(en) Anarkismo.net: As ECB tells Greeks they voted wrong - will Syriza pull the temple down? by andrew Flood

Do we live in an economy or in a society? Last night Europe's central bankers sent the 
clear message they expect us to be the well behaved slaves of an economy rather than 
equals in a society. Less then two weeks after the Greeks had elected an anti-austerity 
government the ECB in effect told them they intended to block the promises of change that 
government was elected on. ---- Last night the ECB stopped the use of Greek sovereign 
bonds as collateral in borrowing from the ECB. In doing so they were sending a clear 
message that they expect the new Syriza/ANEL government in Greece to completely abandon 
the anti-austerity promises they were elected on. If they fail to obey the unelected 
central bankers then this policy change was intended to indicate a willingness to allow 
the collapse of the Greek banking system, something that would have disastrous effects in 
Greece but also across the rest of the EU.

In effect the people of Greece and indeed Europe have been turned into spectators on a 
West Wing or House of Cards style confrontation. Syriza have been internally referring to 
this sort of confrontation as the 'Samson Strategy'. That's a biblical reference to the 
myth of Samson who collapsed the temple on himself rather than continuing to endure 
slavery. The temple in this case being the European economy.

The logic of Syriza is simple and also correct. Austerity has already pushed their economy 
far into depression, there is no way that can pay the 319bn euro debt assigned to Greece 
by the capitalist crisis. Maintaining or deepening austerity will make that even more 
impossible.

They were elected on scrapping that debt but in the hope of saving the temple they are 
according to Paul Mason offering instead to "swap 60 per cent of its debt owed to the EU, 
for bonds that are paid back very long-term, and which pay no interest unless the economy 
is growing"

This mess illustrates not only the hostility to democracy at the heart of the EU project 
but also the lack of meaningful democracy in the lives of everyone in Europe. We are not 
equals in a society whose shape we determine together, we are slaves to market forces, 
forces that are fully determined to punish any section that seeks to escape its command.

Ironically the election of Syriza merely serves to illustrate the scale of the problem and 
reduce us once more to spectators in a 'will they or won't they' drama. Whether or not the 
temple is collapsed it illustrates that the road to a living in a society where we all 
have an equal say can not lie through a parliamentary road which always reduces to 
watching our self selected leaders performing on a far away stage. While some of the left 
are content to act as cheer leaders for their side we want to sweep the stage away.

WORDS Andrew Flood

Related Link: http://anarchism.pageabode.com/cat/syriza

http://www.anarkismo.net/article/27859