Syntagma suicide: could this be Greece’s ‘Tunisia moment’?

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Syntagma suicide: could this be Greece’s ‘Tunisia moment’? Posted: 06 Apr 2012 01:51 PM PDT Could the public suicide of a 77-year-old pensioner in Athens trigger a popular uprising in Greece, just like Bouazizi’s suicide sparked the Arab Spring? By Nadim Fetaih [Apollo] BANG. That was the sound that shook people to the core on Wednesday as a 77-year-old retired pharmacist killed himself in front of the Greek Parliament. It echoed in the hearts of all those who feel his pain – a life full of debt, a future full of uncertainty, and a lingering question on the tongue: what’s the point? In a country rocked with draconian austerity measures, entering its fifth straight year of recession, and where one in five are jobless, this may have just been the sound that will awaken a revolutionary rage like none other seen in Greece. Though 2011 was a year full of riots, demonstrations, and angst against the bankster dictatorship, I cannot help but feel that this tragedy may just be Greece’s Tunisian moment. The suicide by this man described as “dignified” was a moment that would send a singular powerful message. The banks coupled with the political elite can and have taken one’s dignity away. This man was not a lone fruit-vendor shaken by police repression. No. He was a retired pharmacist – part of the middle class. His disparity was only drowned out by his debt as he yelled “I don’t want to leave my debts to my children” before pulling the trigger. A note left in his pocket blamed the political elite for this suicide. He wanted “a dignified end before I have to start scrounging for food from the rubbish”. This is Greece’s true angst. More than that, this is the pain that every country and its citizens can truly relate to in the West. Be it European or North American. For who is not wrought by the perils of debt? This man’s suicide is a message to everyone in the middle class: you are not immune. We have entered a struggle of not only the poor, but the middle class, as well. What the banks haven’t taken, they will.  Who the banks haven’t hurt, they will. When, is the only question. The Greeks, Spaniards, Portuguese, and Italians are up first. Soon the French, Germans, British, Americans, and Canadians will feel the pain of a country under banks’ control. There are questions still lingering, though. Could this re-start the domino effect of the Arab Spring? If so, we might soon see a revolution explode in Greece, spreading to Spain and possibly to the rest of Europe. Or, will it take a public suicide in each country to awaken the masses? Only time will tell and no intellectual can ever really guess at what will shake the average person awake into an ‘all or nothing’ state. One this is for sure though, this tragedy will not soon be forgotten.

How the media de-politicized the suicide on Syntagma Posted: 06 Apr 2012 01:23 PM PDT Trampling on a dead man’s grave, the international media are refusing to see how a 77-year-old’s act of despair is a direct consequence of political decisions. By Jelle Bruinsma On Wednesday morning, the 77-year old Dimitris Christoulas committed suicide on Syntagma square in Athens, in front of the parliament. In his suicide note he is perfectly clear about the reasons for his act of despair. The government, he wrote, has “literally nullified my ability to survive on a decent pension, for which I had already paid (without government aid) for 35 years.” The website of the prominent Dutch newspaper NRC, however, chose to portray the reasons for his suicide rather differently than he himself did. In a way that was a bit more comfortable for an audience that has been bombarded with the necessity and inevitability of ‘austerity measures’ in Greece. According to Hans Klis, author of the article on the NRC site, “the 77-year old man wrote [in his suicide note] that the financial problems in the country were the motive for this act.” That is a lie, or at the very least a serious distortion of the last words of Christoulas. The text of his suicide note can be easily found online, and we may assume that a journalist from a well-respected newspaper has read the note before he wrote about the events. So why this choice? Christoulas describes a clear choice of policy by the government, which chose to radically cut pensions. In that same sentence he calls the government the “Tsolakoglou occupation government.” Tsolakoglou was the first prime minister of the collaborating government during the Nazi-occupation. For anyone who knows the current mood in Greece, that is a clear reference to the current government that collaborates with the “Troika” (the IMF, the EU and the ECB) in the interest of the international financial powers, and follows its commands. He continues his letter by implying that the “decent individual response” would be the taking up of arms against the government. Since he is at an age at which he does not feel capable to be the first to take up arms he saw “no solution other than a dignified end, before resorting to going through garbage in order to cover my nutritional needs.” Not a word about this in the reputable Dutch newspaper. According to Hans Klis the reasons for his suicide were the apparently objective, technocratic and abstract ‘financial problems in the country.’ This implies what he later makes more explicit (“the severe austerity measures that are necessary to get the country back on track economically”): the austerity measures – the demolition of social benefits, the extreme cuts in wages and pensions, and much more – are the inevitable consequences of “the financial problems in the country”, the only possible option to solve the financial problems. Other options are not even thinkable in the intellectual world of journalists such as this one. Further taxing the rich, getting out of the eurozone or giving the finger to the banks that demand money from Greece are unmentionable options, and shall remain covered in silence. At this point I should discuss the other options, refer to the many economists who say that the austerity measures that are being forced on Greece by the Troika will only worsen the crisis, and mention who caused the crisis and who is profiting from the ‘austerity measures.’ The political context, in other words, which was kept out of the article mentioned above (and many others internationally). By leaving that out, these journalists are justifying (while trampling over a dead man’s grave) the destruction of Greek society, are playing the intellectual watchdog of the financial elite, and are refusing to make clear how this act of despair (and many other comparable acts of despair; see for instance here, here and here) is a direct consequence of political decisions. But in all honesty: I can’t. I am boiling with rage about the lack of respect by the journalistic elites for the last breath of a man driven to despair. At the moment I do not care whether they do it on purpose or because they are caught in their own elitist world. But I realize that this attitude is representative of the elite. Defending their own interests in an arrogant manner over the backs of the population (with regard to the intellectual class, in contrast to the economic ruling class, we can discuss whether these are their real or perceived interests, but that is not relevant here). Below the surface, though, the anger is growing. From Athens to New York, from Barcelona to Santiago, and yes, also in the Netherlands, people are fed up. Often out of sight from or ignored by the writing elites, germs of resistance are popping up everywhere. Neighborhood assemblies, small demonstrations, mass demonstrations, meetings, blockades and mass strikes. The elite will, in an attempt to dismantle the picks with which we slowly but surely pick away at their sources of power, do everything to ridicule or criminalize every form of resistance. Know that we are building for a radically different future. Even if it will take our entire lives, we will continue to pound on the rocks underneath your statues until you are at the same level as the rest of us. That you are lying about the last words of a victim of the policies that you make and implement (the economic and political ruling class) or defend (the intellectuals) feeds our anger. It is an anger that knows no national borders. Sitting behind my laptop in Amsterdam I feel in my heart the pain of the people in Greece who are driven to such acts. But I also realize that Greece is just the most radical example, and that around me I see more and more despair in people’s lives, which are filled with increasing insecurity and uncertainty, living in this ‘modern flexibilized economy.’ In the end, the elite that we are facing as a people is one and the same, and is ingrained in the structures of a capitalist society. You might think that we are an individualized generation (and population), but more and more people are realizing the importance of collective resistance. From the striking cleaners in the Netherlands to the revolutionaries in Egypt, from the indignados in Spain to Occupy Wall Street. We as a people will have to continue building forms of collective resistance, so that other people driven to despair do not await the same tragic faith of Mr Christoulas, but can feel hope again that we together can overthrow these cruel elites in the near future. The last words, which have a broader applicability, are for and by Dimitris Christoulas: “One day, I believe, the youth with no future will take up arms and hang the national traitors at syntagma square, just like the Italians did with Mussolini in 1945 (at Milan’s Piazzale Loreto).”