They called it a “river of fury.” And the seemingly endless flow of Greeks who marched in protest on Wednesday over the government’s painful fiscal policies were motivated by a single force: rage.
Anger in Athens starts with graffiti and by dawn the calls to battle were daubed across the facades of banks and shops and government buildings. By noon it had morphed into a “resistance movement” as militant leftwingers and striking civil servants — some holding banners, some pounding drums, some shouting themselves hoarse — took to the streets to denounce measures seen as the only way to extract Greece from its worst economic crisis in decades.
“We are at war with the government because it is clearly at war with us,” snapped the former communist Member of Parliament Dimos Koumbounis. “The working class will respond with ever greater force and intensity to overturn these unjust and antisocial policies.”
PHOTO: EPA
Under unprecedented pressure from markets and his EU colleagues, the socialist prime minister George Papandreou said he had no other choice but to implement the “painful but necessary” policies last week. The measures include public sector pay freezes, the raising of the retirement age, slashing of bonuses on salaries and tax rises across the board. For the newly elected socialists, forced to roll back many of their campaign promises, these measures are imperative if Greece is to rein in its 300 billion euro (US$413.73 billion) public debt. Papandreou has pledged to trim the deficit from 12.7 percent to within the EU’s permissible 3 percent limit by 2012.
But if there was any doubt the government would face resistance it was put to rest yesterday. Again and again, as the protesters chanted “we are not Ireland, we will resist,” the nationwide strike was painted as the beginning of a backlash against the “tsunami of attacks on workers.”
“There should be no sacrifice for the plutocracy,” said Vasiillis Stamoulis, one union leader as he took to the podium erected in front of Athens’ sandstone parliament. “Those who are responsible should pay for the crisis: the bankers, industrialists, ship-owners, big merchants, the oligarchy of this country.”
Stamoulis was not alone. As they marched through Athens arm-in-arm ignoring the rain, Greeks young and old said the crisis was not of their making. The Greek state may have been profligate but that was because it had suffered at the hands of politicians who had “eaten” from the trough of almost every official coffer.
“It’s not our fault that our country’s public finances are in such a mess,” said Spyros Papadopoulos, a hospital worker. “It’s the fault of capitalists like the bankers, who got bailed out by the [previous] conservative government to the tune of 28 million euros and the Greek shipping community that never pays a cent in tax. Why is it always the lower-income strata who have to pay the price?” he asked, as the “river of fury” snaked its way around one of Athens’ giant squares.
“What they are trying to do is roll back our hard-earned rights, rights like the eight-hour day and a decent pension after a lifetime’s work. This is a crisis that is going to make the poor even poorer and the rich even richer. It’s totally unfair,” he said.
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