Greece: On June 18,
the war only begins…

Panagiotis Sotiris[1]

On Sunday June 17, Greece is facing a highly polarized electoral battle. Although we are facing the possibility that the attempt by New Democracy to draw from the various forms of the Right and the Far-Right, will enable it to form an openly pro-austerity government in collaboration with PASOK, there is a strong chance that SYRIZA will win in this election and be the centre of a possible government. Despite the efforts by the leadership of SYRIZA to present its program as a realist attempt to break away from austerity, while remaining within the confines of the Eurozone and the EU, it is obvious that such a potential electoral victory expresses a more radical social and political dynamic. That can explain the anxiety in the EU and the various attempts to help a New Democracy victory.

However, the main open question regarding a possible government of the Left is not only SYRIZA’s program and the refusal even to discuss the possibility of an exit from the Eurozone (even in the sense of a ‘if the choice is between the euro and democracy, we choose democracy’ tactic).  It is the attitude regarding governmental power, and the logic of a left-wing government simply acting according an electoral mandate and a not as part of a broader social and political mobilization for resistance to austerity and for social transformation.

Of course, some people might say that the majority of voters will vote for the Left in the traditional sense of choosing whom they prefer to see in government. However, such a position misreads the social and political dynamics of the current conjuncture in Greece. What we have been witnessing is not a traditional shift in the parliamentary balance of forces, nor is it simply a question of people changing their minds. Rather, it is the result of two years of intense struggles, of an escalation of social and political conflict unseen in other European countries and of something close to a protracted people’s war against austerity. It was this intense social and political struggle that ruptured traditional relations of political representation, led to a humiliating defeat of systemic parties in the May 6 elections and catapulted the electoral results of SYRIZA and the Left in general. Moreover, this whole process has also been a cognitive process, a form of social pedagogy. The millions of people that took part in all forms of mobilization, that were active in occupations, demonstrations, and mass strikes, that filled the squares in defiance of police brutality, did not simply expressed their anger. They also learned: how to think differently, how to discuss more with their co-workers or friends or comrades, how to be more open to radical proposals that were traditionally ostracized from the public sphere, and how to dare and dream about social change.

That is why must not limit the discussion on power in Greece to electoral politics only. Power is not only about who holds the offices of government. It is mainly about who actually decides about economic policy, about the banking system, about education and health priorities. It is a material balance of forces within society, production, the State, and a question of collective representations, attitudes and everyday practices. In this sense, having a government of the Left only opens the question of power, does not resolve it.

Without a strong social and political movement ‘from below’, without strong trade unions and student movements, without all forms of popular self-organization and solidarity, any change in the balance of forces at the governmental level will be in constant risk of failure and defeat. A possible victory of the Left in the elections should not be seen as a simple electoral mandate but as the beginning of a new and more intense phase in the struggle.

There is no way that we can answer the open blackmails from the part of the European Union, unless there is an immediate call for mass demonstrations that will surround the embassies of leading European countries’ embassies with the same popular rage that filled the ‘Squares’ last summer. We will not be able to reinstate collective contracts and minimum wages, unless major employers’ associations face intense union mobilization and realize that there is a change in the balance of forces in the workplace.

There is no way we can prevent the complete collapse of public services currently in progress, unless we are ready to throw out of ministries and major public organizations all the ‘special advisors’, ‘evaluators’, ‘task forces’, that were appointed both by the previous governments and the EU-IMF-ECB ‘Troika’ in order to implement structural adjustment programs, privatizations and mass lay-offs of public servants.

Universities will not be able to function properly unless the university movement is ready to guaranty that they function as if the latest law on University reform, simply does not exist. Finally, we will not be able to counter the threat of neo-fascism, without a strong anti-fascist movement that will try to regain back the neighborhoods from the fascists, street by street.

Moreover, if we choose to confront options that are more radical and especially the exit from the Eurozone and the difficult work of reconstructing our collective productive capabilities, then a strong movement from below is more than necessary. Such a break with ‘actually existing neoliberalism’ will require a wave of occupations and self-management of factories that have been closed. We will need new forms of workers’ control in the nationalized banks and strategic enterprises. Above all, it will require a broad movement that will fight fear, build solidarity and take up the functioning of basic public infrastructure not as workplace obligation, but as a collective responsibility to a society in struggle.

Power is never simply a ‘right to issue decrees’. It is always the stake of struggle and conflict in all aspects of social life. What is needed in Greece is not an electoral victory, but the release of the full potential for resistance and transformation of the popular movement, all the collective experience, knowledge and creativity accumulated through the struggles of the past years. Social war does not end on June 18. It only begins…