Keep Ithaca always in your mind.
Arriving there is what you’re destined for.
C.P.Cavafy, ‘Ithaca’
On August
21 Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras went to Ithaca to announce the end of
the Memorandum Agreement with the Troika. True to form, he was creating a
photo-op pregnant with symbolic significance while at the same time hiding the
actual substance of the occasion. If one
recalls Tsipras did something very similar the day he first came into office in
2015. He then made a point of paying his
respects to the Resistance fighters of the Nazi occupation. He also refused to be sworn in by the
Orthodox archbishop of Greece as had been customary for all previous heads of
state. This display of sympathy with the strong tradition of anti-fascist
struggles and secularism in Greece burnished his credentials with his left wing
supporters at the same time as he announced he was joining forces with ANEL, an
extreme right wing nationalist party.
No one in
Greece failed to notice that Tsipras’ August 21 visit to Ithaca was meant to
serve as a bookend to former Prime Minister George Papandreou’s visit to the
island of Kastellorizo in 2010, where he announced the first bailout of
110 billion euros ($126.7 billion) at the dawn of the austerity regime. Ithaca
is in the Ionian Sea west of the mainland while Kastellorizo is on the other
end of the country, in the Aegean Sea east of the mainland and close to Turkey.
While
Tsipras is adept in the use of symbolism and mythology to deliver his message,
few people in Greece were fooled. This was in contrast to the foreign press,
which mostly reported Tsipras’ Pollyanish comments with a straight face without
a hint of irony. [1] Everyone knows that while
the memorandum agreement is officially over, Greece’s finances will continue to
be closely monitored by the European Institutions. The National Herald, a Greek-American publication not noted for its left
wing views reported that despite
Tsipras’ claims that the end of the memorandum agreement represents some kind
of milestone,
“ …the economy will be monitored for years by the country’s creditors, the
Troika of the European Union-European Central Bank-European Stability Mechanism
(EU-ECB-ESM) and Washington, D.C.-based International Monetary Fund, to make
sure fiscal targets are hit and that the Premier doesn’t renege on reforms to
them the way he did on anti-austerity promises to voters.” [2]
Some
form of these controls, which essentially make of Greece a vassal of European
imperialism, will be in place until 2060!
On
the same day that Tsipras made his announcement in Ithaca, I was discussing
these and other issues with our friend Tasso in the tiny village of Komitata on
the island of Kefallonia. The Northern end of Kefallonia, where we are located,
is hardly a stone’s throw across the water from Ithaca.
We
last saw Tasso in the summer of 2017. Outwardly not much has changed in
Komitata. Tasso’s café remains the only social center in town except for the
church at the foot of the road. But the
church is only open occasionally while Tasso is always there in the summer.
Tasso is a retired telecommunications worker who was active in his union. He is very politically literate and has a
good understanding of the different political groups in Greece.
During
our conversation Tasso explained the power dynamics that used to govern Greece
in the years prior to the economic crisis.
In those days the government would change hands between the Center Left
PASOK and the Center Right New Democracy Party.
Mirroring the fortunes of PASOK and ND were the political affiliations
of the public sector union confederation, ADEDY. When PASOK was in the ascendancy unions that
supported PASOK were in favor and similarly when New Democracy was in the
ascendancy unions that supported ND were in favor. What this came down to was that unions
officials that were aligned with the ruling party could expect to receive plum
positions in various government ministries and these officials in turn were
able to maintain their positions by handing out jobs to subordinates. This kind of corruption was endemic in the
years prior to the economic crisis. The
relations between the unions in Greece and the Greek state were closely
intertwined as a large part of the revenues that fund the operations of these
unions came from direct government contributions.
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| Tsipras in Ithaca |
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| Tasso |
After
the economic crisis hit Greece in 2010 those sources of funding dried up
considerably. This made it far more difficult for the unions to mobilize their
members in support of this or that political formation. Lacking incentives, and seeing their economic
situation rapidly deteriorate despite the feeble protests of the unions,
membership in these unions shrunk dramatically.
The
economic crisis has completely upended those old class relations. Not only did it see the virtual
disintegration of Pasok and the rise of Syriza, but the role of the unions,
once so essential in underpinning social relations in Greece, has been greatly
diminished. The official unions today
are mostly irrelevant when it comes to setting the political and economic
agenda of the country.
Tassos’s
village of Komitata was initially very enthusiastic about Tsipras when Syriza
first took over the reigns of government in 2015. They took for good coin Tsipras’s promises to
end the regime of austerity imposed by the European institutions. I cannot think of any other country where a
tiny rural village would be overwhelmingly supportive of a political party
describing itself as “The Coalition of the Radical Left”. The reason probably lies in the close
connection most Greeks maintain between the urban centers to which they
migrated, perhaps more than a generation ago, and the rural villages of their
ancestry. It doesn’t matter how long you
have lived in the urban centers of Athens or Thessalonika, when August comes
around, everyone returns to their village.
When
I interviewed Tasso in 2017, two years after Tsipras’s betrayal of the
referendum, his comment was that they had all voted “NO” [οχι] at the time but were shocked when
the “NO” became a “YES”. [3]
On this occasion, three years after the betrayal of the referendum, I asked
Tasso how he would account for the relative quiescence of the class struggle
since July 2015.
Tasso
replied,
“People are still in shock. You have
to understand how the economic crisis has affected people. They are too busy in
their day to day struggle just trying to survive to become involved in
political protests.”
I
understood what he meant. Greek society
has undergone a profound transformation in the last decade. That change cannot be grasped by citing raw
statistics. For instance, the bare fact that in the last decade Greece’s GDP
fell by more than 25%. The only parallel
to such a drop in economic activity was during the Great Depression. A look at the statistics on unemployment
paint a grim picture. According to a recent article in Jacobin,
“Unemployment peaked at 27.9 percent in July 2013. Since then
this figure has slowly declined, and in May 2018 it fell below 20 percent for
the first time. However, it will take another five years to reach pre-crisis
level. Moreover, the rise in employment mainly owed to increased numbers in
part-time and low-paid jobs. 54.7 percent of new jobs in 2017 were part-time.
The formal unemployment figures are also reduced by the simple
fact that many working-age residents have moved abroad. These include both migrants working in Greece who left
the country during the crisis, and Greek citizens forced to seek employment
abroad.”[4]
Tasso
explained what this means locally in the tourist industry of Kefallonia. Many of the workers employed in the tourism
business are largely, but by no means exclusively, immigrants from countries
like Albania. During the tourist season
they work 7 days a week for about €600 a month. This is actually below
the minimum wage but the employers get around that by calling this “part-time”
work. But “part-time” in this case means
they work – officially – 7 hours a day instead of the normal 8 hour work day.
In practice the distinction is meaningless as these workers are often forced to
work extra hours without compensation.
The owners of the hotels and tourist businesses on the islands have
managed to maintain their profit margins by drastically slashing wages and
benefits. And work in the tourist industry on islands like Santorini are
considered good compared to the situation in Athens where the average salary,
providing you can even find a job, is even worse. The overall average salary for full-time
workers stands at €929 a month,
down from €1285 in 2012. For part-time
workers it is now a miserable €378, down from €587 in 2012. [5]
Tourists
who visit Santorini or the Acropolis do not see this misery as a rule. The Greek tourist industry makes it a
priority to present everything as if nothing terrible is happening. But if you
look just a bit beneath the surface or visit and talk to any Greek family
trying to survive on a pension that has been reduced several times in the past
few years, the evidence of social disintegration is hard to avoid. Strong
family ties do provide a bit of a shelter from the economic devastation. Grown children who are unemployed and can
longer afford their own apartment move back in with their parents. Such options
are not open to immigrants who generally do not have any family members that
can assist them. In any case the ability to cushion the blows of austerity has
its limits even with such strong family ties.
One figure, measuring the flight out of the country is telling,
“…427,000
permanent residents of Greece left the country between 2008 and 2013, including
187,000 non-citizens between 2010 and 2013. This flight continued in subsequent
years and also took the form of brain-drain, as many young graduates sought
work abroad.” [6]
This
is close to 5% of the population of Greece. Such an exodus is unprecedented in
recent history except during periods of war.
Any
attempt to understand the Greek situation today must take into account the
effect of this unrelenting social misery on mass psychology. Added to the equation is also the incredible
disappointment many felt when their hopes were betrayed by Syriza in 2015.
Such
a situation could cause despondency and despair and for the moment that seems
to be the dominant mood. But there is no
necessary causal relationship between the social and economic devastation
inflicted on Greece and the current mood. It could just as easily give rise to
righteous anger and a mass movement that breaks with the status quo once the
current interregnum period has passed.
 |
| Graffiti in Athens |
Before
leaving I asked Tasso how he saw the future.
If there was an election who would he vote for?
Tasso
replied that he would of course vote for the Far Left. To him that meant a vote for the ANTARSYA
coalition. But he is also well aware
that ANTARYSA and other far left groups have little chance of winning an
election or of being a significant influence on the course of events. He cannot really see the future beyond that.
But
Tasso also insists that the Greek working class is not finished.
While
Tsipras popularity is close to an all-time low, his main rival, Kyriakos
Mitsotakis, the leader of New Democracy, hardly commands any confidence either.
The Syriza-Anel coalition government took
a big hit when they were popularly
perceived to have been negligent in their handling of the tragic fires that
broke out this summer. According to a
recent poll,
“… when asked who is more suitable for prime
minister, 43 percent answered “neither”. Kyriakos Mitsotakis is the preference
of 25% compared to 13 percent of Alexis Tsipras.” [7]
What
these numbers indicate more than anything else is a repudiation not only of
Syriza but of the entire spectrum of bourgeois politics. The situation is therefore ripe for a new
force that can establish itself as a genuine alternative. This is a situation pregnant with both
dangers and opportunities for socialists. The opportunity to
establish a new political force that will break with capitalist austerity is
there. But if that force does not emerge then the pent-up anger that will
certainly explode in the next period could be channeled in the direction of the
extreme right and fascism.
This
was the view from Tasso’s café.
Alex Steiner
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| Graffiti art in Athens: Dedicated to the poor and homeless here and around the globe. |
[1]
For instance, take this report from Reuters, Tsipras declares 'day of liberation' after Greece exits bailout,
[2] From Ithaca, Tsipras Hails Greek Bailouts
End, Wants Austerity Undone, https://www.thenationalherald.com/211055/pm-tsipras-to-visit-ithaca-on-tuesday/
[3] Greece at the Crossroads: Epilogue,
[4] Disciplined
and Punished by PANAGIOTIS SOTIRIS, https://www.jacobinmag.com/2018/08/greece-syriza-tsipras-memoranda-austerity-odyssey
[5]
Ibid.
[6]
Ibid.
[7] New
Poll Shows New Democracy 10 Points Ahead of Syriza,
