Create an international solidarity campaign of hope against fear

Dear All

The forth­com­ing elec­tions in Greece promise a hope­ful New Year start. The ‘pan­ic’ over the weak­est link named Greece haunts once more the Euro­pean (and not only) elites. Even more so, as the pos­si­bil­i­ty for a break with the Troi­ka regime and aus­ter­i­ty in Greece seems more viable than ever.

As soon as the col­lapse of the pro-Troi­ka (con­ser­v­a­tives and social-democ­rats) coali­tion gov­ern­ment appeared, few weeks ago, the threats and black­mails against the Greek peo­ple start­ed again. The reas­sure­ment that the EU (and glob­al) mar­kets are pro­tect­ed by the effects of a change in Greece, do not suf­fice to ease the polit­i­cal threat such a change sig­nals for the dom­i­nant sta­tus quo. The rhetoric of “suc­cess sto­ry” and “GRe­cov­ery” were imme­di­ate­ly sub­sti­tut­ed by direct inter­ven­tions and “alarm­ing” state­ments. Finan­cial and polit­i­cal offi­cials re-launched the sce­nario of a “GRex­it” and of a pos­si­ble (Troi­ka-dri­ven) bank-run, as well as sug­ges­tions to the Greek elec­torate to behave with­in the frame­work of the bailout poli­cies (W. Schäu­ble) by pre­fer­ring (vot­ing) the famil­iar faces of the pro-Troi­ka par­ties (P. Moscovi­ci). Fear is chang­ing sides but the con­flict is expect­ed long and fierce.

In the con­text of cri­sis, Greece has been used as the test­ing ground for the deep­en­ing of neolib­er­al restruc­tur­ing and aus­ter­i­ty regime through­out Europe. But also Greece has emerged as a par­a­digm of resis­tance. The mul­ti­form and pro­tract­ed strug­gles of its peo­ple both obstruct­ed the imple­men­ta­tion of such poli­cies and gave life to new forms of grass-root orga­ni­za­tions, sol­i­dar­i­ty and social par­tic­i­pa­tion. These efforts were met with the gen­er­ous mobi­liza­tion of move­ments around the world that have shown their per­sis­tent sol­i­dar­i­ty. This enabled the Greek soci­ety to stand up with dig­ni­ty against the social cat­a­stro­phy that brought it to the point of human­i­tar­i­an cri­sis, and to emerge as lethal threat to the Troi­ka regime, send­ing a mes­sage all-over Europe. Those respon­si­ble for the cur­rent sit­u­a­tion know it only too well, and do their best, in uni­son, to save their inter­ests by hold­ing on to pow­er by any means.

By the same token the elec­tions of the 25^th Jan­u­ary will not just decide the future Greek gov­ern­ment, nei­ther can be fought in Greece alone. An anti-Troi­ka, anti-aus­ter­i­ty vic­to­ry in Greece opens up the poten­tial for an over­turn of the neolib­er­al dom­i­na­tion in EU, and beyond. Thus the cur­rent elec­tions con­sist a fight of all the Euro­pean peo­ple, of all the move­ments that resist and oppose any aspect of a neolib­er­al, anti-social and unde­mo­c­ra­t­ic Europe.

There­fore we urge for a swarm like polit­i­cal cam­paign in sup­port of a change in Greece. A mul­ti­form cam­paign that informs the pub­lic opin­ion in each coun­try about the real sit­u­a­tion that bailouts and aus­ter­i­ty have cre­at­ed in Greece, and about what actu­al­ly is at stakes in the forth­com­ing elec­tions for the entire con­ti­nent. A cam­paign that coun­ters the dom­i­nant mis­in­for­ma­tion and spread of fear, a cam­paign that pres­sur­izes all those respon­si­ble for the appalling sit­u­a­tion in Greece and through­out Europe.

A cam­paign that sends a mes­sage of hope and change, against the par­a­lyz­ing rhetoric of fear and poverty.

Let’s make the over­throw of aus­ter­i­ty and Troi­ka in Greece more than a wish for 2015!

Sol­i­dar­i­ty for All

 

 

 

What one can do

 

Join the Solidarity4All inter­na­tion­al fb page — I have sent friend requests to many of you, or, just join https://www.facebook.com/sol4all -

and turn it into an inter­na­tion­al sol­i­dar­i­ty info-hub:

- We will feed it with updates on the Greek sit­u­a­tion and move­ment, and

- We want you to share your news about any, small­er or big­ger, sol­i­dar­i­ty actions out­side Greece, so

- We can cre­ate a meet­ing space for com­mon campaigning.

 

We begin with the “we start from Greece – we change Europe” cam­paign. This is a social media cam­paign involv­ing groups and indi­vid­u­als around Europe in sol­i­dar­i­ty with the resis­tance in Greece and also Podemos cir­cles. It aims to include every­one who wants to see a change in Greece and it’s a peo­ple-pow­ered cam­paign, so we need all and each one of you to join.

Those of you who would like to take part in the action please con­tact me for more details, by reply­ing to this email.

 

Take part in this Euro­pean-wide impor­tant elec­tions by orga­niz­ing a “Vote for Change” sol­i­dar­i­ty action on the week­end Fri­day 14 – Sun­day 16, just one week before the Greek elec­tions. Tar­get a Greek or EU insti­tu­tion (embassies, Hel­lenic or Greek tourism cen­tres, ECB, Euro­pean and big bank head­quar­ters), and show your resis­tance to finan­cial ter­ror of black­mails, to aus­ter­i­ty and the Troi­ka, mobi­liz­ing for hope and real democ­ra­cy. Do not for­get to inform our inter­na­tion­al fb page with your actions, so it can pub­li­cized through­out Greece and Europe.

 

Those active in the Ger­man speak­ing world are also encour­aged to use the sol­i­dar­i­ty fb page Griechen­land Entschei­det (Greece Decides), https://www.facebook.com/griechenlandentscheidet?fref=nf

 

You can also pro­mote the page of the crowd-fund­ing ini­tia­tive of Greek youth https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/a‑flight-for-democracy in order to raise mon­ey for come=ing to Greece and vot­ing for change.

 

Next Tues­day an eng­lish-lan­guage web­site called www.analyzegreece.gr will be launched aim­ing to feed the inter­na­tion­al pub­lic with more thor­ough analy­ses on the Greek pol­i­tics and the left.