Could the public suicide of a 77-year-old pensioner in Athens trigger a popular uprising in Greece, just like Bouazizi’s suicide sparked the Arab Spring?
By Nadim Fetaih
BANG. That was the sound that shook people to the core on Wednesday as a 77-year-old retired pharmacist killed himself in front of the Greek Parliament.
It echoed in the hearts of all those who feel his pain – a life full of debt, a future full of uncertainty, and a lingering question on the tongue: what’s the point? In a country rocked with draconian austerity measures, entering its fifth straight year of recession, and where one in five are jobless, this may have just been the sound that will awaken a revolutionary rage like none other seen in Greece. Though 2011 was a year full of riots, demonstrations, and angst against the bankster dictatorship, I cannot help but feel that this tragedy may just be Greece’s Tunisian moment.
The suicide by this man described as “dignified” was a moment that would send a singular powerful message. The banks coupled with the political elite can and have taken one’s dignity away. This man was not a lone fruit-vendor shaken by police repression. No. He was a retired pharmacist – part of the middle class. His disparity was only drowned out by his debt as he yelled “I don’t want to leave my debts to my children” before pulling the trigger.
A note left in his pocket blamed the political elite for this suicide. He wanted “a dignified end before I have to start scrounging for food from the rubbish”. This is Greece’s true angst. More than that, this is the pain that every country and its citizens can truly relate to in the West. Be it European or North American. For who is not wrought by the perils of debt?
This man’s suicide is a message to everyone in the middle class: you are not immune. We have entered a struggle of not only the poor, but the middle class, as well. What the banks haven’t taken, they will. Who the banks haven’t hurt, they will. When, is the only question. The Greeks, Spaniards, Portuguese, and Italians are up first. Soon the French, Germans, British, Americans, and Canadians will feel the pain of a country under banks’ control.
There are questions still lingering, though. Could this re-start the domino effect of the Arab Spring? If so, we might soon see a revolution explode in Greece, spreading to Spain and possibly to the rest of Europe. Or, will it take a public suicide in each country to awaken the masses? Only time will tell and no intellectual can ever really guess at what will shake the average person awake into an ‘all or nothing’ state. One this is for sure though, this tragedy will not soon be forgotten.
{ 14 comments… read them below or add one }
The situation in Greece has a lot of similarities with that of Tunisia and Egypt before the revolution right now. The issue is that when the revolution brakes out in Tunisia or anywhere in the Arab world the media are positive. Once we see a revolt in Greece the media respond with irony, cynicism and justification of police brutality.
The people in Syntagma have many times beaten up violently by the cops, without any reason. But the media are so reluctant to speak the truth and instead the promote a completely distorted reality: violent protests, thugs, lazy people and other conservative nonsense.
We need to be focused on police brutality issues but this is not enough. I believe that the Westerners are in a deep lethargy. Even if they see the police beating up their children you have much more chances to find them defending the cops. There has been an extreme conformist culture developed during the past 30 years which has totally destroyed every political action and enslaved everybody in his/her private realm. Hence, we must be focused on finding ways how to despise values that fuel conformism, along with protestant work ethics and conservatism.
Well said Julien. The reason that the Greeks have been demonised in this way is because they are standing up for Freedom which is not what the Fascist want. These Fascists are in control of the USA and the EU.
The Arab Spring was co ordinated by the Muslim brotherhood who has USA/EU backing. See why the ‘Spring’ was congratulated by the media.
I don’t think that the Muslim Brotherhood has anything to do with the west. They hate westerners with great passion (at least that’s what a Palestinian friend of mine has said). I don’t believe in conspiracy theories also. The reality is in front of us. And no, there are not fascists in control of the USA and EU. They are controlled instead by Neoliberals (extreme capitalist economic dogma).
I believe that there was always a subliminal hatred for Greece and the south of Europe. There was always a cultural division in Europe and hatred against the South. And when I say cultural, I don’t mean it from a nationalist point of view. But there is a great division between protestant ethics (absolute conformity) vs protesting and demanding freedom (culture of resistance). Greece and Spain fall in the second category and for this reason they will be hated.
For more read this: http://eagainst.com/articles/european-democracy-in-fragments/
Julien, I always enjoy your thoughtful comments here at ROAR site, so I hope you won’t mind some friendly criticism. The things we say, the words we use, their tone, all are imprtant. Words control ideas, and the ruling class controls the masses with these ideas.
You say you don’t believe in conspiracy theories, this is a sure sign that you have succumbed to bourgeois propaganda. I say this because you do believe in conspiracy theories, everybody does.
To say one doesn’t believe in them is to say that one doesn’t believe that people conspire, or at least not people involved in politics. This is demonstrably false, and I don’t think I need to substantiate this. However if you are not convinced then consider this question: Was there a transatlantic conspiracy to gin up popular conmsent for the invasion of Iraq? The evidence is overwhelming.
A given theory is either true or not, and it is of little use analytically to adopt a position that one is either for or against the idea of conspiracy. However it is politically useful to frame the debate in those terms for those who conspire.
You also linked conspiracy theory to the idea that fascists are in control of the US and EU. Socialism is the idea that classes are locked into competition and struggle. Fascism is the idea, as advanced by Hitler, Mussolini [et al], their propagandists, and as understood by their critics, was the idea that races/nations are locked into competition for arable land, water assets, mines etc.
Given this “clash of culture” thing we hear from the imperialists in the US and UK [where the PM recently made derisive remarks about multiculturalism] nowadays, I think it is fair to characterize them as fascist.
One last point which ties into the others: You say the people in charge in the West are neoliberasls and not fascists. I would argue that while conceptually these are two distinctly different things in reality they are two sides of capital’s coin.
When the ruling classes efforts to pacify the public are working, we have political and economic liberalism. When the working masses rise up capital brings forth fascism to preserve themselves in power. Consequently, fascism and liberalism are dialectical, but its capital’s dialectic. They own it, and both thesis and antithesis serve their interests.
The best exposition of this theory I’ve read is R. Palme Dutt’s Fascism and the Social Revolution.
If you read it you will also discover that Hitler and the Nazis were the result of a conspiracy. After WW1, German capital concluded that liberalism/social democracy were no longer sufficient to stem the tide of revolution and they plotted to bring about fascism. Dutt discovered their correspondence which he reproduces in the book.
Dave you are right in many points, but it is my fault that I did not mention what I mean by saying conspiracy theories. I would suggest you to have a look here http://eagainst.com/articles/on-conspiracy-theories/
In short, conspiracy theory I mean all these famous right-wing junk talking that the Jews are behind everything or the attitude of many people who believe that in everything there is something behind (easy conclusions, easy assumptions, never proven, always based on hypothetical arguments), some secret enemy, an attitude that reaches the levels of paranoia sometimes. Of course I did not mean that conspiracies do not happen. The fact we are talking here on roarmag right now it is a sort of conspiracy in a kind of way… I would suggest you to read the article in order to understand more. We need some balance sometimes…
Also, fascism and nazism are not the same. They might have a lot of similarities but ideologically differ in many key points
I agree Julian. Except that I dont think that there is such a great hatred towards Grecce or the South. Of course many ignorant people get manipulated by the media, but generally most people, i’m sure, supports the people and the protesters. Alot of people in Northern Europe is not capialists, they’re just so de-politicised if you know what I mean so you won’t see many solidarity manifestations with greece for example. But I’m sure they support the people over the Banks if there were to be a revolution in any country.
You’re missing the point. People don’t make policy. Governments do. So, hatred of the southern European countries has been rampant throughout history. Back in historical times, the people of the northern European countries did support their governments, because to do otherwise, would have been “treasonous”. However, today the countries of northern Europe’s governments have NOT changed their attitude of hatred (read: jealousy) of southern European countries. A very minor example of this overt hatred is German chancellor’s reference to Portugal, Italy Greece and Spain as PIGS!! Really? What would that make Germany? Manure?
And as for the people in these countries, perhaps a minority of them are in support of the people of southern European countries, but from everything I’ve read coming from the people of northern Europe, the majority are racist and DO support their government’s hatred/jealousy of southern Europeans.
It’s a fact.
While I whole heartedly agree on your view on the lethargic nature of most westerners, as well as Greece having similarities with Tunisia and Egypt, I think you need to realize that although Greece is under a financial dictatorship, the police repression is no where near the severity of the Arab nations’.
In Egypt, no more than 4 years ago (as an example) a nine year old child was tortured (with cigarette burns on his testacles and the rest of his body, sodimized, and beaten to death for stealing a loaf of bread to eat. In Syria, the public school children who first started chanting the words (translated) “The people demand the removal of the regime” were tortured and had their finger nails removed.
This is the kind of brutality that is hasn’t been seen since the military dictatorship of Greece.
Police violence (though a sad reality) is to be expected when trying to revolt against a system, same goes with the media backlash. But, debt is the new means of oppression and all westerners are clad in the chains of debt, tied to the oppressive banking system.
Police repression is not felt by absolutely everyone. It is the common ground that will shake the people awake.
As for the belief that the Arab Springs was co-ordinated by the Muslim Brotherhood, that statement is entirely false. The Muslim Brotherhood didn’t fight in the Egyptian revolt until January 28th, after the Islamic elite told them not to revolt. The reason that the west had no other choice. The Arabic countries are incredibly strategic when considering geo-politics. They need to ensure that their relationship with Egypt especially is positive. This is why it took so long for Obama to congratulate the Egyptian people for their peaceful revolt. First to ensure that he didn’t piss off the puppet Mubarak regime to ensure continued coersion of the Arab region in case the revolt was suffocated. And second, to ensure that whatever powers came would be confined to the U.S. control.
What happened in Egypt and the rest of the Arab countries that resulted in the Arab springs was a direct result of not having ANYTHING to lose. To assume anything else is a slap in the face of the Arab revolutionary martyrs.
Of course I noway mean that police brutality in Greece reaches the levels of Egypt. Nonetheless, day after day the police is getting more and more violent in Greece. And I don’t believe that someday if Greek cops will start acting like the Egyptian police our European ‘friends’ will change their attitudes about Greece. They, on the contrary, will defend Greek cops because lets face it, Greece is one of the most hated countries in the west, due to culture of resistance. Lack of this culture signifies the start of a deep conformity and the results to lethargy. If this is the Europe they want to build, a Europe of passive conformity, of de-politicization and conservatism please count me out.
For instance, check the riots in London (August 2011). When hooded youths attacked malls, the majority wanted to see the army in the streets!!! D.Cameron said that he was ready to send troops and… kill 15 years old children!!! How does he differ from dictators like Assad that the westerners so much complain for being ultra-repressive? Has Western hypocrisy gone too far?
Of course, I noway justify destruction on houses and mindless rioting without having any clear political agenda or at least some demands. But you expect what from a society that is completely de-politicized? How do you expect people to express their anger when apathy and excessive consumerism prevails? The whole event revealed a big wound in the British society which cannot be healed without understanding the issues that caused it. (The British society did not want to understand it to be fair). During these days you could clearly see a blind hatred against the rioters openly expressed from the major media. No attempt to understand why the riots took place, to interprate aggressiveness and social exclusion in political terms, no chances to work on issues that plague the isolated communities… I believe the same is the attitude towards Greece. Once the Euro-leaders see that the revolution takes place, they will send their own arms (since the Greek army has turn its back to politicians). And then, when the revolution will be repressed, all the Europeans will be happy in their conformist consumerist wet-dreams, that the “lazy moaners got what they deserved”. Or there is another way. Wake up the people and lets have a domino of peaceful uprisings everywhere in Europe aiming for the total transformation of the society, under a truly democratic political system.
Regarding the Arab Spring, I fully agree with you. It seems that you know much more than everybody else here.
Good to hear Nadim putting things straight with the Arab spring and police brutality in Greece. In Egypt people were literally gunned down yet still had the courage to protest, risking their life. Here in Greece a few cans of teargas and Syntagma has emptied. I’m not saying Greeks aren’t brave, just that there hasn’t been something as solid and clear to fight against. The lines here are blurred, and so is the playing field. Complex crony economics, relentless successful propaganda, police more or less not crossing some big line but being tactically smart and a political establishment that has in the past 30 years brought relative prosperity despite it’s ugliness and with no clear alternative (giddyup Global Square platform). To put it simply the system here in Greece and Europe is way smarter/wiser and the people more complacent than the Arab world.
I am Greek. I don’t think the suicide of Dimitris Christoulas (yes he had a name) will be Greece’s moment. If it was then I don’t think it would stand well in History (i explain below).
Despite us Greeks not being as morally guided, being quite thick skinned and seemingly remain in a state of apathy at such times I do believe we make up for it in other ways.
Greece’s people’s focal point are the upcoming elections. This is where, from what I understand, Greeks feel they can punish the two major parties. The fact is that they will be dissapointed ,and many know this, the two major parties will by any means necessary come to power, Papademos will stay in place in order to carry out Europe’s plan to remove Greece and Portugal “voluntarily” from the Eurozone, which will then proceed to fiscally print itself out of the aftermath, after the French elections. Aka the “cauterise and print” plan.
http://yanisvaroufakis.eu/2012/02/14/cauterise-and-print-germanys-newest-plan-a-cauterise-and-print-germanys-newest-plan-a/
But the point I’m trying to make here is the Greeks’s concious willingness to give this dying system every last chance/benefit of the doubt, so when it does fail, History will leave it no excuses, and maybe if and when a better system is created the old one will have no say. Two virtues I’d like to point out here for the Greeks. Patience to give the system every last benefit of the doubt despite being degraded the world over (something Greeks are not insensitive to) and Historic awareness, however basic. Let me remind you that not more than a year ago Greeks were lazy whereas now they are considered financially repressed. Wait for that to become unjustly treated and you have History and “the gods” as Homer might have put it on their side.
In this comedic/tragic farce of a stageplay the masks are falling. Pasok and New Democracy, the two major parties of the last 30 years are finally collaborating, showing that they are one and the same serving the same purpose, something unimaginable not long ago. The leftist parties are even worse hypocrites and are happier to keep things the way they are/have been, just with more seats in parliament.
It is not unlikely that before all is well and done in Greece, the Greek army will veer it’s ugly head, to try to restore “order”, but being someone who has served in the Greek army, I like to think the result would be farsical at the least, just like the story so far.
I feel Demetris Christoulas’s suicide is a clear message to the middle classes of Greece and they know what that message is but are right in my oppinion to give the system one last chance in these elections.
Whatever might happen, for better or worse, the logical conclusion usually takes place and my money is on a better tomorrow, even if it might take a while longer than our patience is used to.
The ONLY way to get Ireland, Greece, Portugal, Spain, Italy and the next few to come, out of this intentionally, planned disaster, is to get the hell out of the EU, throw the Euro into the biggest dung heap where it belongs, and get back to running their own countries, printing their own currency and controlling their own economies.
Since the illegitimate EU was dreamed up, these countries have suffered repression from their northern enemies … Germany, Britain and France. Don’t fool yourself into believing that these 3 enemies of Europe weren’t the master minds behind the raping of the list of countries they now have under their heal. They’ve wanted this since the beginning of time. Now it’s time for the people of Ireland, Greece, Portugal, Spain and Italy to RISE UP and DEMAND out of the EU!! Default on all central bank loans !! Let them eat the feces they created.
WE the people of southern Europe have been successful throughout history in managing our own affairs without making the people suffer. We need to get back to doing it again. We say TO HELL with Germany, Britain and France, and all the EU psychopaths. Let THEM burn in a hell of all consuming fire that never extuinguishes!
oppresed people of europe, stop shooting yourselves and shoot those to blame !
viva la revolution !
“Greeks, Spaniards, Portuguese, and Italians are up first” Really? So, what, the Irish are in the black are they? Because from my recollection, the Irish were up first even before the Greeks. But I guess the “brown” Europeans should be highlighted as the “first to fall”. It would be “politically incorrect” to point to the “white” Irish as the first to fall.