It’s Greek to Me!
By Paul Worthman
Alexis Tsipras‘ Syriza party, as expected, captured control of Greece’s government this past weekend, with a crushing victory winning 149 of the 300 seats and just missing majority control without the need to form a governing coalition. While the campaign was closely followed throughout Europe by both established politicians and financiers, as well as by leftists, in the US little attention has been paid to it, perhaps because as the cliché goes about something not understood “It’s Greek to me.” In Europe, though, his victory, hailed by counterparts like Podemos in Spain, in Portugual, and in England’s often vibrant Socialist camp the big win apparently promises to provide a surge in support for similar anti-austerity and redistribution movements.
Notably, Tsipras, accused of being an atheist (among other fear mongering) during the campaign outraged aged European political leaders by rejecting the traditional religious vows and swearing-in by the country’s Greek Orthodox Archbishop and by appearing in an open-necked shirt (he has vowed not to wear a tie until he has successfully negotiated with the “Troika” which imposed extensive privitization and savage cuts in the country’s social welfare programs. His first act as prime minister was to lay roses at a memorial to 200 Greek communists executed by the Nazis in 1944 which was interpreted both as a signal that Greece was ready to stand up to Germany’s austerity demands as well as honor the country’s left resistance.
Tsipras, whom European financiers and officials had predicted would “move to the center” after being elected, were more stunned and frightened by his forming the needed coalition not with moderate parties but with the rightwing party Independent Greeks (known as Anel) which won less than 5% of the vote. Like Syriza, Anel has demanded higher taxes on the country’s oligarchs, along with more rigorous tax collection from the rich, an end to widespread corruption, limits on moving wealth out of Greece, and a rejection of the country’s subjugation to German demands (which it has linked to the German nazi past).
Anel, meanwhile, not unlike most social right-wingers in the US, is anti-immigrant, strongly religious, anti-gay, and at times anti-Semitic. But that linkage to join in a governing majority communicated Tsipras intention to pursue his anti-austerity and redistribution principles as the dominant theme of his new government.
Standing up to Europe’s governing elite and financiers won’t be easy for Syriza. He is somewhat hemmed in by the desire of most Greeks to continue in the Euro zone. But this victory, and Tsipras’ initial moves to ignore contradictions on social policies and ideologies and coalesce with a strong anti-austerity, anti-financial group is a lesson for other countries, as it should be here in the US.
As an English friend and union activist and Socialist wrote me “Syriza and Podemos are partly offspring of the Arab revolutions in 2010 and I know that developments in Greece, where the Euro working class has been most savagely hit, will be closely watched. Wouldn’t hurt other more distant lefties to pay attention into class, now would it!”
