Syriza Wave by Sheehan Helena;

Author:Sheehan, Helena;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Monthly Review Press
Published: 2016-04-04T04:00:00+00:00

After the Conference

After the conference, I still had another nine days before my flight home. I had originally intended to spend some of this by the sea, perhaps taking the hydrofoil to Aegina, but I couldn’t pull myself away from Athens. I spent most of this time having long talks with Syriza activists about what was happening to Syriza. First I spent a solitary day reading, writing, reflecting, and walking by the sea. In the evening, I took a tram from Syntagma to Vouli and walked back to Faliro. Lots of people were swimming in the warm evening. I looked at the wealthy houses with the best views along the seafront and the yachts along the harbor. I thought about how little had been done to challenge the power of the oligarchs. I saw the sunset through barbed wire outside a piece of prime property that blocked the public’s access to the sea. Back in Syntagma, I photographed the scene at night and tweeted, “Goliath won. David lies bleeding. What next?”

The next day I went to see Costas Isychos, who had been alternate minister for defense until a few days ago. We embraced warmly, almost the way you do at a funeral, and went to the parliamentary offices. It was the only building where I went through any security check. I had to hand over my passport for the duration of the visit and give details of my hotel and mobile number. Costas had lost his ministerial office but hadn’t yet settled into a new office as an MP, so he was occupying one temporarily, presumably one vacated by someone who voted yes in parliament and had now been promoted. He said that life as a minister was like being in another galaxy, mixing with generals, having bodyguards to protect him, limos to take him anywhere, an open bank account that he never used. It was obvious that he could live without that, but living without the Syriza he did so much to build was something else.

He was still in shock over the events of the past few days. It was hard to comprehend, hard to cope, he confessed. “How could we go from no to yes in one day?” he was still asking. Tsipras said he had no choice, but there were choices all along the way. Tsipras was behaving like someone in the throes of extreme psychological warfare, both from the troika and from the right wing of Syriza. He listened to Yannis Dragasakis and Nikos Pappas and shut out other comrades. This was a violation of congress decisions, of the electoral program, even of national law, whereby referenda results are legally binding. It was social genocide. It was a suicidal mission for the left. Now there was a 977-page law to be voted on immediately as a single act, without even time to read it. These were the tactics of previous memoranda under previous governments of which Syriza was so critical. He said that he was being vilified in the media, along with Lafazanis, Stratoulis, and Valavani.

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