefdom of bankers, and the destruction of democracy. Their
common demand is that the corrupt political elites who have ruled the
country for some 30 years and brought it to the edge of collapse should go.
Political parties and banners are discouraged.

Thousands of people come together daily in Syntagma to discuss the next
steps. The parallels with the classical Athenian agora, which met a few
hundred metres away, are striking. Aspiring speakers are given a number and
called to the platform if that number is drawn, a reminder that many
office-holders in classical Athens were selected by lots. The speakers stick
to strict two-minute slots to allow as many as possible to contribute. The
assembly is efficiently run without the usual heckling of public speaking.
The topics range from organisational matters to new types of resistance and
international solidarity, to alternatives to the catastrophically unjust
measures. No issue is beyond proposal and disputation. In well-organised
weekly debates, invited economists, lawyers and political philosophers
present alternatives for tackling the crisis.

This is democracy in action. The views of the unemployed and the university
professor are given equal time, discussed with equal vigour and put to the
vote for adoption. The outraged have reclaimed the square from commercial
activities and transformed it into a real space of public interaction. The
usual late-evening TV viewing time has instead become a time for being with
others and discussing the common good. If democracy is the power of the
"demos", in other words the rule of those who have no particular
qualification for ruling, whether of wealth, power or knowledge, this is the
closest we have come to democratic practice in recent European history.

Syntagma's highly articulate debates have discredited the banal mantra that
most issues of public policy are too technical for ordinary people and must
be left to experts. The realisation that the demos has more collective nous
than any leader, a constitutive belief of the classical agora, is now
returning to Athens. The outraged have shown that parliamentary democracy
must be supplemented with its more direct version. It is a timely reminder
as the belief in political representation is coming under pressure
throughout Europe.

The Pasok <http://www.economist.com/node/17421404> government's response has
been embarrassingly muted so far. Establishment propagandists blame the
protests and the limited violence that followed on the divided left. This
tactic cannot work with the outraged, who come from all parties and none. A
determined campaign has been agreed to stop parliament voting in the new
measures that President George Papandreou agreed with the bankers and
Germany's Chancellor Merkel, which would extend and expand the current
recession and rising unemployment until at least 2015 – a cure much worse
than the disease. The reaction to these measures will be the high point of
the confrontation between "insiders" and outraged, now entering its endgame.
Today, the Syntagma multitude is joining forces with the unions in a general
strike <http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-13773148> and the encircling
of parliament.

Syntagma is now closer to Cairo's Tahrir Square than to Madrid's Puerta del
Sol <http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/gallery/2011/may/20/spain-protest>. The
experience of standing daily and confronting the parliament opposite has
changed the politics of Greece for good and made the elites worried for the
first time. In Greek, the word *stasis *means an upright posture as well as
revolt or insurrection. The square was named after 19th-century
demonstrations, which demanded a constitution (*syntagma*) from the king.
This is what the outraged repeat today: they are standing upright, demanding
a new political arrangement to free them from neoliberal domination and
political corruption.
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