Greek Game: General Strike, Government Goes Down
By Farooque Chowdhury
16 June, 2011
Countercurrents.org
Amidst an angry Athens razing with petrol bombs, a general strike, and defections in own rank the Papandreou government in Greece has essentially collapsed as he offered to resign and form a national government. Conflict of bankers’ interests is pushing the Greek crisis further deep down while the finance-oligarchy is trying to prevent the eurozone’s first ever default, and handing over the gift of hunger and unemployment to the Greek people.
Producing a failure in the eurozone finance ministers’ Brussels meeting to resolve the French-German row over the Greek crisis the future of eurozone is now being feared. EU commissioners have a “profound sense of foreboding” about Greece and the future of the eurozone. “[T]he markets would now ‘smell blood’”. (BBC, Joe Lynam, June 15, 2011) Belgium and Spain are siding with France and the ECB. Now, in Berlin, Sarkozy and Merkel will try to solidify common, but competing interests. Soros assumes that there is effort to buy time instead of tackling the Greek problems. “[T]hey are making a mistake”, said Soros.
Stock markets across Europe were rattled as top European shares fell and the US markets went down. Now, three European banks – Credit Agricole, BNP Paribas and Societe Generale – face the threat of downgraded rating because of their exposure to Greek debt. The euro posted its biggest percentage decline against the dollar since last August.
While the Greek parliament witnessed fruitless debate on brutal austerity measures aimed at the Greek people tens of thousands of demonstrators, faced by violent police, besieged the parliament building. Making a blanket of tear gas and flash bombs and injuring the demonstrators were part of police-action. A crippling general strike, third in this year, paralyzed ports, banks, hospitals and state-run companies that rocked the government.
The Greek game, extrapolated by the growing rift between France and Germany, being played by competing bankers triggered alarm across Europe. The future of the euro and the eurozone are at stake. French and German banks hold very high stakes, to the range of billions, in the Greek economy in deep recession. The financial battleground is increasingly turning brutal.
Now, role of banks including Goldman Sachs are being questioned again. With financial tricks they helped hide the extent of Greek deficit. “[S]ome of those same banks were using credit default swaps to bet on the likelihood of a fault, trades that had the effect of making it harder for Greece to borrow, thereby pushing it closer to a financial cliff.”
Humiliation
Profit-hungry bankers, in their act of benevolence, are handing over humiliation to the Greek people. Days ago, Papandreou said: “We will not surrender.”
But the reality is opposite as bankers want to subjugate everything, and Papandreou has no power to make an about turn from the destiny the bankers decide. Greece is experiencing the same “thing” Third and Fourth World countries experience: Humiliation.
Gavin Hewitt writes: “Greeks are being humiliated. … Their fate is being decided elsewhere, by unelected officials from the EU or the IMF. … One demonstrator spoke of a country ‘being torn to pieces’. The IMF and EU send in accountants and economists who occupy space in the finance ministry. When it comes to selling off state assets - intended to raise 50bn euros … - there is debate as to whether this should be overseen by a non-Greek body. It would have been the final humbling. There were suggestions, too, that foreigners should run Greek tax collection. Those ideas may have been sidelined but the resentment has not gone away.”
“Some say that”, he continues, “Greece has become a protectorate of the EU. Certainly the intervention from outside in Greece’s internal affairs is unprecedented. The Greek Prime Minister, George Papandreou, flies off to meetings to learn the terms of his surrender. He had promised no more cuts, but in return for Greek Bail-out II he will have to take the axe to public sector jobs. … State assets are being sold off. The crowds shout ‘we won't sell!’ – but that’s precisely what the government has been told to do. … Perhaps … German and European officials have spoken of Greece selling off its islands.” (BBC, “Debt-laden Greece mired in anger and humiliation”, June 15, 2011)
Hunger & Suicide
“[T]here is a human cost. The social services organisation Klimaka runs a food kitchen that feeds 3,000 people a day – many are now from the middle classes. There are 30 calls a day to its suicide line. Some, like former Prime Minister Stefanos Manos, warn of a social explosion.” (ibid.)
“The pain might have been endurable if it had worked. A year after Greek Bail-out I (worth 110bn euros) Greece has seen industrial production slump by 11%. Unemployment is up to 16%. The number of Greeks out of work is up 40% from a year earlier. And the debt mountain has ballooned - heading towards 153% of GDP.” Bankers’ interests never have worked in favor of people.
This is the fate the finance-oligarchy plans to impose on humanity. Yesterday, it was in African, Asian, Latin American countries. Today, it is in Greece. And, tomorrow, it will be, probably, in Spain, Portugal, Ireland, Georgia, Latvia, and in other lands. But, ultimately, the oligarchy is feeding peoples’ anger, fueling psychology for resistance. And, it will indulge in its acts till greater, wider, deeper and class-conscious revolt, free of spontaneity, brings in ruins on the oligarchy, and thus frees it from a life of sin.
Dhaka-based freelancer Farooque Chowdhury contributes on socioeconomic issues.
Comments are not moderated. Please be responsible and civil in your postings and stay within the topic discussed in the article too. If you find inappropriate comments, just Flag (Report) them and they will move into moderation que.
