POLITICO
gets an exclusive look at a new documentary that charts Syriza’s journey from
election euphoria to grim austerity.
By JAMES
BLOODWORTH 12/16/15, 5:30 AM CET
Less than
nine months later, the foreign leftists had returned home and the
anti-austerity euphoria had dissipated. Meanwhile, Greek Prime Minister Alexis
Tspras, leader of Syriza, had gone from being the face of hope to yet another
harbinger of grim austerity.
So what
happened in the interim? Quite a lot, actually.
POLITICO
got an early look at all four parts of a new documentary titled #ThisIsACoup by
British Channel 4 economics editor Paul Mason and Greek filmmaker Theopi
Skarlatos. The series explores the period between the initial euphoria of
Syriza’s election victory and the subsequent return of Greek politics to more
familiar — and austere — terrain.
1. Tsipras
never intended to leave the eurozone
The Greek
prime minister tells Mason that his “heart and soul said go” but his “mind said
that I had to find a solution.”
Tsipras
acknowledges that walking away from negotiations with the so-called Troika —
the European Commission, European Central Bank and International Monetary Fund
— as advocated by Syriza’s left wing, would have involved “the collapse, first
of all, of the banks and then the collapse of the economy.”
And this
was ultimately a step he was unwilling to take.
“If I
walked away this night, probably I would be a hero for one night, maybe for
two, three, but it would be a disaster for the next days and nights — not only
for me but for the majority of the Greek people,” he says.
As to what
he would have done differently were he to have the time over again, Tsipras
tells Mason he would have “made more brave decisions at the beginning.”
“I think we
lost time, and at the end we were out of force and out of money. If we knew
that [from the start] we would have made more brave decisions at the
beginning.”
2.
Varoufakis was sidelined because he was prepared to quit Europe
Tsipras
shocked European leaders in late June when he called a referendum asking Greek
voters, in convoluted fashion, whether they believed the Troika’s plans should
be implemented. The aim of the question — in which the Oxi (No) vote ultimately
won with 60 percent of the vote — wasn’t technically about leaving the euro,
even though the debate was framed that way. Rather, Tsipras hoped it would
strengthen Syriza’s negotiating hand (in the event of an Oxi vote) with the
Troika.
“We will
not use this mandate to clash with Europe but
to strengthen our negotiating powers so we can achieve a better deal,” he told
the media at the time.
The plan
backfired. The Troika ignored the vote. And as a result, so did Tsipras.
One week
after telling the Greek people to “Turn your back on those who would terrorize
you” and voting Oxi, Tsipras signed off the austerity measures he had just won
yet another mandate to oppose.
Tsipras’s
political maneuvering stood in stark contrast to Varoufakis, who was forced to
resign. He later said he quit because he was “not going to be party to” what he
called a “humanitarian crisis” by signing Greece up for more austerity.
In episode
four of the documentary, Varoufakis said that at the time, he felt “as if the
earth had imploded from under my feet.”
“I felt
incredible sadness and a sense of having betrayed the 62 percent of Greeks who
with astonishing courage went out against the powers that be, against the media
that were terrorizing them in their living rooms through their television and
radio channels every day, against the closed banks against the ECB, against the
Troika,” Varoufakis said. “I felt we betrayed them and I don’t think we had the
historical right to do that.”
Varoufakis
was replaced as finance minister by Euclid Tsakalotos, who tells Mason he has
“proper red lines” in negotiations with the Troika.
“We won’t
do something that reduces wages and pensions,” he added.
Just two
weeks later, new finance minister Tsakalotos signed up to the Troika’s harsh
austerity measures, which include pension cuts, tax rises and privatizations.
3. Tsipras
believes the eurozone feared a domino effect if it cut Greece any
slack
What
eurozone leaders really feared was Greece setting an example for other
indebted eurozone countries to follow, Tsipras said.
“I think
that they did what they did to us, not only [did they do it] because they
didn’t like us, but because they didn’t want to have a domino effect in other
countries,” he said.
Yet Tsipras
doesn’t believe it was a mistake to raise the hopes of the Greek people by
holding a referendum which he declared at one point would “cancel the
bailout…and…put an end to the Troika.”
“[The
eventual outcome] was not a good development,” Tsipras told Mason. “But the
fact that these people had the right, had the chance to express their feelings
and to feel dignity was something very important. This was historical times for
Greece
and for Greek people.”
4. Syriza
did what radical parties do: fail to meet sky-high expectations
If the
documentary tells us anything, it’s that the sheer level of the hope invested
in Syriza — by ordinary Greeks as well as by left-wing idealists — was
misplaced from the start.
“The Greek
people believed they could beat austerity by voting against it,” Mason said in
the film. “Europe gave them a choice:
surrender control or we destroy your economy.”
However,
the mistake on the part of Syriza was a mistake common to the far-left. It
assumed that previous governments did bad things — in this case, implementing
austerity — because they were bad people, rather than because they were dealt
an impossible hand by the eurozone. As the Syriza journalist Anastasia Giamali
revealingly tells Mason in the film, “I’m not sure we were completely aware of
the severity of the position that the creditors are following.”
When Syriza
eventually capitulated to its debtors — just as its predecessors in PASOK had
done — the height from which it crashed back down to earth was made all the
more precipitous by its previously uncompromising anti-austerity rhetoric.
You might
call what Tsipras ultimately did a betrayal. You might also say that he looked
over the precipice and, much like Greece ’s “establishment” parties
before him, took a giant step back.
5. #Hashtag
activism has its limits
As soon as
it became clear that Tsipras had caved in to the demands of Greece ’s eurozone
creditors, Twitter was aflame with angry denunciations of the Troika and
accusations that Tsipras had “betrayed” the Greek people. According to the
film, around one billion people — almost one seventh of the entire population
of the world — saw the hash tag #ThisIsACoup.
They saw it
and yet nothing happened — they just saw it. The final lesson from
#ThisIsACoup, then? Understand the limits of hashtag activism, or Slacktivism,
as it is sometimes known.
#ThisIsACoup
will be released free as four daily online episodes from December 15 to 18.
James
Bloodworth is a columnist for the International Business Times.
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