France started, Greece continues
Politics has always been embedded in history and in fact the movements that were closely linked to history have proved to be more stable.
France of the Great Revolution of 1789, of the explanations of 1848, of the short-lived popular rule of 1871 against the double adversary (the Germans on the outskirts of Paris and the government of Thiers in Versailles), the France of the Popular Fronts of the 1930s. Occupation, of the autonomous national course of de Gaulle but also of the social programs of Mitterrand. France of the spontaneous uprising of May 1968, which had such a glorious end. France, which has been voting for the Right in recent years, so that not the Left but the Far Right will come. The one who finally remembered the historic left fronts to oppose both Macron’s Right and Le Pen’s Far Right. France that “everything starts there and never ends”, to remember the disappointing historical phrase.
Greece of the Liberation Revolution of 1821, the struggle with the foreign king, the dimension of Venizelos and royals. Greece with the national catastrophe of Asia Minor. The uprooted refugees who were the heart of the democratic party. The dictatorships, the victory of the ’40s, the triple Occupation, the National Resistance, the Civil War and the exiles, the seven-year dictatorship and the Turkish invasion of Cyprus, the Metapolitism, the victory of A. Papandreou and the hopes. The collapse of social democracy. The Memoranda, the victory and the hope of SYRIZA. The mistakes, the misinformation and the generalized attack of the oligarchy. The defeat. The setback of the Right. The impasses, the accuracy, the current. The new hopes …
A wise man wrote: “People have history itself, but it does not appear in the way they like, not in conditions that they choose, but in conditions that exist immediately, that are given and inherited from the past. The tradition of all the dead generations weighs like a hoarse in the minds of the living “.
Steady movements
Politics has always been embedded in history and in fact the movements that were closely linked to history have proven to be more stable. Garibaldi shook hands with Gramsci and he shook hands with Berlinguer. Rigas in Kolokotroni and he in Aris and EAM. The same goes for political theories. Heraclitus to Hegel and he to Marx. As long as some do not try to mechanically copy the past but plan the future. Things do not move linearly, except for the needs that are prepared and the will of the people imposes it.
The government of the Right with the flag of “law and order” and as crime has hit the red, hidden agenda the redistribution of wealth in favor of economic oligarchy and friendly interests and a tool for security control of the media, personal attacks and rusfetia, rearranges consciences, investments and policies. Fancy and corrupt luxury is becoming the standard. Reversing reality has become a daily habit. Democratic practices, a rain of interests. Criticism is slandered. Freedom of the press in the Tartars.
The brake time
And what is required? Not the sky with the stars. It is not the time of the French 1871. It is not the time of the great Social Revolutions. But it is the “brake hour” in the destruction of the welfare state, the privatization of electricity, water, health and education, the destruction of beaches, the lack of control over food, energy and fuel prices. It is the time of agricultural and industrial production. It is time to fight on the outside and on the inside. In the interests of Germany outside and the economic oligarchy inside. The struggle to breathe and produce real entrepreneurs and farmers inside. Not the owners of football teams and channels.
He wants alliances inside and out. Things are timidly changing outside. But we must not leave it to chance or spontaneity. The first is unbalanced, the second either collapses easily or takes you where it wants, even to the extreme right.
In France, the significant rise of the Left marked the beginning of universal awareness. In Greece, the universal awareness of the problems means the hope of the return of the Left.
May the Galatian “shouting” rooster wake up the other and the Greek most measured rooster and let him shout to the world “Our victory is your hope”. And let the people respond by shouting “hope is ours and no one else’s”.
* Nikos Toskas is a former minister and lieutenant general e.a.