A-Infos (en) Greece, Protaanka: 9 years since the Referendum trap (ca, de, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

[The following article is hosted in the 8th page of the anarchist 
political newspaper of the western suburbs "Mavrokkini Simea"]
On July 5, it will be 9 years since the referendum of 2015, which was 
the forerunner, not of course of the "rupture with the memorandums", as 
many naively believed at the time, but of the 3rd and more difficult 
loan agreement. Into the trap of the referendum, all the political 
forces fell, which even before 2015, in one way or another reinforced 
the illusions about social democratic governance, doing the same all the 
way up to the 3rd memorandum, either by participating in pro-government 
demonstrations on the side of the government negotiation, either 
supporting the large gathering of "NO" with the then prime minister 
Tsipras as the only speaker, or dancing insurgent and eamitic songs for 
the "victory against the memorandums" (sic). To this day, these forces 
feed the same story of "butt-flipping" and "betrayal" of "NO" by the 
SYRIZANEL government, refusing to self-criticize their stance, thus 
continuing, albeit with a smaller sphere of influence, the misleading 
the working people who in vain based their hopes on the end of the 
memorandums at the ballot box.

In fact, the July 5 referendum was called under a vague question whose 
answers both produced a memorandum. The "proud negotiation" of the 
SYRIZA-ANEL government under Varoufakis at the helm had already locked 
in the extension of the 2nd loan agreement in February 2015, paying the 
IMF handsomely throughout its duration, while the social majority was 
moaning. According to the government's account at the time, the 
eurogroup agreement of 20 February 2015 was intended to achieve "time 
extension" to shape better negotiating terms. Of course, as it has been 
confirmed, even by the minister of "frugal life" himself, the government 
had "given" both the primary surpluses of 3.5% and a series of 
neoliberal measures, long before the referendum. If anything was up for 
grabs, it was a minor debt restructuring in return for earlier austerity 
measures. Not even this, in the end, was achieved.

The referendum in the tragic memorandum history played no more than the 
role of a communication bluff, targeting not the "institutions" to avoid 
a new memorandum, but the "inside" of the country: for the appearance of 
the new memorandum as "necessary evil' and the appearance of the 
government as 'fighting heroically'. In other words, something had to be 
found in order to compensate for the communication and electoral costs 
of the new memorandum and to consolidate once and for all socially, what 
the right and PASOK failed to do until then: the absence of an 
alternative. It was also necessary, in a way, to equalize the 
responsibilities for the new memorandum and give the message to the 
deceived people, "together we fought, together we lost". As a result, 
this strategy was successful. A few months later, SYRIZANEL became the 
first memorandum government to renew its mandate, providing precious 
breaths of "normality" to a political system that has been characterized 
by a deep crisis of social legitimacy for 15 years.

The joint government of SYRIZA/ANEL did not "sell out" NO or fool anyone 
about its intentions. He had already ratified the extension of the 2nd 
loan agreement, he had already committed to new memorandum measures and 
he had already made it clear that the Eurosingle road is a given 
regardless of the popular verdict in the "YES or NO" ballot box. Her 
initial declaration of the country's "European path" irreparably exposed 
the "tacticians" who hoped that "NO" would mean a possible exit from the 
EU. and the eurozone, within the framework of the bourgeois state. An 
"exit" that we must note would be accompanied by a heavy price for the 
working class and the poor popular strata of the country, who would also 
be called upon in this eventuality to "pay the marble" and that, of 
course, such an "exit" it would have nothing to do with the historically 
necessary "exit" from capitalism and the state and the set of 
international institutions and associations of the powerful. Of course, 
this "exit" can only come revolutionary and not through systemic referenda.

In the end, history has recorded that the third memorandum was the most 
burdensome, assessing both its direct effects on social life and the 
fact that through it the conditions were built for the subsequent 
commitment to the fiscal memorandum chains, which he would shoulder for 
for many decades the vast majority of people living in this country. At 
least, until they decide to break them. At the same time, the 3rd 
memorandum hastened the procedures for the sale of public property, the 
privatization of everything and the depth of the domestic crisis for a 
long time, on the one hand with the further giantization of the debt and 
on the other hand, with the stagnation of economic growth, where until 
today , which the political system triumphs over the so-called 
"development" and the "end of the memorandums", has not managed to 
return to the pre-memorandum levels. We should not forget, however, that 
the results of capitalist development are, in any case, reaped by a 
small handful of exploiters. And finally, we should not forget that the 
crisis of the system is always present, even if each episode or symptom 
of it is presented as an "unstable factor" or a "new crisis". Whether we 
turn the crisis into an opportunity for the revolutionary overthrow of 
this rotten and outdated system is still in our own hands.

https://protaanka.espivblogs.net/2024/07/06/9-chronia-apo-tin-pagida-toy-dimopsifismatos/
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