Guest post: ‘Days of Junta’ in the University of Athens

By Panagiotis Sotiris[1]

For anyone watching what was happening at the central building of the University of Athens on July 8 2013 the feeling was one of reliving images from the 1967-1974 military dictatorship, especially if we take into consideration that collective memory in Greece is still haunted by the image of a military tank crashing the gate of the National Polytechnic University during the November 1973 student uprising.

Tens of riot policemen and special police units in full gear surrounded and stormed the building and arrested 31 students who were peacefully protesting against changes in the administration of Greek universities and especially the introduction of ‘University Councils’ as the main governing bodies of Greek Higher Education, as part of the latest wave of university reforms.

University Councils, modeled after the new forms of academic management spreading all over Europe, are comprised of academics and representatives of ‘society’ and the ‘business community’ and have been criticized as undermining academic democracy and enhancing an aggressively entrepreneurial conception of Higher Education. Both University Teachers’ Unions and Student Unions have waged a long battle against university councils and the July 8 protest was part of this battle.

However, this time the president of the University of Athens Councils, Prof. Dimitri Bertsimas, an MIT professor, chose to call the police, stating that he and the other members of the council were in danger. The call to the police was made by Vaso Kinti, a philosophy professor well known for her support to aggressive neoliberal reforms.

Since the Right of Asylum in Universities, the explicit ban on forces of order to enter University premises has been lifted, as part of the latest wave of university reforms, there was no legal obstacle to the police invasion. The police stormed the building and arrested the students. Police were even ready to use an angle grinder to open another door and arrest the rest of the protesting students, when under the protests of union representatives and members of parliament they were ordered to withdraw. In the end all students were set free and no charges were pressed against them, but the problem of a brutal police attack against a legitimate student protest remains.

This case highlights the motivation behind the decision to abolish University Asylum. For many years those supporting giving police the right to intervene inside university premises (including the US Ambassador in Athens!) insisted that this is a necessary measure to prevent violent rioting. In contrast, supporters of the university sanctuary warned that such a measure would lead to the police invading universities in order to arrest protesting students and striking professors. It is now becoming obvious that we are witnessing an authoritarian institutional transformation of Greek Higher Education, aiming at restricting the ability of the student movement and the university movement in general to raise obstacles to the shift towards a more entrepreneurial Higher Education.

The Greek Student Movement has a long history of successful struggles in the past 35 years, governments have been forced to repeal laws or even the 2007 constitutional reform under the pressure of mass student movements, and all these can explain why radical student practices are now being targeted as part of the broader undemocratic and authoritarian turn that has accompanied the austerity packaged and the EU-IMF-ECB supervision.  It is the same authoritarian turn that led to shutting down Greek Public Radio and Television (ERT) and keeps hunger striker Kostas Sakkas in prison for more than 30 months without trial.

Hopefully, students, university teachers and other higher education personnel have insisted that they are not intimidated  by such developments and that they will continue struggling against the neoliberal transformation of Higher Education, including struggling against any attempts to make ‘University Councils’ the main governing bodies of Greek Universities. The fight is far from over.

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[1] Panagiotis Sotiris teaches social theory and social and political philosophy at the Department of Sociology of the University of the Aegean. He can be reached at psot@soc.aegean.gr

Guest post: The new ‘age of insurrections’ is far from over!

Thoughts on the political significance of the Turkish movement

By Panagiotis Sotiris [1]

It is still early to fully appreciate the consequences of the popular uprising in Turkey. However, one thing is for sure: we are still at a very particular historical conjuncture, marked not just by protest and contention, but also by movements of impressive magnitude and an almost insurrectionary character.

From December 2008 in Greece, that extraordinary “postcard from the future”, to the Arab Spring, the Indignados Movement, the prolonged struggle of the Greek people against austerity, the Occupy movement in North America, the student revolts in Britain, Canada and Chile and the current Turkish protests, we have been witnessing movements that are not only massive but also go beyond simply articulating grievances and demands. These are movements that, one way or the other, demand radical social and political change. That is why they do not take the form of traditional protests, nor do they engage in pressure politics. Rather, they opt for new and highly original forms of almost insurrectionary practices that not only make manifest a deep discontent with contemporary neoliberal capitalist societies, but also attempt to turn their alternative visions of democracy and justice into practice.

Guest post: Exit from the Eurozone: the elephant in the room or why we cannot have socialism based upon EFSF recapitalisation

By Panagiotis Sotiris [1]

The report by Costas Lapavitsas and Heiner Flassbeck on the crisis of the Eurozone has been an important step in re-opening the euro debate within the European Left. The political significance of the report was made even more evident by the fact that it was published by the Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung, and was endorsed by the leadership of Die Linke, especially after Oskar Lafontaine had also recently insisted on the need to consider the exit from the Eurozone as a potential solution for countries of the European South such as Greece. It follows the decision by AKEL the Cypriote left-wing party to propose Cyprus’ exit from the Eurozone, a proposition based upon scientific advice offered by amongst others Lapavitsas and Flassbeck.

The report itself is not a radical or Marxist manifesto. Although Lapavitsas has a strong Marxist background, the report is marked by Flassbeck’s much more Keynesian approach. Moreover, it is not a report with an a priori hostility towards monetary union or currency coordination for Europe, nor is it filled with anticapitalist references. On the contrary it seems to take the internationalization of trade and capital flows as granted. However, it is exactly this kind of critique from within aspects of the dominant economic paradigm that makes it even more interesting.

Guest post: Le gouvernement grec refuse le droit de grève aux enseignants du secondaire

De Panagiotis Sotiris [1], traduit de l'anglais par @Okeanews

Au cours des trois dernières années, la société grecque a traversé une série de mesures d'austérité extrêmement agressives, selon les termes dictés par la troïka (UE-FMI-BCE), qui ont conduit à une grave détérioration des conditions de vie. Elle a également connu une érosion constante des droits démocratiques et des libertés civiles de base. Un des exemples de cette érosion est la tentative par le gouvernement grec de supprimer le droit de grève dans de nombreux secteurs. Les représentants du gouvernement ont à plusieurs reprises insisté sur le fait qu'il est temps de se débarrasser des formes « anomiques » de protestation et de lutte qui ont été le principal héritage du radicalisme de l'après 1974.

Le dernier exemple en est la décision du premier ministre grec A. Samaras d'émettre des ordres de « mobilisation civile » pour tous les enseignants du secondaire en réponse à l'annonce de l'OLME, la Confédération des  enseignants du secondaire, de proposer  à ses syndicats membres de se mettre en grève pendant le démarrage des examens d'entrée à l'université à compter du 17 mai. L'ordre rendu par le premier ministre comprend des références à une potentielle « perturbation importante de la vie sociale et économique du pays » et à de « graves dangers pour l'ordre public et la santé des candidats participant aux examens d'entrée à l'université  », et a été publiée en tant que mesure préventive avant même que la grève ne soit décidée par les syndicats de l'enseignement secondaire le mardi 14 mai.

Guest post: The Greek government denies secondary education teachers the right to strike

By Panagiotis Sotiris [1]

In the past three years Greek society has gone through a series of extremely aggressive austerity measures, under the terms dictated by the EU-IMF-ECB Troika that have led to a severe deterioration of living conditions. It has also been experiencing a constant erosion of democratic rights and basic civil liberties. Part of it is the attempt by the Greek government to practically abolish the right to strike in many sectors. Government representatives have repeatedly insisted that it is time to get rid of the “anomic” forms of protest and struggle that have been the main legacy of post-1974 radicalism.

The latest such example is the decision of A. Samaras, the Greek Prime Minister, to issue “civil mobilization” orders for all secondary education teachers, because OLME, the Secondary Education Teachers Confederation, has announced that it proposes to its member unions to stage a strike during the University Entry Exams beginning May 17. The order issued by the Prime Minister includes references to a potential “important disruption of the social and economic life of the country” and to “grave dangers for public order and the health of candidates taking the university entry exams”, and was issued as a preemptive measure before the strike is even decided by the local secondary education unions on Tuesday May 14.