Before It Is Too Late

 

The renaming of Troika to Institutions, Memorandum to Agreement, and Lenders to Partners, the way fish is baptized “meat,” does not change the previous situation.

Neither does it change, of course, the vote of the Greek people in the 25 January 2015 elections.

The people voted for what SYRIZA promised: We will overthrow the regime of austerity that is not only the strategy of the oligarchy in Germany and other EU creditor states, but also the Greek oligarchy.

We will get rid of the Memoranda and the Troika and repeal all the austerity laws.  The day after the elections, with one law we will overthrow the Troika and overturn its consequences.

Now, a month has passed, and yet those promises have yet to become a reality.

Shame and shame again.

For my part, I apologize to the Greek people because I, too, was a collaborator in the creation of this illusion.

Before, however, the evil ventures too far, before it is too late, let us fight back.

The members, friends, and supporters of SYRIZA, in extraordinary meetings, at all levels of its organizations, must decide whether we accept this situation.

Some argue that to make a deal you have to retreat.  First of all, between oppressors and oppressed there can be no compromise, just as between slaves and occupiers the only solution is Freedom.

But even if we accept this absurdity, the concessions already made by the previous pro-Memoranda governments, bringing unemployment, austerity, poverty, and suicides, has taken this country beyond the limits of retreat.

Manolis Glezos
Brussels, 22 February 2015


Manolis Glezos, a renowned former resistance fighter, is a SYRIZA Member of the European Parliament, elected with the largest number of votes in Greece in the 25 May 2014 elections.  The original article “Πριν Είναι Αργά” was published on the Κίνηση Ενεργοί Πολίτες (Active Citizens Movement) Web site on 22 February 2015.