Category: Greece

23 Mar

Comments Off on Athens: Crisis, racism & new figures of resistance

Athens: Crisis, racism & new figures of resistance

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KEVIN OVENDEN wrote this report from Athens just after Saturday’s anti-racist day of action there. I’ve not seen the centre of Athens so black since August of 2012 and the massive protest against the onset of the Xenios Zeus anti-immigrant police sweeps. Not the black of Angela Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union. Its party colour gives rise […]

12 Mar

Comments Off on Tariq Ali & Luke Stobart: Podemos, crisis & movements

Tariq Ali & Luke Stobart: Podemos, crisis & movements

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Within a year of its creation, Podemos became the main opposition party in Spain. Analyses of its rapid rise have centred on its unorthodox and ambitious political approach and the different forms of participatory democracy practised (however imperfectly). Less has been said about the relation between the Podemos phenomenon and the Spanish context of major […]

12 Mar

Comments Off on Anti-Germanism: the anti-austerity politics of fools

Anti-Germanism: the anti-austerity politics of fools

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KEVIN OVENDEN returns to Athens for the first in a new series of posts at Left Flank. It is worth reading in full yesterday’s speech by Greek prime minister Alexis Tsipras on the incendiary issue of German war reparations to Greece. The issue was not resolved upon the unification of the German state in 1990 […]

Filed under: Europe, Featured, Greece

04 Mar

2 Comments

The worrying re-legitimation of Golden Dawn

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The intervention of SYRIZA MP and Speaker of the House Zoi Konstantopoulou during the first (and so far sole) session of the Greek Parliament sent a chill through the country’s anti-fascist movement. The Speaker proposed the postponement of the parliamentary sitting because the District Attorney had not given permission to the MPs of Golden Dawn […]

Filed under: fascism, Featured, Greece

26 Feb

1 Comment

Greece: A choice between rupture & humiliation

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In this special guest post for Left Flank, PANAGIOTIS SOTIRIS forensically dissects the SYRIZA government’s agreement with the Eurogroup — not to lead people to despair but to focus the question on the political and economic limits of the Eurozone that SYRIZA has accepted, and to argue the basis for a policy of rupture with […]

Filed under: Featured, Greece, Left strategy

27 Jan

9 Comments

Some thoughts on the deal between Syriza & ANEL

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This was written as part of Kevin’s live blogging of the post-election manoeuvres, in response to the shock many readers felt at Syriza’s coalition agreement with the right-wing ANEL (Independent Greeks). We thought it deserved a standalone post that people could come back to easily, before Kevin delivers his final dispatch — a  full post-election […]

Filed under: Featured, Greece

24 Jan

Comments Off on Dispatch from Athens #12: Show some Left initiative

Dispatch from Athens #12: Show some Left initiative

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NOTE: Kevin’s liveblog of the election is already up & running HERE Let’s show some initiative on the Left It’s pouring down in Athens. It’s not put a dampener on people’s spirits, however. A quick visit to the local square for a coffee brought me into an animated discussion with a fluid group of people […]

Filed under: Featured, Greece

23 Jan

3 Comments

Dispatch from Athens: Greek Election Liveblog

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#VoteSyriza2015 Greek Election Liveblog [View the story “#VoteSyriza2015 Greek Election Liveblog” on Storify]   Previous dispatches Left Flank exclusive: Daily reports on Greece’s election Dispatch from Athens #1: Rules of the game Dispatch from Athens #2: The Right cornered, but fighting Dispatch from Athens #3: Fear meets a movement of hope Dispatch from Athens #4: […]

Filed under: Featured, Greece

20 Jan

1 Comment

Dispatch from Athens #10: Everyone has their rationality

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Everyone has their rationality — that’s the problem What is Syriza? For the champions of free market economic liberalism at the Economist the answer is simple. It is one of the mad, bad and dangerously “extremist” forces which have failed to grasp the universal benefits which are to be found in capitalist “globalisation”. It is […]

Filed under: Featured, Greece