When traveling in Greece, make sure to always carry essential life saving equipment!
Social struggles in Greece are suppressed with enormous brutality. You might think this has nothing to do with you. But sooner than you probably think, you might find yourself in the middle of a square flooded with a chemical warfare agent (“tear gas”) and beaten with clubs by the police, with the purpose not only to disperse, but also to traumatize the people, so that next time they will think twice before exercising their constitutionally “guaranteed” right to assemble and express their opinion.
The Greek state is raging a war on its people, and you are right in the middle. Don’t think you could take a neutral position, just enjoying your vacation, taking pictures of historical sites and swimming at the beaches. By paying consumption tax on most things you buy here, you are financing the next few canisters of “tear gas”. By spending money on products and services of big companies, you are strengthening the position of those whose power the Greek state is preserving with so much violence, while the conditions of the masses of wage laborers are getting worse everyday.
In a way, Greece has become a testing laboratory for international capital for improving methods to apply policies of wage reduction and the deconstruction of social security and civil rights, with the mere purpose of ensuring profits.
To keep the money flowing for those on top of society, these policies will soon be applied in other countries as well, where they haven’t been already.
As an explanation why the crisis is hitting Greece so hard, you might have heard the story of people in Greece being “lazy”. The truth is, capitalists in Greece are lazy, and greedy, as they are everywhere, while most people work more hours for much lower wages than for example in most western European countries, with rices being just about equal.
So when people in Greece fight against the “austerity measures” imposed on them by the EU, the European Central Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the greek government, they are not fighting to preserve supposedly inappropriate privileges, they are fighting for survival.
But this fight is not just about preventing the next downgrading in living standards, it’s also about overcoming this society of exploitation and domination altogether, to move on to a world of solidarity where nobody has power over anybody else. It’s a struggle that has been going on for a long time, and it’s happening in all parts of the world.
Also in the place you are coming from, right now.
When you go home, make sure to join the resistance!