Create one, two, three, many Greeces!

24 May by Sonia Mitralias

Speech in the great anti-capitalist demonstration in Frankfurt, Germany, May 19, 2012

Comrades,

I come from Greece, a country destroyed and desperate, a country in ruins but still standing tall. From this Greece that resists and has shouted a huge magnificent "No" to its torturers: the Troika and the IMF, the Brussels Commission and their Merkel and Schäuble, their Barrosos, Sarkozys and the bankers. In short, to those who govern us and impose inhuman, barbaric policies on us. These policies are already causing child malnutrition and even hunger in major Greek cities. And where is all this happening? Not somewhere in the Third World, but here in the heart of rich Europe. And when? Now, at the moment in history when humanity produces more wealth than it ever had before! ...

Comrades,

The results of the May 6 election leave no room for doubt: a huge majority of Greeks have rejected the politics of austerity. This is a true political earthquake! The country that was chosen to be the laboratory for an austerity program is now in open revolt against those who starve and humiliate it, against those who close its hospitals and schools, and against those who destroy this beautiful country to sell it for nothing, against its Greek and foreign torturers alike.

But take care: the Greeks in revolt should not be left alone at the moment they are transforming their anger into a conscious and liberating movement, now that the prospect of a Greek left government begins to rise on the horizon, to become possible and realistic. If Merkel and Sarkozy, the IMF and the European Commission in Brussels have made Greece a laboratory of their barbaric policies and made guinea pigs of the Greeks, it is up to us, people of Europe, to do the same by making Greece the front line of our common battles against those who destroy our lives and the environment. Because Greek resistance is our resistance, its struggles are our struggles...

Comrades,

I come from a country that turns its gaze toward you today, awaiting concrete acts of solidarity. Now and not tomorrow. For it is now more than ever that the Greeks in revolt are directly threatened with extinction by those who fear that their example will be copied and spread like an oil slick across Europe. And I assure you, these Greeks in revolt are convinced that the best way to show solidarity with them is to imitate them. Imitate their example at home, in your country. While developing and coordinating resistance against the inhuman policies of austerity and destruction. Besides, this is exactly what our enemies fear most: CONTAGION! The contagion of struggles throughout Europe.

So yes, let us do it, let’s make TWO, THREE, MANY GREECES! Let’s get networked, coordinate our struggles, organize step by step a united and radical, massive and democratic movement , above all in our old continent, across Europe, from Romania to Ireland and from Italy to Iceland. A long-term movement with great liberating goals, which combines the broadest unity with a liberating radicalism. Now is the time. Because ... United we stand - Divided we fall! Or in French struggle language: Tous ensemble, tous ensemble, oué oué oué … (All together, all together, yeah yeah yeah) ...

Thank you comrades.

Translated by John Catalinotto

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