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Syriza - two months on: where is the hope? by Kevin Ovenden Counterfire, March 30, 2015 <http://www.counterfire.org/articles/opinion/17749-syriza-two-months-on-where-is-the-hope> Two months into Syriza taking office after the historic victory of the left at the polls on 25 January, dare we hope for a breach in the iron cage of austerity? Is hope even alive? My answer is an unequivocal “yes”. That’s not down to facile optimism or self-delusion as to the course the government of Alexis Tsipras has followed. Nor am I unmindful of the huge difficulties or of the scale of the assault from the Troika. Rather, hope is alive because it arises ultimately from the initiative, courage, struggles and mutual solidarity of the popular masses in Greece, which lifted the whole of the left at the polls and put Syriza in power. And that wellspring is far from exhausted. . . . Blockupy and the battles to come Kevin Ovenden and Phil Butland Socialist Worker, March 23, 2015 <http://socialistworker.org/2015/03/23/blockupy-and-the-battles-ahead> Some 20,000 people mobilized last week for the annual Blockupy protest in Frankfurt, Germany, site of the European Central Bank's brand new, $1.4 billion headquarters. This marked a new stage for the yearly protest against the continent-wide austerity agenda, inspired, no doubt, by the election of the radical left party SYRIZA in Greece in January and the new Greek government's showdown with the European elite. But as usual, mainstream media coverage of the mass demonstration focused on clashes between a section of protesters and police that left several dozen injured and 300 people under arrest. In this collaboration, Phil Butland, a member of Die Linke (Left Party) in Berlin, and Kevin Ovenden, writing from Athens, reflect on the Blockupy demonstration and the tactics of the movement as the battle against neoliberalism continues in Europe. Note: The personal references to the protests and the situation within Germany come from Phil. . . . _________________________________________________________ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
