IV465 - October 2013

The launching press conference of the Greek Committee of the European Antifascist Initiative took place last Thursday 10 of October at the conference hall of the Greek Journalists’ Union. The panel included the journalist and documentarist Aris Hatzistefanou (Debtocracy, Catastroika), the professor of International Law George Katrougalos, the Secretary of Syriza’s Central Committee Dimitris Vitsas, the vice-president of Unicef-Hellas Sofia Tzitzikou, the Secretary of EEK (far-left) Savvas Michail, the MP of Syriza Dimitris Tsoukalas, the activist Yorgos Mitralias and the journalist Moisis Litsis.

Among personalities present in the hall and supporting the European Antifascist Manifesto we noticed many Syriza MPs like Sofia Sakorafa and antifascist resistance national hero Manolis Glezos, the ex-president of the Journalist’s Union D. Trimis, Unicef-Hellas president L. Kanellopoulos, the president of the Confederation of Professionals, Craftsmen & Merchants (GSEVEE), members of Syriza’s leadership, university professors, leading ecologists, the author of the book on Golden Dawn Dimitris Psarras and the president of the Association of Holocaust’s Victims Descendents Marios Soussis. Comrade Petros Konstantinou, leader of the antiracist and antifascist movement KERFAA, took also the floor exposing his point of view…

Messages of support had been sent by well-known people from the Greek cultural scene like the old surrealist poet Nanos Valaoritis or the composer Thanos Mikroutsikos. Messages of particular importance were sent by the Guinean victim of Golden Dawn’s storm squads Mamadou Ba who escaped recently to Brussels, as well as by the Slovenian Ivica Znidarsic, president of the “International Committee of Deportees and Refugees, Victims of Fascism and Nazism 1920-1945”.

Yes, they did it: over the edge and down the ravine, into the “partial government shutdown.“ If you need help from your local Social Security or Veterans Administration office, forget it. Calling Fannie Mae for a loan modification? Don’t bother – those notoriously cynical bureaucrats aren’t even there. Camping in a national park? Pack up and get out. Even if you want to stage an antiwar protest at your downtown Federal Building, you may as well move it elsewhere.

What has got into the Minister of the Police, Dendias? Like Prime Minister Samaras , even after the murder of Pavlos Fyssas on September 18, he continued to talk about the "two extremes", putting the Nazis of Chryssi Avgi (Golden Dawn) and SYRIZA on the same level... This suggests that the vast police operation on the morning of Saturday, September 28, which we did not expect on such a scale, is due to several factors.

Gilbert Achcar, author of the new book The People Want was interviewed by Terry Conway for Socialist Resistance in London in September.

The debate in political circles and in the media in recent decades around the question of abortion has been accompanied by a growing monopoly ownership of the defence of the right to life by the Right, in a way that skillfully counter-poses it to the feminist demand of the right to choose.

Declaration by DEA (Internationalist Workers’ Left, member of the left platform of SYRIZA) (Monday September 30, 2013)

Franck Gaudichaud has just published two books, Chili 1970-1973. Mille jours qui ébranlèrent le monde (Presses universitaires de Rennes/IDA, Coll. Amériques, 2013), and, ¡Venceremos! Analyses et documents sur le pouvoir populaire au Chili (Editions Syllepse, Paris, 2013). He was interviewed on 27 August 2013 by Jan Malewski.

The September 29th municipal elections in Portugal gave another sign of popular opposition to the troika’s austerity policies in Portugal. Only three weeks ahead of the presentation of the state Budget, that will bring more cuts in wages and retirement pensions above 600 euros, these local elections were a good opportunity for a strong rejection of the government parties. And that opportunity was seized, starting in the biggest cities - Porto, Gaia, Sintra, Coimbra, where the old PSD mayors were replaced by new ones from the Socialist Party or "independent" citizens’ lists in conflict with the ruling PSD.