Greece

AudioPodcast

Panelists Josh Davidson, Jerry Gabriel and Cem Ertekin discuss the Just for Laughs Ethnic Show and the meaning of “ethnic” comedy, the social media scandal surrounding peas in guacamole and the seeming about-face in Greece after the OXI victory. Plus the Community Calendar and a panel interview with JFL comedians.

Host: Jason C. McLean
Producer: Hannah Besseau

 

Panelists

Josh Davidson: FTB food contributor (read his column on #GuacGate)

Cem Ertekin: FTB news editor

Jerry Gabriel: FTB contributor

Listen to the full panel interview on “ethnic” comedy by Cem Ertekin featuring Gina Yashere, Ahmed Ahmed, Dan Naturman and Ronnie Chieng

FTB PODCAST #8: Ethic Comedy at JFL, #GuacGate with Peas and Greece by Forget The Box on Mixcloud

Host: Jason C. McLean
Producer Hannah Besseau

Microphone image: Ernest Duffoo / Flickr Creative Commons

NewsPolitics

Not more than 24 hours ago was I here writing up a summary of the pivotal talks for the future of the Eurozone that are taking place in Brussels and now everything, or almost everything, has changed.

In the last day of almost non-stop negotiations, a already humiliated Tsipras has been dragged through the mud in an unbearable and horrendous manner. The Germans, believe it or not, have towed a harder line, completely redefining the notion of intransigence altogether, refusing and shutting down Greek propositions and pushing for harsher measures and lighting bolt reforms. Tsipras and his team of advisors went through what was dubbed by observers as a session of “mental waterboarding,” a preview of what might be in the works for the Greek people within the days to come.

The German Grexit

The most amazing turn of events was that, finally, Germany’s hidden agenda for a Greek exit from the Eurozone has surfaced in one of the four draft propositions that circulated on social media and throughout the mainstream media during the talks that lasted for a record 17 hours. The German will to precipitate and encourage the Grexit outcome is telling. The German government wants to send a strong signal and it’s nothing “personal.” It has more to do with the anti-austerity movements that are brewing throughout Europe, and not just in Greece.

Surely the German position wasn’t improvised and, unlike some have said, Merkel and her administration are not being irrational. The Germans, politicians and public, aren’t suffering from some sort of PTSD acquired during the hyperinflation crisis of the 1930s or an incommensurable will to humiliate and trample Greece. (This has been accomplished ten fold over the past five years) They are very much conscious of their program and nonchalant about its application.

Make no mistakes. This will be the Versailles Treaty of the Eurozone.

2011_Greece_Uprising
100,000 people protest against the austerity measures in front of parliament building in Athens (29 May 2011). From Wikipedia.

Restructuring of the Greek State Instead of the Greek Debt

The German program, the austerity program put forward by the German delegation among others, has one essential objective: to put the Greek people under guardianship by nullifying their voting system. The Eurogroup’s end isn’t merely to humiliate Greece, but to restructure the Greek state from the top down, leaving it devoid of any input from its own citizens.

But this restructuring goes further. The Eurogroup, which seemed to be on the defensive after the victory of the #OXI (isn’t that a far away memory?), is now demanding that Greece privatize 50 billion euros in public assets. The Greek state must become an empty shell. First, the utilities markets will have to be liberalized. But 50 billion euros means much more than an austerity-lite. The propositions the Eurogroup have put on the table call for the complete dismantlement of the Greek state and the transfer of its assets into the hands of third party management – technically a bank would run the bulk of Greece if this proposition goes through.

“There is no alternative”

The program put forward by Team Austerity is more than just the economical restructuring of Greece, it’s a way to cleanse Greek of its socialistic tendencies and of the “democratic mistake” of SYRIZA.

In a Europe where Socialist parties are the shadows of their former selves, at best lending a human face for austerity measures and at worst selling out their “working-class” constituency to legitimize deeper cuts. SYRIZA had been the first major threat against the neoliberal hegemony to have surfaced on European soil within decades, since the election of François Mitterrand in the 1980s and the implementation of the Programme Commun – which also resulted in utter failure. The neoliberal discourse has, within the past years, been shaken to its core and radical left-wing oppositions have appeared as an alternative. The German position reaffirms what Thatcher had said a few decades ago: “there is no alternative.” What German intransigence means, more than anything else, is that the reform approach of social-democratic governments with the current rapport of forces and within the Eurozone is unrealistic and has proven to be an impossible mission.

No to austerity
Anti-austerity demo in Edinburgh. 14 Feb, 2015. Photo by Digi Tailwag. Flickr CC BY-ND 2.0.

The Lineage of a New Absolutist Supranational Entity

The German proposition is using Greece to shift the current dynamic within the Eurozone. Within the past two decades, European federalism has been refused most notably in the referendum of 2005, in which both the French and Dutch electorates voted against the proposed European Constitution, thereby refusing federalism. Today, the technocratic federalism, which was rejected by the electorates in the past, is making its comeback in an astonishing way, through austerity. The dynamic of “economic integration,” the implementation of a common currency and of a common free trade zone has come to trump the democratic procedures of most member states. If this deal goes through, it’s not just Greece that must be worried, but every small European member state that has a sizeable amount of debt.

Thus the lineages of a new form of absolutist state have been formed – a state that is technically independent, but in reality completely subdued to the will of unelected lenders, bankers, and technocrats. Could it be that Greece, the cradle of western democracy, is also set to be it’s gravesite? Only time will tell.

What is to be Done?

For left-wing movements, there are many more questions than answers that arise as the final outline of yet another humiliating deal for Greece is drawn. How can there be a break with the Eurozone? How must we reform the European Union and European institutions? Is reforming this corrupt system even possible?

But most importantly, as the conversations draw to a close in Brussels, there are three points to be made about the future and the survival of socialist and social-democratic movements that refute the neoliberal stranglehold and want to challenge it:

First, Oxi, a “No” against savage neoliberalism and barbaric liberalization and privatization is possible. Sections of European society, public service workers, the youth, the unemployed, the underemployed, migrant workers, the service class and the working class are ready to be mobilized. We must take the necessary lessons from the Greek referendum and implement them broadly.

Second, the reaction against the Greek Oxi vote was international. A globalized reaction can only be met with a globalized revolt. European anti-austerity movements must organize in a transnational manner and create strong and enduring alliances amongst each other. Actions must be coordinated simultaneously. In other words, international general strikes and transnational movements must foster a strong consortium of action.

Third, we must be ready to break – but that is easier said than done. What a break means and how it is to be achieved are the primordial questions. These questions do not seem to have been drawn up on the SYRIZA planning board. The drawing of this solution might make us question the entirety of our strategic and our tactical outlook. One thing is certain, this new solution must be drawn within the context of incredible financial pressure and blackmail. Grexit or not, default or not, that will remain the case.

A luta continua.

NewsPolitics

The Eurogroup emergency meeting came to an abrupt end at 12 a.m. Brussels local time, after 9 hours of excruciating debates.  The vacuum of information caused by the Eurogroup’s closed-doors meeting fostered a twilight zone of sheer terror for some – most of the Greeks –  and patchwork of divergent rumours were abundant: that the Germans would oppose any kind of deal; that, according to a few tweets, the opposition turned into a Finnish ultimatum, and that the Grexit was finally precipitating and imminent.

Within this void, various countries’ positions formed stark opposites. Compare the eternal French “joie de vivre” and the Italian “end to humiliation” with the Finnish, German and Dutch tough-on-Greece stance. All of this underlines that, whatever the outcome of the Eurogroup talks this week, the European project has capitulated and this might merely be the visible tip of a much more profound crisis. The specter of Greece haunts Europe.

A modernization of the Greek economy? The New Greek Proposition

The proposition that the new Greek finance minister Euclid Tsakalotos tabled Thursday wasn’t in itself that different from the propositions that were deemed inacceptable by his ex-colleague Varoufakis not more than a week ago and which were also massively refused by the Greek public.

The new Greek proposal consists in its main outlines of cuts to pensions, which have already dilapidated since the onset of austerity measures in Greece, a rise in the sales tax (VAT), the progressive phasing-out of the VAT exemption for Greek islands, and the privatization of the last of the Greek public assets i.e. the port of Piraeus, which has been a point of contention.  Within the this potpourri of austerity on steroids the only silver-lining – if any –was to be found in the propositions of rising the corporate tax rate and the abolition of the exemption of taxation for ship-owners; a relic of the fascist dictatorship of colonels. These latter proposals were already turned down in previous negotiations by the Eurogroup.

Euclid Tsakolotos
Euclid Tsakolotos. Photo from Sinn Feid, Flickr CC by 2.0.

The emphasis was put on the “modernization” of Greece, by putting in place  necessary measures and adjustments to move Greece forward. This being said, drastic efforts have been put in place over the past few years to ensure that end; however the European Union has been unwilling to help with the said “modernization,” especially in terms of its financial framework, its taxation system and coming to its aid in its fight to prosecute tax evasion. The amount of Greek euros held in financial safe-havens like the London, Luxembourg and Switzerland in general, is incalculable.

Tsipras and the coup of the extreme-center

It might seem extraordinary, schizophrenic even, that, in less than a week, the Greek position, which seemed to be at the pinnacle of its power, invigorated by a crushing “Oxi” vote and the resignation of one of the main political leaders of the political opposition Antonis Samaras, capitulated to the rapacious force of the creditors. But to think anything different was failing to see the prophetic signs that those who had pillaged Greece for the past five year – some might say for decades – had any will to relinquish their hold of the Greek economy.

Thursday, as the first outlines of the new Greek proposition were tabled and the new package was put for before the Greek parliament to be voted upon, even the Greek prime minister couldn’t hide the calamity that was before Greek legislators.

“Between a bad and a catastrophic choice, we are forced to choose the first […] it’s not easy but we have to,” Tsipras said. During a tense and fratricidal debate, 251 MPs, many from the ranks of the governing coalition and those of the neoliberal extreme-centre (Potami and New Democracy) voted in favour of the new proposition. Notably, Tsipras lost the foundations of his governing majority and a split within SYRIZA (of its left platform) is imminent. The anti-austerity majority rising from the still fuming victorious Oxi vote was thus transformed, within the space of a few days, into its most dreaded enemy: a reconstituted, reinvigorated, extreme centre.

å 0Z ´ ý
The Eurogroup meets

From financial waterboarding to financial strangling

But this “strategic retreat,” as some have dubbed it within the European left, was the obvious outcome of the negotiations from the moment ex-finance minister Varoufakis resigned amidst the elation of the crushing victory of the Oxi camp as the final votes were being counted in last weeks referendum. The stance that Tsipras took, that a strong Oxi vote was a tactical maneuver to strengthen the Greek negotiating position didn’t materialize. Instead, the hounds of austerity saw the referendum as a provocation.

The first move of the Eurogroup through the European Emergency Liquidity Assistance (ELA) was to maintain their stranglehold on the Greek public, through withholding funds that should have enabled Greek banks to reopen within this past week. This position was no different from the ELA’s position to cut all funding to Greek financial institutions from the day the referendum was called.

Using such tactics, which have come under none or very little criticism through the European partners, as ex-finance minister Varoufakis announced the morning of the referendum, was a move with the objective of terrorizing and subduing the Greek people into voting in favour of the dictum of the Eurogroup.

With all the frenzy of a Grexit, few have noticed that Greece has been de facto under a financial embargo, which has pushed it to the fringes of the Eurozone and was a consequence of European policy and not the hidden agenda of the Greek government.

Tsipras speaks
Tsipras speaking

A symbolic death for Europe

Two dynamics have been lethal for the Greek cause within the negotiations.

First: The Eurogroup reigns supreme. Europe, having pushed its weight around, has proven that it is the only relevant instance, that its members are the real deal brokers behind the curtains, and that’s where power lies within Europe outside of the public sphere: in a place at the antipodes of democracy.

Second: the Greek referendum had a huge symbolic importance but unfortunately not much more than that. The Oxi of 61% of Greeks within the current framework of the European Union is only binding to those that care for the notions of democracy and popular sovereignty. Those notions are alien to the Schäubles and Dijsselbloems of this world.

Many have stated the cataclysmic consequences of a Grexit for Greece, but little have measured the consequences this entire process has had on the future of the European project. While making his way through the hoards of journalists awaiting some newsworthy shred of information, Dijsselbloems stated that it was “still very difficult because of the lack of confidence that reigns between lenders and the Greek government.”

The European institutions have proven right – some would say once again – the Eurosceptics in their view that the EU has a complete disregard for the democratic will of the peoples it supposedly represents. The distrust between the peoples of Europe and the European institution has taken various forms. “Fascistoid” and xenophobic political formations have capitalized on this lack of confidence. The EU that sought to “modernize” Greece is in need of a profound “modernization” itself, which is why, today, the downfall of Greece might not necessarily mean the downfall of the EU. However, for the sake of a brighter future, it must mean its demise.

As Zoe Kostantopoulou said addressing the Greek parliament, “The No of the Greek people stands above us all.” “No”s in more languages than one will come in future and that’s the specter that haunts Europe.

News

We are now entering the terminal stage of austerity, a disease whose symptoms are most acute and visible in Greece. Within the past few weeks, a macabre cortege of politicians, economists, bureaucrats and technocrats have tried in every way possible to asphyxiate any sign of recovery and nullify any sentiment of hope and optimism within the Greek people. The degenerate disease has spread to such a degree that even the antibodies, the last democratic pulsations, ultimate rampart of health, attempting to salvage a thread of dignity within a sea of humiliation, have been declared by the prognostics of the charlatans of high-finance as viruses that must be eliminated.

Today as Greeks turn to the polls, with the ponderous task of breaking with the dictum of austerity, never has the real purpose of such an ideology been as clear. No matter what the outcome of the Sunday referendum vote might be, the process in itself has already accomplished a great deed, that of debunking the mysticism of austerity.

It’s like the story of the Emperor’s New Clothes. Only the technicians of austerity think that their rhetorical verses still charm, when in fact the rhetoric of austerity is naked.

In the past week, the incompatibility of the democratic process with austerity was once again unveiled for all to see. First there were the calls from the European elite that a referendum was unreasonable.Then there were direct calls for regime change.

It has been a understood rule, since the onset of the 2008 crisis, that austerity and democracy don’t mesh, that austerity is fundamentally incompatible with democratic proceedings and the two are mutually exclusive. Through the intransigent stance of the Eurogroup, i.e the Troika, austerity has revealed itself to be more of a means than an end.

The Greek Crisis, the imposing of austerity by the world financial institutions, has never been about “debt” or the extreme moral necessity of repayment for the well-being of the global financial system. Austerity in itself is void, it services a specific purpose: creating a rhetorical and moral leverage for the restructuring of the societies in which it’s applied.

Austerity in Greece isn’t merely an economic doctrine, serving a specific economic purpose, but a means to justify the usurping of democracy, the transfer of the common wealth into the private sector through privatizations, the militarization of police forces and socially conservatives policies in the name of budget priorities and adjustments.  Austerity is an ideology as per the premise of The Fourth Revolution written by Woolderidge & Micklethwait as a “restructuring of the state,” not a downsizing of it.

As Lenin analysed the world of 1917, he concluded that imperialism was the highest form of capitalism, its final stage in many ways. Lenin identified that imperialism was a by-product of capitalism, that it could only exist as an ideology as an extension, as a rhetorical tool at the service of capitalism, of the “liberalization” of the markets i.e the forced creation of new markets through capitalism.

Within the analytical framework put forward by Lenin, ideologies that appear to be situated outside of capitalism such as nationalism, imperialism, colonialism, are actually fundamentally integrated into the capitalist dynamic. At the time (just like today), imperialism was an ideology that mobilized a humanist rhetoric to justify its utter brutality. The commercial and financial elites of the time used the Gun Boat Policy and delusional humanistic principles of the burden of the white man to subjugate and exploit most of the world.

What imperialism was for capitalism yesterday, austerity is for capitalism today. The so-called “need to civilize” of the time is called “the need to balance budgets” today.

Austerity is the highest form of capitalism we know today, a sort of necrophilic vampirism, an ideology that promotes capitalism in its purest form. But “purity” entails fragility.

At this point, given the current disposition of forces, the current rapport of forces, the Greek referendum appears as the shattering moment of this porcelain ideology. The victory of the OXI camp would call into question the legitimacy of the moral premises of austerity. Austerity as an ideology, such as imperialism, only exists because of the belief that people give to the moral premises that lay at its foundation.

The Greek people have the awesome opportunity to shatter the glass castle of austerity. But all in all, it’s only a matter of time until people see through the mirage. In that light, we can found a new moral foundation in which people trump profit.

* Featured image by Ggia via WikiMedia Commons, licensed under Creative Commons

NewsPolitics

As Greece rejoiced with the victory of SYRIZA, a coalition of “radical” left-wing parties ranging from Maoists to Trotskyists to everything in between, calling it the annunciation of the end of the terrifying reign of austerity, the most impoverished Venezuelans were ransacking grocery stories in the hopes that they would stock-up just enough to sustain themselves through the next neo-liberal heist. Meanwhile, Argentinians were holding up the floodgates withstanding as much as they could the latest economical onslaught sponsored by Wall Street hedge funds.

Even though the glowing hope emanating from Athens might have seemed contagious on the evening of January 25th, one red-string of flowing open arteries, the catastrophic aftermath of an attempted neo-liberal suicide, ran through Buenos Aires, Caracas and Athens, bonding them together. It seems as though the “war on terror” is a perfect distraction from the “war of terror” that the free world is waging against the democratic aspirations of people throughout the globe. Here illustrated are three contemporary examples: Greece, Venezuela and Argentina. This obviously isn’t an exhaustive study of all of the cases.

Greece Fights Back

10639612_10153076551589767_551917699239929228_n

The electoral success of SYRIZA, even though a foreseen outcome, sent an electro-shock throughout the European continent. It was the proof that what had been deemed as dangerous, radical and suicidal could actually work. A program that was deemed to be the annunciation of the apocalypse, a program that dared to put human development over debt reduction and paying off interest, could actually be a winning motion!

“Scandalous” and “outrageous” must of been the first words to come to mind at the hedge-funds, the European Central Bank (ECB) and among Srasbourg technocrats when news of SYRIZA’s overwhelming victory hit. For the first few days, many within the mainstream media were under the illusion that somehow SYRIZA’s radical demands could be tamed. The strategy of containment that was prevalent for the past year, since the neo-liberal forces in Greece had started faltering, was at its apogee: “SYRIZA’s now in government will come to see the light, they will understand the logic of austerity, why austerity is necessary.”

And for the first week of SYRIZA governance, many on the left had that fear; the fear that SYRIZA under piling pressure might fall on their own sword, might be a victim, as are so many, of their own failed dreams. But they haven’t and it looks as if the coalition government lead by SYRIZA will stop at no lengths to bury once and for all the Troika. The first bombs, the first economical terrorist attacks to destabilize the newly elected government have landed on the Greek capital.

The War on Venezuela’s Poor

During that time while the world was engulfed in their war against terror a.k.a the war against ISIS, the “free world” of free markets and free trade was waging a war of terror. In Caracas, the war against the Bolivarian revolution was initiated (in the same manner the war against SYRIZA) on the night of Hugo Chavez’s election. Since Hugo Chavez’s death and the ascension of Maduro, his dauphin, to power, domestic neo-liberal elites with the help of their CIA foreign counterparts have declared an all out war on the most impoverished sections of the Venezuelan population.

Those who have directly benefited the most from the social transformation that started with the Bolivarian revolution and those who have been at the avant-garde of the social transformations are now under attack. For the past year, inflation has been soaring, stock markets such as Wall Street have been carpet bombing the Venezuelan domestic market and multinational corporations have been withholding basic goods in an attempt to make prices soar and turn the most in need against the government.

Argentina’s Debt Crisis

What is going on in Caracas is very similar to what happened in Argentina during their “debt-crisis”, their refusal to pay back a debt that was forced upon them by the IMF, the World Bank and their puppets within the Argentine military junta. Weren’t those the days, when neo-liberal austerity measures could be imposed with lethal force!

In Argentina’s case a vulture fund had set Argentina in its cross-hairs, buying its unsolvable debt knowing full well that Argentina had no intention to pay it. They set about strangling and bombarding the country in every economical sense of the term, until it did!

Argentina has withstood the economic assaults that have been made against it, for the time being, but its people have also paid the price. Cuba wasn’t the only country under embargo in Latin America from 1998 to 2002, Argentina, even though no media would report it, was defacto under economic embargo. Argentina, in many ways, had to go into autarky mode for the past few years, because of the pariah label that has been given to the country by the big institutions of deregulation, the IMF, the WTO, the World Bank. That’s the price to pay, I guess, for being counter current.

Austerity’s Self-Destruction

And this is why SYRIZA’s victory is truly groundbreaking, because the pariahs are making inroads into the epicenter of global capitalism. Like a gregarious disease, neo-liberalism and its ultimate and most violent form austerity, have bread the seeds of their own self-destruction. Within this self-destruction comes the opportunity, through revolt, to refute the system of values and principles and to rebuild, to change the behavior, to change the foundations of society.

Oedipus, in the words of Gilles Deleuze, is the norm, society, capitalism breeds schizophrenia, breeds suicidal tendencies, but beyond that codifies them and normifies them. Thus austerity becomes the norm. Anything outside of the box of austerity is radical and dangerous, even though the only thing in the world that is radical today is the radically limitless ascension of greed in every sphere of public life.

In these times of economic terrorism we must stand with those that have refuted the norm. To create a new norm, we must bond with them. Capitalism and austerity validity are the first and foremost mental blocks. The converts of radical capitalism are a zealous bunch and are growing at a rapid pace, the threat of neo-liberalization is eminent. If we we want to win the war against terror we must end the capitalist war of terror first!

NewsPolitics

Wednesday April 4, 2012. Syntagma Square in Athens, Greece is bustling at its habitual frantic pace. A 77 year old man stands solemnly in front of the Greek parliament, holding a handgun. Then, he shoots himself in the head, putting an end to his life, and leaving behind a note: An outline of what had lead to the unfolding of this tragic end.

“I have no other way to react apart from finding a dignified end before I start sifting through garbage for food,” he has written on the note.  His last wish was “to leave no debts to his children.”

The fact that the 77-year-old pensioner shot himself in front of the Greek parliament wasn’t a coincidence, it was a symbolic act. It could even be considered a “terrorist” act if we employ the same logic as the mainstream Canadian media has in the wake of the Ottawa shooting.

In August 2001, economic punishment claimed yet another life. Kimberly Rogers, a 40 year-old, 8 month pregnant Ontarian, died while she was under house arrest for welfare fraud, because of the restraints that the Ontario social services had imposed on her, under the directives of the Mike Harris government and the guidelines of the Minister of Finance Jim Flaherty.

Ms. Rogers only had a total of 18$ to spend on common necessities such as rent, food and hydro per month.

Demonstration 20141031

Unfortunately, these are not isolated cases. The correlation between the imposition of austerity measures that produce economic hardship on the most impoverished sections of society and the increase in suicide rates has been verified by several studies since the start of the economic recession in 2008. Most recently, a British conducted study claimed that austerity measures caused over 10,000 deaths since the start of the economic crisis. This just goes to prove that there is an undeniable link between economic conditions and mental health.

In the past few weeks, many have qualified the Ottawa shooting, a suicidal attempt in many ways, as an “act of terrorism,” and yet, somehow, the events just described above do not qualify as terrorist.

Wasn’t the shooting in front of the Greek parliament in itself an act of terrorism, for did it not instill terror? In the past few weeks many have come out stating the obvious: Michael Zehaf Bibeau had mental health issues. This being said, neither the mainstream media nor politicians have asked the real question that requires an answer: what was the cause of his mental health issues?

First and foremost, whereas the tragic crime of Michael Zehaf Bibeau can be qualified as terrorism, the desperate act of a 77 year-old pensioner in Greece can’t. The reason is simple, the former’s motive was to push for a political agenda, while the latter aimed to discredit the dominant political discourse.

The only difference I see is that Zehaf Bibeau committed a murder, which is a crime and is inexcusable. But both events, in terms of symbolic importance, are the same. They are both attacks on the political consciousness. But most importantly, they are both the manifestations of a profound sickness within the societies in which they took place.

Durkheim1

At the end of the nineteenth century, amid profound social transformation unleashed by the industrial revolution, the forefather of modern sociology Émile Durkheim established the link—after an extensive study of suicide in France and Germany—between the changing economic sphere, economic marginalization, the weakening of social links and a sharp rise in suicide rates. The idea that dismal economic situations, extreme poverty and alienation in the workplace, which produced massive marginalization and a rise in mental health issues, was continued during the second half of the twentieth century by Michel Foucault, who wrote Madness and Civilization: A history of insanity.  In his book, Foucault elaborated that “folie” or mental health issues transformed in advanced capitalism. Further, Gilles Deleuze underlined in his works the correlation between some capitalist activities and schizophrenia.

Despite being very straightforward, the fact that our social environment, the structure within which we work and live, and the economic system that rules over our daily lives have very direct and real influences over our mental well-being has been completely shut out of the picture. Mental illness is certainly a fact. But exclusion, marginalization, and the social context in which both Martin Rouleau and Michael Zehaf Bibeau lived certainly had an impact on them, and thus on their actions. Once again mental health is used here an exit strategy. “He had mental health issues,” and that’s all there is to it!

Unfortunately this does not cut it, because both individuals seemed to “blend-in” perfectly with society—Michael Zehaf Bibeau was a exemplar student during his high school year. So, what brought about this tragic turn of events?

In Zehaf Bibeau’s case, his obvious marginalization, economical hardship and difficulties of living a homeless life probably had a major influence on the young man and most certainly were factors that contributed largely to the deterioration of his mental health. Unfortunately, no importance whatsoever is given to those aspects that might have been the cause of his subsequent radicalization. The only thing the media has taken from the Zehaf Bibeau’s story is that he was a Muslim.

Parliament_building

How many homeless Canadians are wandering the streets, today? How many Canadian families are terrorized by the fact that they won’t make ends meet?

More than 800,000 Canadians rely on Food Banks to have some sort of “proper” nourishment. A staggering amount of Canadians live very difficult precarious economic situations. While the plight of Canada’s most diminished has been soaring within the past decade, austerity measures have been applied across the board. Profound cuts to food banks and community services have been applied by various levels of government to “balance the budget.” Provincial and federal governments have ripped apart the Canadian mental health system, and thousands of Canadians are in desperate need of affordable housing, and social housing. Some have said during the past weeks, that Canada got a taste of its own medicine: “Canada declared war and must now deal with the consequences.”

But once again that is a form of criticism, which fits with the dominant political discourse that wants us not to question the austerity agenda. What if Zehaf Bibeau was radicalized not by ISIS or some video, with “cool” special effects on the Internet, but by the economical repression he lived on a daily basis?

Terror breeds terror, and so does austerity, in more ways than one.

A luta continua.

NewsPolitics

In space of a few months the old continent has been rocked by a series of reactionary revolts that have spread like wildfire. Parallel to the rise of neo-fascist elements is an inverse movement: the retreat of the center-left and their embracing of neo-liberal, traditionally center-right policy.

The examples of the debacle of the socialist or social-democratic movement are self-evident, be it the humiliating defeat of the French Socialist Party at the municipal level, the incapacity of the left to govern in Italy, the defeat of the German social-democrats for the fourth time in a row or the Labor Party in Britain which is still dealing with the specter of Labor’s past. The once bright red flame of European socialism is but a pale shadow of its former self, a fading pink.

blair brown

For every defeat the left has succumbed to in the past months, it appears that the extreme-right has made leeway. There is much emphasis put on the “rise of neo-fascism” in Eastern Europe or on the Front Nationale, but this movement is a general one. We are seeing the comeback of neo-fascism in countries that in a not very distant past fought tooth and nail to establish a political system that would banish the gloom of fascism forever…  or at least they thought.

In Portugal, Spain and Greece, the countries that not so long ago emancipated themselves from some of the longest and most brutal dictatorships in Europe, the fascist movements, which were their graves before the economic meltdown of 2008 and the austerity measures of these past years, are now reinvigorated. The success of some of these movements translates into political parties with an unprecedented number of seats in their respective political arena, such as Greece’s Golden Dawn.

But something much more unsettling is happening in Europe. The neo-fascist message is getting generalized and some of the extreme-right’s fundamental ideals and principals now flow freely through the main arteries of the European political system.

In the 2012 French presidential election, Nicolas Sarkozy lost the first round mainly because the Front Nationale had succeeded in capitalizing on the disenchantment of certain sections of the right-wing which had previously voted for him. Before the second round, Sarkozy made a final campaign pitch to those further to his right to rally to him in this final duel between himself and François Hollande.

Sarkozy and LePen posters side-by-side during the 2012 French Presidential Election (image lessentiel-magazine.fr)
Sarkozy and LePen posters side-by-side during the 2012 French Presidential Election (image lessentiel-magazine.fr)

It wasn’t so much the fact that he tried to lure the votes of the Front Nationale, it was the way in which he did it that, in many ways, changed the face of French politics forever. During the final stretch of the campaign, Sarkozy made one simple pitch to the nationalistic, xenophobic, neo-fascist electorate of Marine Lepen at every rally and in every speech he made: “Don’t be ashamed of being a fascist, your values are my values and beyond that the values of the French Republic.”

Now let’s put this in the context of France which still toils to make peace with the demons of WWII. In the context of post-WWII France, the Gaullist movement (of which Union for a Popular Movement UMP is an heir) was one of the firewalls against fascism on the right. Traditionally, the center-right movement was furiously opposed to any form of recognition of the values of neo-fascist movements within French society. That was the most important heritage of the French resistance against fascism which was shattered by Nicolas Sarkozy’s brand of la droite décomplexer.

Unfortunately this is not a trend that is cornered or quarantined in France. It’s a dynamic that fits perfectly within pro-austerity and neo-liberal agendas.

The rise of fascist movements is inherently linked to the development of austerity measures in Europe. Thus to focus solely on the fascist movements which are mainstream and not on the fascist rhetoric and policies that are advanced by parties that “supposedly” are in complete opposition to the fascist ideology is to miss the real “breakthrough” of the extreme-right.

The potency of a political ideology is not how many seats political parties that claim such an ideology gain or lose, but how the rhetoric and the ideals of such a movement influence the political discourse in general. And one thing is clear in Europe and to a certain extent in most of the world: the infatuation of neo-liberalism and austerity with fascism is shifting the center of gravity of the political spectrum towards the right on a daily basis.

For those that would shun this thesis, its factuality is manifest on the European political scene. It’s manifest in the coalitions between neo-liberal forces and neo-fascist forces throughout Europe, it’s tangible in the recuperation of ideals of the far-right by the neo-liberal movement, the most important being the corporatist element of neo-liberalism, which favors a complete laissez-faire attitude towards multinationals and the unrestricted flow of capital.

Corporatism is the centerpiece of many center-right political platforms nowadays. It goes without saying that corporatism is the economic policy at the foundation of fascism. Fascism in politics is completed only by corporatism in economics and this is the point of junction between the neo-liberal and neo-fascist movements.

austerity_world_tour_greece

Unfortunately it seems that the socialist movement is fading into a political landscape that has become color blind. The revolutionary force of austerity is pushed further and further by neo-fascist movements which, in a very paradoxical way, find their source of attraction in the rebuttal of austerity measures, but couldn’t survive outside of the framework of austerity. The socialist movement, which was once a force that wanted to revolutionize the very structure of global capitalism, has become a reactionary force which only acts in reaction to the palpitations of the neo-liberal right.

The only hope that still resides within the European political spectrum is the establishment of a viable left wing alternative in the form of a coalition of the parties of the European Left that have rejected austerity and the rhetoric of neo-liberal populism. With the European elections around the corner, it seems like more than ever the traditional political divide between center-right and center-left is irrelevant and that the European parliament after the upcoming elections will be a true reflection of European society in the wake of austerity: polarized to the extreme.

To those that ask how are we to stop the rise of the neo-fascist movements? The answer is clear: the fight against austerity is a fight against fascism.

A luta continua.

NewsPolitics

It’s that time of the year again, the time for review of the year articles, the top 10s of 2013, the political winners and the political losers. Unfortunately this article is not going to take such a clear cut stance, but it will make reference to one of the most important tends in this past year, the rise of the socialist alternative.

2013 most certainly could go down in the memories of progressives, radicals, rabble-rousers and revolutionaries as just another dull year within an infinite sea of rampant victorious capitalism. Some might say, as always amazing movements were bread in these past 365 days but none of them gave birth to anything of substance.

And such could be said of almost every year since Fukuyama, oracle in chief of the new world order, announced the  end of history. For Fukuyama and the neo-liberal guard, the fall of the wall of Berlin and the collapse of the Soviet Bloc coincided with the ushering in of a new age, a never changing age of relentless growth and prosperity, an age in which any alternative to capitalism was dead in the egg.

From the onset, Fukuyama’s divination seemed quite fragile. It foresaw a utopia on earth, but never answered the question, for whom?

berlin_wall_0417
Was this the end of history? Some think so, but is that changing in 2013?

Certainly since 1989 the rapid growth of global capitalism is due to the erasing of almost every from of regulation: regulation of the financial markets or regulation of trade. In this new world the main enemy is any barrier to the complete freedom of multinationals and corporations.

In pure economic terms there is no doubt that these past decades have been fabulous for the GDP and NASDAQ and all their siblings within the family tree of economic indicators. The wild 90s and 2000s were la belle époque, but not the end of history.

For its proponents and ardent defenders the end of history was not, in any way shape or form, the end of inequality or the dawning of a more just world, quite to the contrary. For those that crafted the doublespeak rhetoric of the end of history, it literally meant that, like it or not, capitalism was here to stay. The only alternative, communism, had crumbled and thus from now on consumerism was a synonym for freedom, capitalism was liberty and inequality was the natural way of things.

On the other hand any “alternative” to the new modus operandi was thrown into the dustbin of history alongside “communism” (insert here Stalinism). Any movement that spoke of a greater redistribution of wealth or fought for the defense of the social welfare state – or as Franklin Delano Roosevelt called it, the right to an adequate standard of living – was trash.

For the neo-liberal elite, the welfare state is seen as the final frontier, a regulation of society at large that must be abolished under current standards. Thus ‘left-wing’ movements, be they social-democratic, socialist or any other alternative tendency, have been struggling for relevance in this new age and some have chosen the path of least resistance and decided to implement the norms and dictates of the end of history, somehow thinking that this would make them relevant again.

Hand in hand with this loss of relevance goes the alienation of many groups in society that have lost for faith in the democratic system in its entirety. A democratic system that offers no substantial alternative breeds in itself disaffection and apathy, slow is the death of democracy as we know it.

Michelle Bachelet during the most recent presidential election in Chile
Michelle Bachelet during the most recent presidential election in Chile

And yet the 2008 crisis has planted the seeds of something new. The world has been rocked by popular discontent voiced in different ways, in very different parts of the globe. And the year 2013 was no different with continued uprisings in Europe against austerity –the dismantling of the welfare state through brutal “structural adjustments”– uprisings in Turkey against the privatization of public spaces, here in Canada protests, led by First Nation, Inuit and Metis communities, erupted against environmental degradation for short-term profit.

But most importantly, 2013 was a year in which many struggles gained concrete victories amidst great aversion.

In Chile, Camila Vallejo, Gabriel Boric, Giorgio Jackson and Karol Cariola, leaders of the student protests that have rocked the country since 2011, were elected to parliament. Vallejo was elected on a communist ticket and that party, after the last legislative elections, has the biggest percentage of seats since the time of Salvador Allende.

Still in Chile, Michele Bachelet was reelected to the highest position in the country with a whopping 62 percent of the vote, the biggest percentage for a presidential candidate in the history of the Chilean left. Madame Bachelet was elected on a platform to continue to roll back the reforms that were ushered in under the military junta of Pinochet and to implement universal free post-secondary education.

news-sawant-570
From Kshama Sawant’s twitter, campaign for 15 dollars minimum wage

One of the greatest victories of 2013 surprisingly had for a backdrop the United States of America. For the first time since the great depression, a major American city elect an openly socialist candidate to office.

Kshama Sawant was elected bringing to the center stage of American politics the struggle for a living wage instead of a minimum wage, rent control and higher taxes for the wealthiest. The victory of her grassroots movement is the embodiment of the Socialist Alternative that in 2013 started to dawn.

In Europe, splinter left-wing groups that offer a true alternative to the neo-liberal status-quo championed by center-center right and center-center left wing political parties are on the rise. Syriza the ‘radical’ left-wing coalition of several left-wing political parties is now given the lead in the polls. Syriza’s leader Alexis Tsipras, has been endorsed by the European left to lead a new anti-austerity coalition in the upcoming European elections.

9272356568_1a0c53d44d_z
Syriza founding congress picture by Eleanna Kounoupa Creative Commens on Flickr

Here in Montreal, Projet Montreal more than doubled its seats in city council and has become, for the first time in history, official opposition. A coalition of progressives from all walks of life and Quebecois left-wing political tendencies has shown the way for left-wing movements to link social movements and grassroots politics to a prominent place on the political spectrum.

For these reasons the year that is now coming to end was a very fruitful one in which the alternative to this current system of savage capitalism grew in an extraordinary manner, and announced the return of history.

For this reason we have much to look forward to in 2014.

A Luta Continua