01 January 2009 /International Bulletin / Issue 77 The wave of revolts started in Greece after 15-year-old Alexis Grigoropulos had been killed has been continuing. The revolt that has been lead in Greece with the strike of the workers, the occupation of the university campuses and barricade fights on the streets is the explosion of rage dammed against the economical crisis, unemployment, flexible working, education with costs and the violation of the officials` rights and the neo-liberal governments responsible for all this. The revolt in Greece didn't flash suddenly like a lightning on the sky. It had been anteceded by their the actions and resistances of students, workers and public employees against the social security reforms, the opening of private universities and similar laws and with single strikes against privatisation and closure of factories. In the last few years Greece had frequently been shaken by the resistance and actions of different groups. Together with the killing of Alexis, the revolt that had been prepared by these fights sometimes started to give the image of a united people's resistance of students, workers and labourers against the Greece government. High school and university students stood in the centre of the movement and as the most militant group. Together with them, workers, labourers and public employees, with teachers in the first ranks, participated from different fronts in this people's movement that is to be considered as the biggest revolt in Greece since 1974. The people's revolt, that was tried to be presented as an act of a group of looters and anarchists who set on fire and destroyed anything that came across their way, is based on the rage against neo-liberal politics and the cut of social rights and reached its peak with the economical crisis showing its effects, and exploded together with the police murder, which was the last element for it to be started so that the whole country was covered with this fire. The ruling forces that have tried to denigrate the people's revolt in Greece are the ones feeling hate and fear who saw their own end coming when the migrants' rage exploded in the suburbs of Paris as a result of the murder of a migrant youth; the furious masses in Argentine that were let hungry, poor and unemployed because of the crisis in 2001 blockaded the traffic on the streets and looted the supermarkets, and in the revolts because of hunger that from Africa to China covered the whole world. The reason is that they exactly know that the revolt in Greece is not a simple depredation. This has been openly admitted by Germany's chancellor Angela Merkel asking the Greek Prime Minister Karamanlis "Do the actions have a relation with the crisis?" Yes, the actions are related to the crisis. Yes, the actions are deeply related to the capitalist system that drives the workers and labourers to destruction. They are related to the privatisation attacks and the sale of education and health applied for years. And yes, the owners of this system of exploitation and oppression are absolutely right in being afraid of the revolt in Greece. The polite and kind European "defenders" of the "democracy", that doesn't mean anything else for the workers and labourers than the freedom of being exploited, try to calm down this revolt, not to use severe steps that could inflame this revolt, so that the fire of revolt will grow and doesn't only effect the government but the bourgeoisie's political hegemony power, too. The revolt in Greece might either extinguish, or it might experience the great victory of the Karamanlis government announcing its withdrawal. However, the result won't change. The revolts exploding one after another in Bolivia, Venezuela, Argentina, Paris, Nepal and many other places in the world are gathering the experiences of the peoples' struggle and strengthen the action and solidarity against the imperialist capitalist system. The revolt in Greece will also take its place among them, and play its role to show the Greek as well as the world working class and labourers the way to fight. The revolt has also polarised the different forces in Greece, or it made the poles clearer: On the one hand there are the social destruction policy of Karamanlis and the police murders, and on the other hand the resistance of the Greek people setting the streets on fire. On the one hand there is the stance of KKE, that takes places in the same rank as the social democrat PASOK and denigrates the Radical Left Coalition, the stance for which it is thanked by Greek bourgeois politicians and it even tries to stop the occupation of the universities by de facto hindering the revolting students entering the buildings, and on the other hand there is the attitude of the Communist Organisation of Greece (KOE) and the Radical Left Coalition, of whom it is a member, as well as the other left organisations that actively participate in this movement and try to give it a direction. The attitude of the Radical Left Coalition and its members to give the movement a direction by using the slogan "It is a right to revolt" is undoubtedly important and will play a crucial role in the revolt finalising with a higher level of the consciousness and organisation of the workers and labourers. The revolt in Greece was welcomed with deep sympathy in Turkey and Northern Kurdistan, too. Our peoples who were tried to be fed with hatred and enmity towards the Greek people, the working class, labourers and the progressive and revolutionary sectors of them has defended the revolt in Greece with solidarity actions, while the congratulation of Karamanlis has been assumed by the bourgeois state and its prime minister Tayyip Erdogan who have provoked enmity towards the Greek for decades. The high extent of the actions for solidarity with the revolt in Greece has strengthened the internationalist feelings of our peoples. The fact that the revolt surged against the murder of Alexis in a period where the police murders has been increasing has taught them a lot. Both in our country and throughout the world, the resistance and the revolt of the Greek people opens the way for struggle against economic and social destruction policies and the oppression and massacres that find their expression in police murders.
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