Will Syriza Party Take Power In Greece?

Posted on December 23, 2014

by Jerry Alatalo

reece is generally known as the birthplace of democracy some two thousand years ago. The country has experienced difficult economic times over the past four to five years, sharing the news with other member states of the European Union such as Italy, Spain, Portugal, Ireland and others on the periphery of the Union. In recent years, Greece’s social movements have banded together in forming the Syriza party.

In the following video, a Syriza party member talks on Latin American network TeleSUR’s program “Imaginary Lines”, about Syriza’s prospects for early elections in Greece coming in January 2015.

Their platform’s most controversial stance is an end to austerity measures prescribed by the so-called Troika – the European Central Bank, International Monetary Fund, and the European Union. Other goals of Syriza include renegotiation of Greece’s debt, which the party believes was not incurred by the people of Greece, re-nationalization of industries and sectors privatized in recent years, and moving away from overly market-dominated policies.

According to the Syriza representative, 300,000 Greeks are now without electricity, and 4 million live below the poverty line. In the past 4-5 years private banks have transferred 50 billion Euros out of Greece, and none of those financial funds ended up inserted into the Greece economy.

Syriza has developed relationships with nations in Latin America, where people have lived in past decades under neoliberal systems similar to the Greek system which Syriza is attempting to transform. Syriza’s representative describes the neoliberal policies of the European Union as a “nightmare”, hoping to change Greece’s political system in ways not dissimilar to the far-reaching transformation of Latin American countries which lived for decades under the same type of economic nightmares.

Syriza likes to think it can rediscover the vibrant, dynamic democratic principles first developed over 2,000 years ago in Greece. Will the social movement, solidarity, coalition party win the Greek elections and take power? Will Syriza’s Alexis Tsipras become the next President of Greece? The world will know the answer to those questions shortly, in about a month’s time.

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(Thank you to teleSUR English at YouTube)

Greece’s Syriza Party: European Transformation?

Posted on May 26, 2014

by Jerry Alatalo

People around the world may want to keep an eye on the Greek political party Syriza in the weeks and months ahead. Candidates belonging to the Syriza Party in Greece were in a celebratory mood today as the nation’s people voted big for them, prompting their leader Alexis Tsipras, who was a candidate for European Union (EU) president, to call for early elections.

What is significant about Syriza and its movement is that it directly confronts the financial industry which caused the economic crisis of 2007-8, a crisis still felt around the world today. With the discovery of this party in the last few days, the best way to describe its mission is to imagine men and women involved in America’s Occupy movement entering into politics through elections in a big way. Imagine the “Occupy Party” being the most popular party in America, and that may give one an idea how important this Greek party’s success has been.

Syriza leader Alexis Tsipras was at the University of Austin in Texas to give a talk in November 2013, and that talk has been posted here thanks to Social Journal Europe’s YouTube channel. It is very possible that, because Greece has suffered more than other European Union states from austerity measures, Syriza came to exist and grow out of sheer necessity. The members of Syriza are uncompromising in their strong intent on ending austerity, first in Greece and then the entire EU.

Their recommendations for saving the Eurozone are a change in ideas, change of policies, and a change of institutions, most notably changes that separate the Eurozone from neoliberal models. Americans are familiar with the messages from Occupy that pointed the finger at the “1%” and Wall Street corruption – Syriza Party of Greece plans to decisively act and put an end to corruption that emanates from the banking/financial corporations.

For this reason, because Syriza is now in a solid position to greatly influence events in Greece and the EU, men and women who agree with the focus and ideas that came out of the Occupy Wall Street movement in America would do well to follow Syriza’s example, and learn more about Syriza’s story.

In Mr. Tsipras’ view, the other EU parties will now have to decide if the Eurozone experiment has been a success or not. Because of the Syriza party’s success in Greece, the issues of privatization, deregulation, private central banks, and diminishing social agreement at the EU level will become included as topics of debate and discussion in the European Parliament at higher levels. Syriza’s success will act as a type of catalyst for political debate, where ideas about change previously neglected or ignored will enter the public discussion.

Americans could imagine many more elected representatives in Washington, D.C. like Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren or Dennis Kucinich and find an analogy to the future of Greece and the EU thanks to the efforts of men and women of the Syriza Party. The situation in Greece has been the same as many other nations, after the 2007-8 economic crisis falling into massive debt related to Wall Street corruption, then having their bankers bailed out, but without any money going toward improving the economy of most of the people on “Main Street.”

Syriza intends to implement cancellation of a large fraction of their national debt, call for an international conference on public debt, write off “odious” debt, eliminate interest payments on debt, and nationalize its central bank by turning it into a public utility. During this talk, Mr. Tsipras notes that there will be a battle with both old and new “kleptocrats”, that those kleptocrats know this battle was coming so will call members of Syriza dangerous extremists, as well as deliver smears of “radicals”. Tsipras wonders “why such venom?”.

“Because Syriza will end their hegemony.”

He suggests Americans can learn from the Greece situation that austerity is a suicidal, economic dead-end. “Basic incomes, public health provisions, public education, social cohesion, environmental protection. These are the public goods that, if depleted, will then undermine not only America’s ability but also its capacity to repay its debts. We must protect our public goods, not only in Europe, but in America.”

“The veil of silence must be lifted. Europe must stop pretending that it’s a ‘model prisoner’.”

In the coming weeks, months and years, political debate in Greece, the European Union – and the Earth – shall be very interesting indeed.

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(Thank you to Social Europe Journal @ YouTube)