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Stop the blackmail of the Greek workers and poor people!

Statement by the Socialistisk Partiet, Sweden

Wednesday 20 June 2012, by Socialistisk Politik

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"Investors, Take A Moment To Cheer!", crowed the business magazine Forbes the day after the Greek elections. With the help of EU’s blackmail the right won the election and the banks are hoping get the government they wanted.

But even after the election in Greece the crisis continues and puts a series of political questions on the agenda, questions that are equally important in most countries of the world. It’s not about, as the media often portrays it, lazy and irresponsible Greeks. What is happening in Greece is just the tip of a crisis mountain that threatens to throw Europe, and thus the whole world into a chaos that surpasses most of what we have experienced. The culprits are not the Greek workers and the poor, it is the rich, the banks and ultimately an increasingly parasitic capitalist system that has forced the crisis.

Clearer than ever the workers’ interests stand in direct opposition to capital.

What makes the situation in Greece is particularly important and has shaken capital, is the existence of SYRIZA, a political alternative with broad support which, regardless of any shortcomings and mistakes, pointed out that the crisis not necessarily has to be resolved at the expense of the workers, an idea that has been banned from the center of politics for three decades. An electoral victory with SYRIZA in the lead would therefore have been a signal to the workers of Europe that another way out of the crisis is possible than the one preached by bourgeois and social democratic parties.

The rejoicing of the right-wing will be short-lived. When it starts to fulfill the promises to its taskmaster in the EU and the international financial mafia, the already long-suffering Greek people will be subjected to even harsher cuts and oppression. And there is no indication that this will come about without resistance from the country’s workers and poor.

The role of the Greek labor movement is now to organize in every way, unite and strengthen the popular resistance, in Parliament but most of all outside it. It is only through massive self-organization the attacks can be repelled and the foundation laid for a workers’ government. It is also through a broad self-organization that such a government can stand up against the violent opposition it will face from the international capital, from the EU and its governments. And it’s only along that road the workers can keep such a government on the right track.

An important condition for the ability of the Greek working class to defend itself is that it feels the support of workers and poor people in the rest of Europe. It is therefore in our own interest that we put pressure on the governments of our own countries to stop their politics of blackmail against Greece. The Greek fight against the international loan sharks is a struggle against the same forces and the same system that pushes the cuts and privatizations across Europe.

Stop the blackmail of the Greek people!
Solidarity with Greek workers and poor people!

Executive Committee 19 June 2012
Stockholm