What
I learned about Greece’s year from hell
POLITICO
gets an exclusive look at a new documentary that charts Syriza’s
journey from election euphoria to grim austerity.
By JAMES BLOODWORTH
12/16/15, 5:30 AM CET
Greece’s radical
left party Syriza swept to power in January on a fiercely
anti-austerity ticket. Hordes of left-wing activists from across
Europe booked cheap flights and descended on Greece in order to show
solidarity with the new government.
Less than nine
months later, the foreign leftists had returned home and the
anti-austerity euphoria had dissipated. Meanwhile, Greek Prime
Minister Alexis Tspras, leader of Syriza, had gone from being the
face of hope to yet another harbinger of grim austerity.
So what happened in
the interim? Quite a lot, actually.
POLITICO got an
early look at all four parts of a new documentary titled #ThisIsACoup
by British Channel 4 economics editor Paul Mason and Greek filmmaker
Theopi Skarlatos. The series explores the period between the initial
euphoria of Syriza’s election victory and the subsequent return of
Greek politics to more familiar — and austere — terrain.
1. Tsipras never
intended to leave the eurozone
The Greek prime
minister tells Mason that his “heart and soul said go” but his
“mind said that I had to find a solution.”
Tsipras acknowledges
that walking away from negotiations with the so-called Troika — the
European Commission, European Central Bank and International Monetary
Fund — as advocated by Syriza’s left wing, would have involved
“the collapse, first of all, of the banks and then the collapse of
the economy.”
And this was
ultimately a step he was unwilling to take.
“If I walked away
this night, probably I would be a hero for one night, maybe for two,
three, but it would be a disaster for the next days and nights —
not only for me but for the majority of the Greek people,” he says.
As to what he would
have done differently were he to have the time over again, Tsipras
tells Mason he would have “made more brave decisions at the
beginning.”
“I think we lost
time, and at the end we were out of force and out of money. If we
knew that [from the start] we would have made more brave decisions at
the beginning.”
2. Varoufakis was
sidelined because he was prepared to quit Europe
Tsipras shocked
European leaders in late June when he called a referendum asking
Greek voters, in convoluted fashion, whether they believed the
Troika’s plans should be implemented. The aim of the question —
in which the Oxi (No) vote ultimately won with 60 percent of the vote
— wasn’t technically about leaving the euro, even though the
debate was framed that way. Rather, Tsipras hoped it would strengthen
Syriza’s negotiating hand (in the event of an Oxi vote) with the
Troika.
“We will not use
this mandate to clash with Europe but to strengthen our negotiating
powers so we can achieve a better deal,” he told the media at the
time.
The plan backfired.
The Troika ignored the vote. And as a result, so did Tsipras.
One week after
telling the Greek people to “Turn your back on those who would
terrorize you” and voting Oxi, Tsipras signed off the austerity
measures he had just won yet another mandate to oppose.
Tsipras’s
political maneuvering stood in stark contrast to Varoufakis, who was
forced to resign. He later said he quit because he was “not going
to be party to” what he called a “humanitarian crisis” by
signing Greece up for more austerity.
In episode four of
the documentary, Varoufakis said that at the time, he felt “as if
the earth had imploded from under my feet.”
“I felt incredible
sadness and a sense of having betrayed the 62 percent of Greeks who
with astonishing courage went out against the powers that be, against
the media that were terrorizing them in their living rooms through
their television and radio channels every day, against the closed
banks against the ECB, against the Troika,” Varoufakis said. “I
felt we betrayed them and I don’t think we had the historical right
to do that.”
Varoufakis was
replaced as finance minister by Euclid Tsakalotos, who tells Mason he
has “proper red lines” in negotiations with the Troika.
“We won’t do
something that reduces wages and pensions,” he added.
Just two weeks
later, new finance minister Tsakalotos signed up to the Troika’s
harsh austerity measures, which include pension cuts, tax rises and
privatizations.
3. Tsipras believes
the eurozone feared a domino effect if it cut Greece any slack
What eurozone
leaders really feared was Greece setting an example for other
indebted eurozone countries to follow, Tsipras said.
“I think that they
did what they did to us, not only [did they do it] because they
didn’t like us, but because they didn’t want to have a domino
effect in other countries,” he said.
Yet Tsipras doesn’t
believe it was a mistake to raise the hopes of the Greek people by
holding a referendum which he declared at one point would “cancel
the bailout…and…put an end to the Troika.”
“[The eventual
outcome] was not a good development,” Tsipras told Mason. “But
the fact that these people had the right, had the chance to express
their feelings and to feel dignity was something very important. This
was historical times for Greece and for Greek people.”
4. Syriza did what
radical parties do: fail to meet sky-high expectations
If the documentary
tells us anything, it’s that the sheer level of the hope invested
in Syriza — by ordinary Greeks as well as by left-wing idealists —
was misplaced from the start.
Greece’s leftists
won the January elections by promising to do something they
ultimately found impossible: rolling back austerity. For all Tsipras’
initial bluster, the Troika was unwilling to compromise.
The Greek people
believed they could beat austerity by voting against it — Paul
Mason
“The Greek people
believed they could beat austerity by voting against it,” Mason
said in the film. “Europe gave them a choice: surrender control or
we destroy your economy.”
However, the mistake
on the part of Syriza was a mistake common to the far-left. It
assumed that previous governments did bad things — in this case,
implementing austerity — because they were bad people, rather than
because they were dealt an impossible hand by the eurozone. As the
Syriza journalist Anastasia Giamali revealingly tells Mason in the
film, “I’m not sure we were completely aware of the severity of
the position that the creditors are following.”
When Syriza
eventually capitulated to its debtors — just as its predecessors in
PASOK had done — the height from which it crashed back down to
earth was made all the more precipitous by its previously
uncompromising anti-austerity rhetoric.
You might call what
Tsipras ultimately did a betrayal. You might also say that he looked
over the precipice and, much like Greece’s “establishment”
parties before him, took a giant step back.
5. #Hashtag activism
has its limits
As soon as it became
clear that Tsipras had caved in to the demands of Greece’s eurozone
creditors, Twitter was aflame with angry denunciations of the Troika
and accusations that Tsipras had “betrayed” the Greek people.
According to the film, around one billion people — almost one
seventh of the entire population of the world — saw the hash tag
#ThisIsACoup.
They saw it and yet
nothing happened — they just saw it. The final lesson from
#ThisIsACoup, then? Understand the limits of hashtag activism, or
Slacktivism, as it is sometimes known.
#ThisIsACoup will be
released free as four daily online episodes from December 15 to 18.
James Bloodworth is
a columnist for the International Business Times.
Sem comentários:
Enviar um comentário