There still exists – even today – a yearning, a nostalgia for European solidarity, a solidarity of European culture. Regrettably, solidarity itself no longer exists, except in hearts, in consciences, in the minds of a few great men at the heart of each nation. European consciousness – or what one might call a ‘cultural European awareness’ – had been on the wane for years ever since the awakening of national identity. You could say that patriotism has killed Europe. Joseph Roth, On the End of the World (first published in 1933).
Late last month 28.9% of Austrians voted for the Freedom Party (FPÖ) led by Herbert Kickl, an avowedly anti-migrant, anti-Islamic party, founded in the 1950s by former Nazis. The governing conservative Austrian People’s Party (ÖVP) gained 27.5% lost 20 seats, while its coalition partner, the Greens received 8.2%, losing 10 seats. In third place, the centre-left Social Democratic Party (SPÖ) received 21.1%, marking its worst result ever. In fourth place, the liberal NEOS increased its share to 9.1%.
We can only hope that the conservatives do not enter into a coalition with Kickl’s party as Hindenburg did with Hitler’s Nazi party. Perhaps a Dutch solution will at least dilute the forces of darkness. Kickl was formerly the speech writer of the now-deceased long-time leader of the Freedom Party, Jörg Haider, but Kickl is far less ambiguous in his pronouncements than his former boss.
What’s clear is that the far right is on the rise across Europe, Ireland and the world. My own childhood in Ireland, as a half-Austrian, not unlike Hugo Hamilton’s experience as recounted in his autobiography The Speckled People, involved casual racism and bullying on account of my background.
At one level Austria is among the most cultured of nations. So, I defend it. Ma Vlast as Smetana said about Czech Bohemia, albeit a defensive posture often leads to a failure in understanding. Why Kickl? What is the Austrian Mind that has created this?
Mozart family, c. 1780 (della Croce); the portrait on the wall is of Mozart’s mother.
Mozart of Salzburg
My family, who I am close to, hail from Salzburg, home of the Fespiele. Mozart was, of course, born in Salzburg where a little museum glorifies his brief tenure on Earth. Mozart’s music combines lyricism, frivolity and profundity in equal parts. What it points to in the human condition is not just chocolate-box fripperies, or the texture of lightness that is Eine Kleine Nachtmusik,but the darkness therein. Darkness threads through the Austrian mind, juxtaposed with light.
Thus, Don Giovanni is about the destructive powers of rakish satanism, also evident in Stefan Zweig’s arguably best book beautifully filmed by Max Ophuls’ Letters from an Unknown Women.
In Mozart also the incomparable Magic Flute splendidly rendered into film by IngmarBergman, is in effect about the dubious justification of freemasonry to which Mozart belonged; and also, a cri de coeur, in praise of enlightened and benevolent monarchism against the vectors of state and, in particular, church authoritarianism. This assertion of a wise moderation against extremism resonates today.
The great enfant terrible of Austrian letters and its greatest post-war writer Thomas Bernhard was gloriously insulting about Austria. His masterpiece Woodcutters (1984) is about a man in a chair at a party sipping Champagne. Letting fly at Austrian bourgeois hypocrisy, he says:
Everything about you, everything you are, has always been pretence, never genuine, never real.
In his will, Bernhard ordered that none of his works should be performed in Austria. This has been deliberately avoided. All cultures have their tropes.
Culturally, Austrians, along with the Irish and British, have far too close a relationship with kitsch. The Merry Widowlight operetta, like a jaded ritual, is still performed in the Lehrer Theatre in Bad Ischl and elsewhere. The Blue Danube is not unlike a classic Britpop song.
The great Herman Brochwas fascinated by kitsch, linking it correctly to a decline in values:
The maker of kitsch does not create inferior art, he is not an incompetent or a bungler, he cannot be evaluated by aesthetic standards; rather, he is ethically depraved, a criminal willing radical evil. And since it is radical evil that is manifest here, evil per se, forming the absolute negative pole of every value-system, kitsch will always be evil, not just kitsch in art, but kitsch in every value-system that is not an imitation system.”
In some respects, the triumph of kitsch paves the way for Nazism, as Broch and indeed Robert Musil have both argued. Radical evil and bad art is evident in our age too. This is a kind of camp fascism which Susan Sontag also identified.
Beethoven was of course German, but lived and died in Vienna. His darkness is a counterpart to Mozart’s light. His deafness influences the isolated pessimism of the later atonal dark sonatas, and are close to the finality of expression in musical terms that Beckett created in language.
His final string quartet is integral to Dr Faustus by Thomas Mann, where the satanic composer, modelled on Heidegger, sells his soul to the devil.
I have found that it must not be. The good and the noble, what they call the human, even though it is good and noble, what men have fought for, have stormed citadels for, and in their moment of fulfilment, have jubilant proclaimed it is not to be. It is not to be, it will be taken back. I will take it back.
Mann, the great German conservative, had the moral integrity to decamp to the U.S. and to Switzerland, buta crucial point to appreciate is that conservatism is not all bad if it conserves the good and the ethical too. So, the Christian Democrats in Austria have a stark choice, whether to embrace satanism or not.
Sleepwalkers
The rise of Nazism is also anticipated brilliantly in Broch’s The Sleepwalkers, one of the great novels of Austrian heritage. In the character of Hugenau, a man solely motivated by profit – homo economicus to use the term favoured by the nefarious law and economics movement in Chicago – we have a real sense in 1918 of a brutalised generation containing the seeds of fascism. The book culminates in the murder of a journalist and the rape of his wife.
This is akin to neoliberal Europe today where meaningful journalism has been effectively killed and defiled, as state-sponsored criminals launch hatred at ‘the other.’ Off with their heads, or to Rwanda, or now Albania.
The legendary Austrian filmmaker Michael Haneke in The White Ribbon, based in pre-war Germany at the turn of the twentieth, demonstrated how damage had been done to a whole generation by a cruel form of authoritarianism. Today, social media has augmented the problem of semi-literacy. Strange fruit, as Billie Holiday would say, is ready for demonisation. In Ireland the neoliberal governing parties have generated the social conditions for riots and a new decadence.
As for Italy, the land of Fellini and Da Vinci, where the far-right mayor of Monfalcone near Joycean Trieste has banned cricket as she does not like Bangladeshi people in her town; they only play cricket she says and contribute nothing. The fact that such football clubs as AC Milan was originally a cricket club seems lost on her. Mayor Anna Maria Casing, elected on an anti-immigration platform is now an MEP. Her far-right colleague, prime minister Meloni prosecuted Roberto Saviano the legendary journalist for calling her a bastard over her immigration policies.
So, Austria is not alone in its infamy.
The darkly pessimistic Herman Broch shows how the far right and populism go hand-in-hand with hatred:
It is always he, unfortunate wretch, who assumes the role of executioner in the process of value-disintegration, and on the day when the trumpets of judgment sound it is the man released from all values who becomes the executioner of a world that has pronounced its own sentence.
The Rathaus (City Hall), the seat of the local government.
Golden Age
The golden age of Vienna ended peremptorily with the dismembering of the Austrian empire, after the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand at Sarajevo sparked the inferno of World War I, when leaders sleepwalked into war. This is the state of somnambulism that Broch also identified evident in Musil.
The word Kaakinen is Broch’s playful word for Vienna which, in effectively means shit. Thus, he writes in The Man Without Qualities:
Stupidity is active in every direction and can dress up in all the clothes of truth. Truth, on the other hand, has for every occasion only one dress and one path, and is always at a disadvantage.
In Zweig’s retroactive memoir The World of Yesterday there are references to Freud and Herzl (one of the founders of Zionism), among the titanic intellectual figures of pre-war Vienna. These are curiously name-dropped like the celebs of our time, but in a curious state of derealisation of how history is closing in. Freud, who was Austrian, died as an emigre from fascism in the U.K..
Whether the concept of hysteria is sexual or not, no doubt this is a hysterical age where all sorts of fantasises are being sublimated into nefarious activities and agendas – and indeed where persecution delusions are omnipresent. This leads to the scapegoating of immigrants.
Ludwig Wittgenstein, 1930.
The Sound of Silence
Ludwig Wittgenstein is central to our age of distortion and manipulative language. The fundamental achievement of his Tractatus is a recognition of the limitations of language. It can only show and represent, he argues, and, within limitations, clarify. Thus, language is context-specific, self-limiting and denuded of ethical and moral context.
Reading Wittgenstein, like reading Hemingway, Camus, and Beckett, clarifies how language should be used clearly, and is most useful for everyday life, but not ethics. The final line of the Tractatus has acquired a mythical status: ‘What we cannot speak about we must pass over in silence.’
Silence is important, but when we can speak let us speak out ethically. A recent Austrian Nobel laureate is Peter Handke is a great writer, though not in Thomas Bernhard’s league. Handke’s flirtation with the Serbian cause, however well-intentioned and misconstrued, leave a degree of doubt, given the Austrian mindset, but there is a rich warm humanism in his work.
Handke argues you must create silence or, rather, the effect of silence, through words.A Sorrow Beyond Dreams his recent recollections of his mother’s suicide is jaw-dropping, and among the best books published in the last ten years. So let us create the silence of words, before it is too late.
Feature Image ‘Avenue in the park of Schloss Kammer’ produced by Austrian artist Gustav Klimt in 1912 whilst he was living near the village of Unterach on the southern shore of lake Attersee in Austria.
For the Irish, living as we do on a divided island, the question doesn’t have to be facetious. As a negative example, to try to land on a positive answer, Northern Ireland comes to mind. Wherever that congenitally deformed statelet ends up, its passage through the twentieth century will form a storyline we will never stop arguing about. God bless us.
Lebanon, where I lived briefly from January 2011, is a mystifying and compelling organism.
Were it on the seafloor, it would be brightly coloured, shape-shifting and perhaps equipped with a defensive poison. A territory carved out of the Ottoman Empire via the secret Sykes-Picot Agreement of 1916 and the Paris Peace Conference of 1919, it formed with Syria the ‘French mandate’. It has held together against expectations, and enjoyed tangible golden ages through the same century-long lifespan as our post-colonial Ireland.
At the Beittedine Palace, 2011.
The local cultures, which still roughly map onto the religious arrangements of the confessional political system, have incredibly deep roots. I say ‘cultures’ and ‘roughly’ because this is a land where people will seriously make the case that they are the direct descendants of the Phoenicians, if not the Canaanites. Some of the ingredients here are antiquated enough to make monotheism look like a recent fad.
Other claims include references to identifiable cities and mythologized landscapes in ancient history that remain traceable today: the cedar tree that appears on the flag is of the stock used to build the Jewish Temple, and the forests are referred to in the Epic of Gilgamesh.
In cities like Batroun, Saida and Sur, the phantoms and visible stubs of Phoenician harbours can still be observed. Compressed between the plains and deserts leading to Mesopotamia, and the coastal route to the Nile and Egypt, it has produced merchants and travellers over the millennia. The Lebanese diaspora may number seventy million.
Beirut’s Green Line after the Civil War.
To live in Beirut at the time I did, was, I now realize, a taste of a brief golden age all on its own. One of the clichés that had to be learned was the fable of the glorious 1950s and 1960s: the period after the Second World War and before the domestic civil war, when the traditional merchant classes were joined by elite émigres from other parts of the defunct empire to create prosperity. They became ‘bankers to the Middle East,’ a role now occupied by Dubai.
Wealthy post-Ottoman families that retreated there included the Sursocks, who would form a link to Ireland, and Jewish families from Iraq and beyond. Nadim Shehadi, the guest speaker on our latest podcast, is a product of the cosmopolitan confidence of that time.
Sursock Palace before the explosion of 2020.
In 2011, the Arab Spring was triggered by events in Tunisia the week I arrived. Through connections, I had the opportunity to meet the renowned journalist Robert Fisk for coffee, and as we sat in a place on Sadat Street, the TV in the corner was flashing images of Mohamed Bouazizi burning. I had been reading about the story, and Fisk hadn’t, so for a few minutes I was the one explaining events to him.
My journalistic Larp brought me up and down the country. No-one ever called me out on it. I wrote one story for the Daily Star, the Saad Hariri-sponsored newspaper, about a scheme to write essays and theses for brattish students at the American University of Beirut. My real job was writing multiple choice questions for a rich private school and educational company.
I had a blast. Young and hopeful journalists were everywhere, and the dismal course of that profession, with Facebook annihilating the business side and ISIS looming into view with plans to cast them in their snuff movies, was not yet obvious.
One young English writer I knew noted that “the next few years are looking pretty good for work.” She might have been right, but that sort of attitude, shared by the foot soldiers of the international NGOs, was already watering seeds of uncommon bitterness among the Lebanese. Their rivers of trouble were sources of fresh water for well-paid and often decadent hordes of expats. One wonders how high the shoots might have grown by now.
At the moment of the horrific Port explosion of 2020, I was living in Paris. A Lebanese woman I knew there, a filmmaker[1] and activist, called me briefly, with her voice inflamed from sobbing. “Really Luke, what have we done to deserve all this?”
Sursock Palace after the explosion of 2020.
Add to this the financial collapse which wiped out savings and plummeted the domestic currency, the Syrian refugee influx which increased the population by at least 30%, the pandemic pains and now a very possible Hezbollah-Israel war, and you might have a country that even her most ardent lovers will leave. Who will stay, and who will join the seventy million-strong diaspora? What cause for hope might persist?
One of the characters I met during my time there was Nadim, during a dinner at the palace of the Sursocks in Gemmayzeh. With characteristic Lebanese curiosity and openness, he simply stayed in touch with me, a random person who had breezed through then strayed very far from Beirut, like most of our overconfident cohort running around at the time.
One also wonders, incidentally, whatever happened to all those little girls and boys?
[1]Of course she was, and is. Her first films were beautiful, artful, personal things shot through with a heatwave of avant garde, mostly concerned with her much-traumatized locality of the Shia south. Some recent work is here.
SYRIZA’s rise to power in 2015 created shock waves around the world. The international Left celebrated a victory that seemed unfathomable a few years earlier. Its electoral triumph gained even more attention than it otherwise would have, because the stakes surrounding it were exceptionally high.
The Coalition of the Radical Left, as is the meaning of the acronym, was about to engage in a crucial and tough negotiation with the E.U. and particularly Germany, regarding Greece’s debt. The party had been elected after promising to take a much harder stance in these negotiations. Analysts around the world were warning that this clash could endanger the global economy.
Nine years later, this once mighty political force that scared the world’s financial establishment, now lies in ruins. Poll after poll shows its electoral support diminishing. Opinion polls consistently show it to be in third place, trailing PASOK (Panhellenic Socialist Movement) by a small but steady difference. It is now perilously close to single digits.
Furthermore, after two recent splits (not counting the one in 2015, which will be mentioned later), and the clear and present possibility of a third one looming, it appears to have fallen into complete disarray internally, as its recent, almost farcical, convention exposed. To fully understand the trajectory of its downfall, however, we need to return to the historical context that created its rise.
José Manuel Barroso and Kostas Karamanlis in Dublin in 2004.
There is [plenty of] money…
In October, 2009, Kostas Karamanlis, president of the right wing Nea Dimokratia, the ruling party at the time, called an early election, after his party lost ground in the European elections in June of that year. In his election campaign the Prime Minister, who had been ruling Greece since 2004, was very open about the necessity of taking significant austerity measures.
On the opposite side, Giorgos Papandreou, president of the centrist party PASOK, the main opposition at the time, just a month before the election, in September 2009, uttered the phrase that was going to become emblematic in the years that followed: ‘There is [plenty of] money…’
Naturally, PASOK won in a landslide, taking 44% of the vote, while Nea Dimokratia subsided to a mere 33.5%. It is important to note that SYRIZA was the last party to enter the parliament in this election with only 4.6% of the vote. Soon after his emphatic victory, however, Giorgos Papandreou had to face the grim reality of Greece’s problematic economy within the context of an unraveling global crisis, its perpetually rising debt, as well as a rising deficit, and probably worst of all, the cold determination of key players in the EU to make an example of Greece, as a means of enforcing hard line fiscal discipline across the Union.
On April 23, 2010, a mere few months after taking office, the PM made an historic announcement, from the picturesque island of Kastelorizo, at the far end of Greece.
In it, he explained that the real volume of the deficit of 2009 had just been exposed. The previous numbers had been cooked up it was revealed, which led to the coining of the expression ‘Greek statistics.’ He continued to say that his government inherited ‘a ship that is ready to sink’ and that Greece was unable to borrow money from the markets on viable terms.
Hence, he had to ask for the activation of a support mechanism from the EU, which was the colonial-style loan agreement that became known as the Memorandum. What followed was an almost decade long period of havoc, that saw Greek living standards plummet, the welfare state dismantled, and a great number of strategic national assets being sold off.
The worst shock for the citizens of Greece was in the beginning, which gave rise to massive popular protest movements, fierce clashes between demonstrators and police and a broadly acquired culture of disdain towards the political establishment. In this turbulent political climate, where governments formed and dissolved repeatedly, the two traditional big parties kept losing ground and PASOK in particular, saw its electoral base being gradually dissolved. SYRIZA, led by the young and charismatic Alexis Tsipras started gaining momentum.
Alexis Tsipras in 2008.
Leftwards
The disillusioned and desperate voters of PASOK were increasingly turning to the Left, where an up-and-coming new leader was promising another way out of the crisis, with better terms and more dignity. In the elections of May 2012, Nea Dimokratia won a Pyrrhic victory with a meager 18.8% of the vote. SYRIZA breached the traditional two-party system by coming in a close second on 16.8%, and PASOK dropped into third place with 13.2%. This was also the first time the unashamedly Nazi Golden Dawn party entered the parliament with 7%.
These results didn’t allow for the formation of a government, so a second election was swiftly called. In June 2012, Nea Dimokratia won the election again, this time with 29.6% of the vote. SYRIZA came a close second again with 26.9%, and PASOK dropped a bit further down to 12.3%. Nea Dimokratia was then able to form a coalition government with PASOK and another smaller party, but the old two-party system was thoroughly broken, and SYRIZA had by now cemented its place as the main opposition party. As the Memorandum policies tore apart Greek livelihoods, it seemed only a matter of time before the Left would win the next election.
That time arrived two and a half years later. In January 2015, after relentlessly campaigning against the Memorandum Agreements (there were three by now), Alexis Tsipras became the first Prime Minister to come from the traditional Left in Greek history. SYRIZA won the election with 36.3% of the vote and formed a coalition government with an ‘anti-Memorandum’ populist right wing party. Meanwhile, PASOK’s share collapsed to 4.7%.
Negotiations with the Troika
The rest is history as we say in these cases, implying that most people remember at least the gist of what happened. SYRIZA went on to try and renegotiate the Memorandum with the so-called ‘Troika’ (European Commission, European Central Bank and International Monetary Fund). This effort was spearheaded by the eccentric economy professor Yanis Varoufakis, but stumbled upon the unrelenting determination of people such as Germany’s Minister of Economy at the time, Wolfgang Schäuble, to create an emphatic cautionary tale, by steamrolling Greece and even pursuing its expulsion from the Euro currency, a scenario which became known as “Grexit” at the time.
After six months of futile negotiations, on June 27, Alexis Tsipras decided to call a referendum on the agreement proposal presented by Jean-Claude Juncker on behalf of the ‘Institutions’ – which was simply a new label used for the Troika, a shift in semantics, arguably, of very little substance.
This referendum was never meant to be about Greece leaving the Eurozone and technically the question was not that, but it was widely presented as such, inside and outside Greece. It was perceived that if the Greeks voted ‘NO,’ that would lead to a head on collision with the EU, which would in turn end up in Grexit. This might have been the case indeed, if the SYRIZA government had held its hard line to the end.
On July 5, 2015, Greek voters overwhelmingly rejected the Troika proposal, with NO getting 61.3% of the vote, while YES received 38.7%. The next day, Yanis Varoufakis, who was a proponent of the hard line, filed his resignation from the Economic Ministry, as requested by Alexis Tsipras. This was meant to be seen as a token of good will towards the Institutions, but was mostly interpreted as a first step towards capitulation.
On July 12, after seventeen hours of negotiations, Greece came to an agreement with the Institutions, effectively signing a new Memorandum, with similarly harsh terms to the ones rejected in the Referendum, leaving many in Greece, and around the world, to wonder, to this day, what was the point of it. Essentially, the SYRIZA government and Alexis Tsipras had completely capitulated.
To be fair, this was done under immense pressure from the Institutions, particularly the EU ones, whose stance during the final stage of the negotiations amounted to a threat of total economic war. On the other hand, however, that stance was entirely foreseeable.
Yanis Varoufakis.
The First Split
After the capitulation came SYRIZA’s first split. On July 15, the first part of the new Memorandum was voted into law by the Parliament, thanks to the votes of opposition MPs, after 32 of SYRIZA’s MPs voted against it, including three Ministers. Others had already resigned.
Alexis Tsipras was then compelled to call an early election, which was held on September 20. He managed to win this election again with 35.5% of the vote, and form a coalition government with the same right wing populist party. Importantly, a new party formed by the dissidents from SYRIZA, who voted against the memorandum, didn’t manage to get more than 3% of the vote and was left without parliamentary representation.
SYRIZA was able to snatch victory in that second election of 2015, as the wrath of the public against the old political establishment was still warm, but also after getting rid of its ‘far-’Left faction, which was more open to examining Grexit scenarios. Thus, the party had effectively made its first pivot towards the political centre, notably retaining the bulk of the former PASOK voters that brought it into government.
At the same time, however, the glass had cracked, as the popular Greek expression goes. The party had received a massive dent to its credibility, which had not matured sufficiently to find expression in those very early elections. The path forward though, was going be one of gradual, albeit constant attrition.
Thereafter, SYRIZA’s rule was full of challenges, imposed by the memorandum, which finally reached a point of completion in 2018, although many (Yanis Varoufakis for instance) would argue that there are still commitments in place that bind Greece for decades to come. Regardless, Alexis Tsipras celebrated what he proclaimed to be the end of the memorandum era and tried to present that as a successful outcome from his administration. His time in office, however, was heavily tainted by the terrible tragedy in Mati, on July 23, 2018, where a wildfire claimed the lives of 102 citizens, in what was seen as a gigantic failure of crisis management by the State.
On July 7, 2019, SYRIZA lost the election, but not as badly as many had anticipated. Nea Dimokratia won decisively with 39.8% of the vote, and was able to form a single-party government, but SYRIZA came in second with 31.5%, thus maintaining the status quo of it being the other major party in the new two-party system. At the same time though, PASOK had managed to regain some ground, coming in third place with 8.1%.
After the defeat, Tsipras announced there would be a reorganization of the party, with more involvement, and also an increase in membership. He therefore presented plans that would make the party more inclusive, which also meant politically more inclusive, so that it would represent the whole spectrum of the Left to Centre-Left and would be appealing to the middle class, which had been heavily taxed during his administration. This was met with some resistance and begrudgery from a big section of the rank and file, namely the old guard of the traditional New Left.
The leader of Nea Dimokratia, Kyriakos Mitsotakis, became the new Prime Minister, continuing a Greek tradition of dynastic families dominating politics, as his father had been Prime Minister in the early nineties. His administration was riddled with numerous scandals and fiascoes and was also seen as autocratic, with brazen disregard for the Rule of Law. Many would argue that it is the most radical right wing administration the counrty has witnessed since the military dictatorship (1967-1974).
It was also tainted by a terrible tragedy, the train collision at Tempi, which claimed the lives of fifty-seven citizens, mostly young people. Therefore, it came as a massive surprise, including to the politicians and voters of Nea Dimokratia, that in the recent elections they won by an unprecedented landslide, while SYRIZA as the main opposition suffered one of the most comprehensive defeats in the history of the Greek parliament. Twice!
On May 21, 2023, Nea Dimokratia won the elections with 40.8% of the vote, a 1% increase on 2019, crushing SYRIZA with a double score, as they came in second with 20.1%. PASOK regained some more ground, establishing itself in third place by raising its share to 11.5%, and has since been considered to be back in the game. These elections could not easily produce a government, as they were held by the ‘simple proportional’ system, that was voted into law by SYRIZA during its rule.
According to many pundits, this was one of SYRIZA’s most critical failures. They legislated for the simple proportional system – a long-standing demand of the Left – but they were unable to navigate its consequences. This system doesn’t give any extra seats to the first party, so it makes it almost mandatory to form a coalition government with other parties.
SYRIZA was unable to convince the electorate that they would be able to secure such a coalition agreement, as they confronted the stern refusal of PASOK to leave that window open, as well as the Varoufakis party and the Communist party. The right-wing populist party that had been their partner in government before, didn’t even exist by then. So, isolated by the rest of the Left, they ended up falling victim to their own law, while at the same time creating the impression that such left-wing ideas sound more democratic in theory, but are dysfunctional in practice.
Nea Dimokratia wanted to achieve a single party government and seeing this was entirely within their reach, they instantly opted for a repeat election, which would be held with the old system which provides an up to fifty seat bonus to the party in first place. Nea Dimokratia had already voted this ‘boosted proportional’ system back into law in 2020, but when the election system changes, it comes into effect after the next election.
The campaign period was very short. The repeat elections were to be held over just a month. The results of the May elections had taken absolutely everyone by surprise. No polling was able to predict this. In fact, it was the first time anyone could remember in a long where the polling was not seriously favouring the right wing faction.
The shock was numbing for SYRIZA politicians and supporters. There was very little time and very low morale to be able to make any drastic changes for a more effective campaign. A second electoral humiliation seemed inevitable, and the main sentiment was fear that the second defeat would be even worse. And it was.
On June 25, 2023, Nea Dimokratia won with 40.6% of the vote, and formed a single party government, while SYRIZA lost even more ground, getting 17.8%. PASOK made very little gains, coming in third with 11.8%, but found itself closer to second place, affirming its comeback, after sinking into near oblivion eight years earlier.
President Joe Biden greets Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis, Monday, May 16, 2022, in the Oval Office. (Official White House Photo by Adam Schultz)
Resignation of Alexis Tsipiras
After such an unmitigated disaster, it was inevitable that Alexis Tsipras should resign. He didn’t do so immediately, but a few days later, fueling conspiracy theories down the line.
Many supporters and colleagues tried to dissuade him, as it seemed unthinkable to replace him. He was the leader who drove the party from barely entering the parliament, to governing the country in the space of a few years. There was almost a cult of personality around him, which persists to this day among a broad section of left-wing voters. But no leader, no matter how historic, could bear the weight of what had just happened. So, on June 29, after being president of SYRIZA for fifteen years, Alexis Tsipras resigned, leaving the party in even further disarray.
An internal election was called to elect a new president. In July, four candidacies were submitted to the party Central Committee. These candidates represented different fractions within SYRIZA and the different approaches within the reorganization and the political direction of the party in the future.
Efklidis Tsakalotos, a former minister of the economy, was the candidate representing the old guard of the New Left, the generation that broke away from the Communist Party after the split of 1968. They had been pushing back for years against the agenda of pivoting further to the centre.
Representing the aforementioned centrist agenda was Nikos Papas, the former right-hand man to Alexis Tsipras, a former Minister for State, as well as Minister of Digital Policy, Telecommunications and Media. He is probably the most Machiavellian figure to emerge out of the Greek Left in several decades.
Between the two, politically, was a female politician that had risen to prominence within SYRIZA’s rank and file. Well-educated, rather moderate, but still representing the Left, Effie Achtsioglou is a former Minister of Labor, Social Security and Social Solidarity. She became the clear favorite to win the race.
Finally, a fourth candidate entered the fray as a dark horse – the seventy-seven-year-old Stefanos Tzoumakas, a former minister from the old PASOK administration of the 1980s, which had been much more left-leaning in policies than the PASOK of the mid-1990.
This internal election was scheduled to take place in September, meaning most of the campaigning would take place in the summer. Given that timing, on top of the destroyed morale from the preceding national election, the trajectory of the campaign seemed very idle and ultimately grim. There was no hype, no discussions, no passionate political argumentation, no media coverage, and not much interest if truth be told.
It felt as if hardly anyone cared about this election and there was serious concern that the whole process would take place very quietly, with Effie Achtsioglou being elected after an embarrassingly low turn-out, undermining her position from the beginning. Her victory was considered a certainty, as polling showed her to be very far ahead of the other three candidates.
Stefanos Kasselakis.
A Twist in the Tale
Then out of the blue in late August, a massive twist in the tale occurred. It took most people by surprise, but there had been assiduous preparations going on under the radar during SYRIZA’s idle summer of wound licking. A young, rich and handsome, gay Greek businessman who had been a resident of the USA since adolescence –previously working for Goldman Sachs and being a ship owner – who had only very, very recently joined the party, started getting a lot of traction on social media in the last days of August, making TikTok-like videos with political statements.
Rumors started spreading among SYRIZA supporters that an almost messianic figure had come from America to save the party. It escalated very quickly until finally, on August 29, ten days before the internal elections were scheduled to take place, Stefanos Kasselakis announced his candidacy to the Greek people by means of a viral video (and also with much less fanfare a few days later, through the official party process).
Έχω επίγνωση ότι δε διαθέτω κομματική προϋπηρεσία. Η προϋπηρεσία μου είναι στην εργασία, στην κοινωνική ζωή. Η υποψηφιότητα που τώρα θέτω δείχνει έναν άλλο δρόμο: Από την κοινωνία και για την κοινωνία. Αρκετές γενιές χάθηκαν. Είναι ώρα να φτιάξουμε το Ελληνικό Όνειρο που τόσο… pic.twitter.com/cUejwTOany
— Stefanos Kasselakis – Στέφανος Κασσελάκης (@skasselakis) August 29, 2023
The stagnant waters of the internal election suddenly turned into a full-blown tempest and took the spotlight of media coverage, even monopolizing the headlines for many days. This guy who had seemingly appeared out of nowhere, was exclaiming that he was the one who could beat Mitsotakis, and appeared to pose the only credible threat to Efi Achtsiolou after the resignation of Alexis Tsipras.
Most of the party cadre were taken aback, especially as, despite his enormous clout, he didn’t seem to have the support of any of the party’s prominent MP’s. Except one that is. Pavlos Polakis has been a very particular character within SYRIZA. Known for his abrupt manners, coarse rhetoric and polemic stance against the Mitsotakis administration, he was passionately loved by a significant section of the party’s supporters and fiercely hated by his political opponents. Often labeled ‘toxic’ by his opponents, a label which may have even appealed to some of his own supporters.
Polakis had previously disagreed with the decisions around the process of succession back in July, and, although he was widely expected to, had not submit a candidacy for the internal election. Now it seemed that he had figured out another plan altogether.
Other than their common Cretan ancestry, the somewhat aristocratic Kasselakis and Polakis seemed a very odd couple. And yet, from the beginning, Kasselakis was being labeled ‘the Polakis candidate.’ Among the thirty members of the central committee that signed endorsements for Kasselakis’ submission of candidacy, there was only two current and six former MPs. Except Polakis, most of them were largely unknown to the general public.
The rank and file of the party was instantly rather suspicious of the American-bred newcomer, his dramatic entrance and his precipitous rise in popularity. The other candidates and their supporters within the party also quickly expressed their reservations. Except Nikos Pappas.
In retrospect, it’s tempting to think that he never seemed as fazed as everyone else. For one thing, Kasselakis soon made it clear that he represented the ‘pivot to the Center, so we can govern again’ line, with a twist of American modernity. He spoke about ‘the Greek dream,’ the ‘modern, patriotic Left,’ ‘healthy entrepreneurship’ and other rather centrist-sounding rhetoric. Indeed, he had already written an article back in July, calling for SYRIZA to become a Greek version of the Democratic Party of the USA. But his wildest statements were yet to come.
After the initial shock, and the realization that this guy was not a joke, but was in fact, getting significant traction among the desperate and disillusioned SYRIZA voters, the criticism began, and got gradually harsher.
The old guard, the remaining left wing of the (increasingly less) left-wing party, was the first and loudest to react. Tsakalotos and his supporters labeled him ‘a phenomenon of meta-politics,’ ‘TikTok politician’ and accused him of wanting to abolish the left-wing character of the party.
Meanwhile, various revelations about Kasselakis’ past started circulating, fueling resentment against him among the traditional Left. Articles and speeches by him were uncovered from no more than a decade before, where he expressed openly neoliberal views, even praising Mitsotakis specifically.
Stefanos Tzoumakas completely unloaded against him with raging rhetoric, but he had very little influence, as he was nothing more than a cult figure in the race. Effie Achtsioglou was more reserved in expressing her doubts around his suitability, albeit she eventually did. Nikos Pappas on the other hand, merely welcomed him in the race, saying that new candidacies would bring more attention to the race.
He got that right for sure. This election had hardly even making it into the news, but after Kasselakis’ appearance, his candidacy became a primary focus of the news media. This was only interrupted by the catastrophic flooding in Thessalia, which was also a reason to delay the first round of the election by one week, to September 17, thus giving Kasselakis more time to unfold his communication strategy.
Effie Achtsioglou.
Social Media
What played a critical and rather shady role in this whole affair was social media. It had been mostly word of mouth and social media rumours among members throughout the summer, that many prominent party cadre and MPs had been undermining Tsipras in various ways and had invested in his defeat in order to replace him, cancel his plans for broadening the political framework of the party towards the centre and take back control of the party. This was especially directed at the traditional Left faction, coming mostly, but not exclusively, from former PASOK supporters that had joined the party at the time of the Memorandum.
There was also, however, apart from the informal channels, a certain digital tabloid media outlet, called Periodista, that consistently peddled that precise narrative, sometimes even boasting ‘you’re not going to read this anywhere else.’ The owner and chief editor of Periodista, Dimitris Bekiaris, is widely considered to be a stooge of Nikos Pappas, who had, among other things, given him an enviable position in the public service under his Ministry, back in 2015.
In September 2023, these rumors and conspiracy theories spiraled out of control on social media, with very well known and prolific SYRIZA twitter accounts raging against the ‘nomenclature’ in favor of Kasselakis. Many people with inside knowledge of the party’s higher echelons, would swear, mostly in private, that the informal communication apparatus of SYRIZA in social media had always been controlled by Nikos Pappas.
This rumor mill peaked just a few hours before the first round of the election.
On Saturday, midnight, September 16, Nikos Manesiotis, a journalist largely unknown to most people until that point, but highly controversial since then, published anarticle, where he claimed that Efi Achtsioglou sent an sms to Alexis Tsipras the night of the second defeat pushing him to resign.
Very quick to reproduce that article was Dimitris Bekiaris, through his tabloid. So quick in fact, that either by a typing error or some dubious miracle, the article appears until today to have been reproduced before it was publishedin the original Manesiotis outlet. The aforementioned SYRIZA twitter accounts picked it up and waved it like a pitchfork. The news spread like wildfire and became the headline of the day. The day of the election that is.
Kasselakis won the first round with 44.9%, gaining a serious advantage for the second round against Achtsioglou who got 36.2%. At the lower end of the same clash, Tsakalotos came in third with 8.8%, followed closely by Pappas who got 8.6%. Tzoumakas got 1.3%.
The next day Pappas got behind Kasselakis and Tsakalotos behind Achtsioglou.
The two camps were set for the second round that would come after one week.
On September 19, one of the closest associates of Alexis Tsipras, Thanasis Karteros, wrote an article in Avgi, the official SYRIZA newspaper, where he completely dispelled the sms conspiracy theory, using notably scathing language. describing: ‘Lies, provocations, revelations from the intestines about malicious sms, that neither the receiver, nor anyone else was aware of, until we were enlightened by the rats of the internet.’
But it was too late. The election campaign was muddied and any notion of the truth had been relativised by the proliferation of incessant trolling polemic in social media.
Kasselakis Victorious
On Sunday, September 24, Stefanos Kasselakis won the second round with 56.7% of the vote, against 43.3% for Efi Achtsioglou and a new day dawned for the Greek Left. A pretty grim day so far. To be fair, Kasselakis appeared to make an effort to reconcile the different factions of the party, but the chasm was too deep. He immediately offered Achtsioglou any position she might want in the new reality of the party. Achtsioglou declined claiming she was ‘too exhausted’ to take on big responsibilities, which, admittedly sounded disingenuous, given she was contesting for the leadership of the party until the day before.
But the most acrimony kept coming from the Tsakalotos faction of the old guard. They were particularly triggered byKasselakis’s speech on October 10 at SEV, the Union of Greek Industrialists, where he introduced himself as a left-wing businessman and made remarks hardly distinguishable from a ‘trickle down’ narrative. He stated that ‘SYRIZA is passing to the next stage of its historical trajectory, where it does not demonize the word ‘capital,’ but sees it as a useful tool for prosperity.’ Going even further, he suggested that they should offer stock options to employees, something already previously proposed by Kyriakos Mitsotakis.
From that day on, it was a mere countdown before the first split. Or rather, the first stage of a two-stage split. A month later, on November 12, the Tsakalotos faction, including the majority of the prominent historical cadre of the old guard, announced its departure from SYRIZA with a strongly worded text of resignation. Two MPs and 45 members of the Central Committee left the party.
This had seemed inevitable for some time, and the supporters of the president didn’t appear very worried about it. It was seen by many of them, and definitely by the raging trolls on social media, as a politically hygienic purge, that would liberate the party from a burden holding it back. At the end of the day, they didn’t have enough MPs, or popular support, to create another party that could be competitive. The assumption was that they would soon be all but forgotten as a relic of the past. This had happened before and could be the case again, but the splitting was not complete yet.
Kasselakis and his entourage were hoping that they would merely get rid of the annoying, ideological old geezers, but keep the predominantly forty-something Achtsioglou faction within the party. But that was not how things turned out.
After his victory, Kasselakis became increasingly aggressive with those who he considered to be questioning his authority and were not keeping in line with his vision for the transformation of SYRIZA. He maintained a harder stance towards the Tsakalotos faction, which was expected to leave anyway, but his somewhat authoritarian style created discontent that spilled far beyond the old guard.
On November 23, 9 MPs and a total of fifty-seven party cadre from the Achtsioglou faction announcedtheir departure from SYRIZA, stating in their text that ‘Stefanos Kasselakis was elected democratically. But his course is undemocratic.’
The nine MPs declared themselves independent, and as had been speculated over the days before, they joined the other two MPs from the Tsakalotos faction, so that they could reach the minimum threshold of ten MPs necessary in the Greek Parliament to form a ‘parliamentary group,’ and enjoy institutional status and representation.
Thus, the two-stage split was completed and a new party was founded, called Nea Aristera (New Left). Its name was meant to point at its historical ideological origins, but also project the idea of a new beginning. The new political force found itself with little time to build an apparatus before the European elections, but with a ready-to-go parliamentary group.
Quite belligerently, Kasselakis labeled the Achtsioglou faction and the new party ‘defectors,’ and raged against them for not surrendering their seats back to SYRIZA. Their usual response was that the SYRIZA they were elected to didn’t exist any longer, and the new ‘Kasselakis party,’ as they labeled it, was hardly even left-wing any more.
Suitability for Prime Minister?
As time passed, the consequences of the acrimonious split started registering in the opinion polls. After the Christmas break and the new year, poll after poll was showing SYRIZA’s electoral influence waning and PASOK making gradual gains, until several of them started showing SYRIZA in third place with a tendency to reach single digits. At the same time, Kasselakis performance in the question of ‘suitability for Prime Minister,’ was staggeringly low, reaching just 4% in one poll.
This became yet another cause of friction and nagging within the party, as a shimmering question arose in everyone’s mind: What happens if SYRIZA performs as miserably as the polls suggest in the European -elections? There was a lingering murmur that Kasselakis would have to resign in that eventuality.It was in that climate that the party was heading towards its convention in late February.
On February 17, five days before the convention which was set to take place February 22-25, Kasselakis took an initiative that created yet more turmoil. Completely circumventing every party organ, he used his personal social media to ask members to log in to the digital platform SYRIZA, in order to fill in a questionnaire, with a rather provocative content.
Questions included whether SYRIZA should change its name and symbol and as whether it should identify as Left or Center-Left. The remaining rank and file of the party went ballistic over this and called for an immediate meeting of the political bureau, where Kasselakis was expected to explain his actions.
Kasselakis did not, however, attend the meeting on February 19, as he was in London. Instead, he sent a letter which left the assembly of the political bureau unimpressed, and which was characterized as patronizing. Party cadre who had supported him in the internal elections were now openly expressing their discontent about his behavior and even mentioning the possibility of replacing him.
Notably, Pavlos Polakis and Nikos Pappas both expressed criticism during that meeting. After the fallout of a two-fold split, the new president was once again being doubted and his leadership questioned. In response to that he made an unequivocal statement in London, during an event in LSE, that same evening, three days before the convention. After being asked if he would consider resigning if he lost in the European elections by more than twenty percentage points, he answered with a simple, unequivocal ‘No.’
The following day, Kasselakis returned to Athens and attended the second meeting of the political bureau, giving the members an ultimatum. He refused to be judged by the results of the European elections in June and asked the attendees to commit that they would not challenge his leadership for the next three years – all the way to the next national elections – regardless of how the party performed in June. Otherwise, he would call for another internal election. According to reportsthe response he got was that nobody can receive such a blank check and that this was an unprecedented request.
The next day, on the eve of the convention, some in the media described the meeting of the political bureau as a defeat for the new president, as he didn’t get the commitment he had asked for (only three members supported that request) and had to walk back his threat of an internal election. In any case there seemed to be some kind of compromise reached that members hoped would make the convention less contentious than it was projected to be with that last minute escalation. But another massive plot twist was about to take everyone aback and light a fire under the convention.
Dramatic Intervention
February 22, was the first day of the convention. It was set to begin at 6pm, with Stefanos Kasselakis giving his introductory speech at 7pm. At 4.48pm, Alexis Tsipras broke several months of silence and neutrality with an emphatic intervention that he posted on social media. In it, he passed critical judgment on almost all the protagonists.
Regarding those who had left to form Nea Aristera he wrote: ‘The defeated of the internal elections already left the party, because they lost the fight for its leadership. Not concerned with this fragmentation, the one who wins is our political opponent.’ Of Kasselakis he said: ‘The winner is reportedly asking for a three year blank check, regardless of the result of the European elections. Thus projecting an anticipation of electoral failure and also not caring about its consequences.’ Finally, towards unnamed plotters, he said: ‘While others disagree behind the scenes, but are quietly waiting for the electoral failure to come, so they can pin it on him. Not caring about what that would mean for the party and the country.’
Most importantly though, he brought back the internal election scenario, saying that Kasselakis was right to bring up the issue of his leadership being questioned, but advised him ‘to seek a vote of confidence, not from the political bureau, but from those who made him president.’ Despite the omni-directional criticism, Tsipras’ intervention was mostly interpreted by media pundits as an attack on Kasselakis. Not just in terms of what he said, but also given the timing. The text was posted without prior notice, just over two hours before Kasselakis’ opening speech. One can only imagine the panic and frenzy of his speechwriters, having to adapt to that at the very last minute.
The new president picked up the glove thrown by the former president and delivered a fiery opening speech at the convention. His passionatep0erformance was likened by some commentators to a television evangelist sermon. He spoke away from the podium, using a teleprompter, often addressing the crowd directly, which was overwhelmingly on his side. He finished his speech shouting ‘Find me an opponent and let’s go!’ proclaiming an internal election for president, seemingly ignoring that it wasn’t his decision to make, and he could only submit it as a proposal for the convention to ratify. Which it didn’t.
But there was quite a roller-coaster before getting to that point. The first evening of the convention was promising more heated confrontation, and definitely a lot of behind-the-scenes commotion. Late into that same night there was, reportedly, ameetingbetween eight prominent SYRIZA cadre, to discuss the rapid developments. Nikos Pappas was one of the people present.
The main topic of this dinner meeting was which candidate would stand against Kasselakis, after his flamboyant challenge. The meeting decided to call on Olga Gerovasili, a former minister, government spokesperson, vice-president of the parliament and a very close associate of Alexis Tsipras, to be the new president’s opponent. This stand-off, however, would be seen as a proxy clash between Kasselakis and Tsipras, something that would be likely to tear the party completely apart.
The next day, Olga Gerovasili had a series of meetings with many key figures among the rank and file. Her name was already all over the media until finally on February 24, the third day of the convention she announcedher candidacy, before loud booing from the crowd, that forced the facilitator of the convention and even Kasselakis himself to intervene to stop the heckling.
What ensued was an unprecedented back and forth, impromptu debate between Kasselakis and Gerovasili, that continued the following morning – the final day of the convention. There was a strong disagreement about the procedure and the date of the proposed election that heated the atmosphere even further, as two different proposals were submitted by the two opposing sides.
As more and more of the people attending were agonizingly realizing that there is a clear and present danger of yet another split, perhaps even more acrimonious than the previous ones, Kasselakis and Gerovasili started calling on each other to stand down, in a bizarre blame game that seemed to reach an impasse.
The future of the party was hanging on a thread, until the final plot twist occurred that provided a way out by means of vague compromise. Three prominent SYRIZA cadre submitted a carefully worded proposal to the convention. Its main point was to reject the proclamation of an internal election, confirm confidence to the president and go forth united to the battles ahead ‘the first one being that of the European elections.’
The effort was led by Sokratis Famelos, the leader of SYRIZA’s parliamentary group and one of the few remaining people who enjoy widespread respect within the party. Along with him was Giorgos Tsipras (a cousin of Alexis Tsipras), who had supported Kasselakis in the previous internal elections. The third one was Nikos Pappas.
If this proposal were to be voted on, the other two would automatically become redundant. It gained enormous traction very quickly and easily passed by a large majority among the 5.000 representatives that were present. There was a general sense of relief, mixed with a realization of damage sustained, as if everyone had managed to run out of a crumbling building during an earthquake. The next day was not going to be easy, but the worst outcome had been averted, although the party had (barely) survived.
Olga Gerovasili.
Winners and Losers?
There was a lot of discussion in the media after the convention, about who were the winners and losers. As much as there were different interpretations to that, the common denominator was SYRIZA had lost overall. Some pundits described it as a lose-lose situation for everyone involved. The only one who came out unscathed, as the one who, almost literally, saved the day, was Sokratis Famelos.
Kasselakis and his team tried hard to present it as a victory for their side, but the fact of the matter is that they didn’t get any guarantee that the president will remain in his place regardless of the outcome of the European elections. Also, his proposal, which he insisted on until the last moment was ultimately rejected by the convention in favor of the Famelos one. Furthermore, his rather erratic behavior at many points during the convention might have received a lot of applause from the attendees, but these people are not representative of the population at large. His overall image among the broader public definitely sustained damage.
Olga Gerovasili also had her image tainted, as she was repeatedly booed by members of her own party on prime time national television. Furthermore, she appeared rather weak, after preferring to avoid the head on collision with Kasselakis. As for Alexis Tsipras, he also undoubtedly had his status wrinkled, as his own proposal was also rejected by the convention and his intervention was seen by many as making things worse. Many pundits describe him as the main loser of this whole debacle. Some other pundits, however, speculate that his main purpose was to distance himself from Kasselakis for future reference.
All these plights of the Greek Left, make one wonder to what extent SYRIZA ever really stood a chance. Its rise to power was a product of a very specific and very turbulent historical context when for a moment, everything that was solid was melting into air. They saw a massive void in the previously galvanized political establishment and jumped excitedly in to fill it. They grabbed a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, but ultimately left the impression that they didn’t really know what they were getting into.
Their administration was suffocated and chastised by all the main powers of the Western world as soon as they got into office. They fought against them half-heartedly, without ever convincing anyone that they would be prepared for an ultimate showdown. And thus they had to succumb. All the back and forth and pointless drama made them look like amateurs who were hopelessly improvising. And once the fervor and turmoil that brought them into power subsided and became a bygone era, they struggled to find a road map to become a sustainable force for the long term.
Eventually, a majority of them internalized the idea that the party wouldn’t be able to govern again as itself and had to change its appearance and even its political identity. The tragic irony is that this had already been happening, little by little over the previous years. But it seems they needed a more definitive and somewhat ceremonial manner to make a point that this is not any more the old SYRIZA of the 2015-2019 administration. No longer the Coalition of the Radical Left
that bites far more than it can chew, but a modern, moderate and patriotic party of professional politicians that know what they’re doing and can play the contemporary communication game just as well as the Mitsotakis gang.
Truth be told, that’s not been going too well either. However, while this article was being written SYRIZA has seen a slight recovery in the polls, which, coupled with the simultaneous stagnation or even small drop of PASOK in the same polls, has brought it back into second place, but still below their last national election results. But even if Kasselakis manages to overcome his very bad start and gain more ground in the polls, or even get a positive result in the European elections, SYRIZA as we knew it is gone.
In any case, the road ahead is a very difficult one for the Greek Left. Polling consistently shows the unchallenged domination of Nea Dimokratia under Mitsotakis. It seems extremely unlikely that any single party could defeat them, especially in a national election. A completely fragmented political spectrum of the centre-left is heading towards the European elections without any prospect of cooperation whatsoever. The assumption is that every force wants to maximize its electoral influence in June. Then, after the dust settles and there is a certain hierarchy established, there will be a gradual process of political fermentation (as we say in Greek) in order to form an anti-Mitsotakis front. But right now, this prospect seems light years away.
In mid-January, St. Petersburg’s governor, Alexander Beglov, stated in his blog that Russian soldiers returning from the frontlines “know what they are fighting for” after witnessing gender-neutral toilets in Ukraine.
“These guys who saw toilets in schools where instead of two rooms, for girls and boys, there are three rooms – for girls, boys and gender-neutral ones, they don’t need to be explained what values we stand for,” Beglov said, referring to the values associated with gender-neutral facilities.
The governor’s statement caused a stir on social media and confused even supporters of the war. The attempt to awaken patriotic feelings was met with ridicule. Many thought it was inappropriate to justify modern Russia’s bloodiest war with toilets.
“What kind of talent does one have to have to explain the war with Ukraine by the fact that there supposedly are transgender toilets in schools (most likely, confusing them with toilets for teachers),” exiled Russian opposition politician Leonid Gozman sneered in his column.
However, soon Putin himself adopted the toilet rhetoric, claiming at a public event that ‘common toilets’ were a reason for many Russians returning from abroad en masse.
“It is difficult to raise children in the conditions that are created in some Western countries today. Sorry, having shared toilets for boys and girls, things like that. This has already become commonplace,” Putin explained. It is not entirely clear what exactly surprised the president so much. If Governor Beglov was upset about the ‘third toilets,’ Putin was surprised by the shared bathrooms, common in many Russian homes and apartments.
The topic of toilets has concerned Russian authorities in the past as well. In December 2022, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov expressed indignation about the shared toilet at the OSCE summit in Sweden, concluding that it was ‘not humane.’ However, toilets have never before been used as a justification for war.
Not only politicians but also the clergy are discussing the supposed “true” motivations behind the Russian invasion in Ukraine. In early 2022, the head of the Russian Orthodox Church, Patriarch Kirill, asserted that the war in Ukraine stemmed from the West’s attempt to impose foreign values, notably “gay parades.”
“Today, there is a loyalty test to this (Western) government, a kind of ticket to that ‘happy’ world, the world of excessive consumption, the world of apparent ‘freedom.’ Do you know what this test entails? The test is very simple yet terrible – it’s a gay pride parade,” the patriarch said in his sermon.
“To join the club of those countries, one must hold a gay pride parade. Not to make a political statement of ‘we are with you,’ not to sign agreements, but to hold a gay pride parade,” he added. Vladimir Putin also addressed the West’s attempt to forcibly introduce what he described as “newfangled” gay trends in Ukraine.
The gender and LGBT agenda suddenly became one of the main topics in Russia. In 2023, authorities officially banned gender transition surgeries and ordered the annulment of marriages where one partner requested a change of gender marker in official documents. Additionally, “propaganda of same-sex relationships” was outlawed, and the acronym LGBT was labeled as “an extremist movement organized in the United States” and deemed a threat to constitutional order.
However, the ongoing war encompasses more than just discussions about toilets and gay pride. Russian officials at various levels cite other reasons, including the prevention of a third world war, as justification for their actions.
“Colleagues, the commencement of a special military operation prevented the onset of a third world war. Consider what could have ensued? A humanitarian catastrophe, millions of casualties. This scenario was averted for one reason—our soldiers and officers are combating Nazism, safeguarding the peace and tranquility not only of Russian citizens but also of citizens in other states, particularly those in European nations,” stated Vyacheslav Volodin, Chairman of the Russian Parliament, in January.
Of course, the credit for averting global carnage is personally attributed to Putin.
“In essence, the third world war was averted due to his (Putin’s) competent decisions and actions,” stated the representative of the Ukrainian separatists in the “DPR,” Artem Zhoga. Towards the end of 2022, he publicly appealed to Putin to run for his fifth presidential term. Аfter sighing and throwing up his hands the Russian president agreed…
Although Putin refrains from portraying himself as the world’s savior, he certainly views his decisions on a grand scale. For instance, in the fall of 2023, he asserted that the Russian military was combating colonialism in Ukraine.
“The West, fundamentally, does not desire such a vast and diverse country like Russia. The multitude of cultures, traditions, languages, and ethnic groups simply does not align with the mindset of racists and colonialists,” explained the Russian leader.
“It is this genuine freedom that the fighters in the special operation zone are defending today,” he added.
By the end of 2023, polls indicated a declining level of support for the war among Russians.The country faces sanctions, ongoing casualties, and a stalemate in the invasion. Neither side appears capable of achieving significant progress on the front lines.
So, what is the path forward? The Kremlin lacks a clear vision for the future. The only strategy offered by the authorities is to escalate hate speech — enemies in Kyiv, enemies in the West, and enemies within the country. Following crackdowns on journalists and opposition figures, persecution has extended to writers, artists, and, more recently, celebrities (traditionally loyal to the regime).
Putin has wagered on perpetual war, as political scientist Tatyana Stanovaya asserted in one of her columns. She believes that aggressive militarism is increasingly defining Russian daily life.
“This choice will exacerbate conservative trends, accelerate repression and make Russian politics more intolerant and ruthless,” Stanovaya wrote.
This is evident in Russia’s campaign against LGBT. Officials, from mayors to the president, have suddenly focused on topics like gay pride and gender-neutral toilets, using similar language as if following a script.
Is this topic truly a major concern for Russians? Analysis of the “anxiety index” for 2023 reveals that people’s primary fears revolve around various factors, including declining living standards, rising prices, and the threat of new mobilization.
In March, Russia will hold presidential elections, where Putin is expected to secure the desired outcome. However, he will have to deal with mounting problems.
Despite the repression and purging of opposition figures in Russia, protests continue to erupt sporadically. In Moscow, the wives of mobilized men are demanding the return of their husbands, residents in Bashkortostan (A Muslim-majority republic located between the Volga River and the Ural Mountains) are outraged over the conviction of an environmental activist, and recent protests erupted in Yakutsk (east Siberia) following a domestic murder. Moreover, the situation is exacerbated by increasing instances of drones attacks and shelling occurring in different country regions.
But the most unsettling development for the Kremlin was the emergence of widespread support for Boris Nadezhdin’s campaign. As a representative of the systemic opposition, Nadezhdin aims to enter the elections with a straightforward message: stop the war and initiate negotiations. Surprisingly, these objectives resonated with a vast number of Russians.
Thousands of people across the country (and even beyond its borders) queued for hours to provide their signatures in support of Nadezhdin. In fact, this marked the largest anti-war action in the last two years. Nadezhdin’s supporters don’t expect his victory but are glad to express their stance in the only legally possible manner. Ultimately, Nadezhdin succeeded in gathering over 150 thousand signatures required for nomination. However, this doesn’t guarantee his eligibility to compete.
Will Putin find new arguments to justify the need to continue the war? It is quite possible, but it is already clear that for this he will have to come up with something better than the threat of gay pride and gender-neutral toilets.
So, Israel. Is it a good thing? Was it a justifiable demand for a ‘homeland’ by a horribly persecuted people? Is it a land grab, dressed up in religious and ethnic cod history? Is it a cynical manipulation of a dream by U.K. colonial, later U.S. imperial, self-interests?
Or could it have been what Jewish socialist writer Isaac Deutchser called, a totsieg, a ‘victorious rush into the grave’ spearheaded by Zionists, determined to have Palestine no matter what the cost, be the terrible truth?
Of course, OF COURSE, by any standard even approaching decency the Jewish people should be able to live in security and safety. After what the world has done to them as a people, safety and security should be the bare minimum.
As it should be for every human being. In Iraq, Afghanistan, Sudan, Syria, Ukraine.
Tragically, from its inception the ‘Israeli project’, the vaunted Jewish homeland that was to solve all Jewish problems, has been racist and colonial. Predicated on apartheid and ethnic cleansing.
Many, including many Jews, would argue Israel in its present state threatens not just the security and safety of the Palestinian people, but of the whole world.
If, as famous Israeli historian Ilan Pappe pointed out, ‘the Zionists understood from the beginning that the only way to establish a Zionist state was to cause the Palestinians to leave’, they must have understood the dangers.
‘Zionsm is a racist movement seeking capital to colonise land and exploit religion’ said Pappe.
he delegates at the First Zionist Congress, held in Basel, Switzerland (1897).
Expulsion
Palestinans ‘leaving’ was always part of the story. As Zionism’s founding fathers Herzl, put it: ‘we shall endeavour to expel the poor population across the border unnoticed—the process of expropriation and the removal of the poor must be carried out discreetly and circumspectly’.
The thing is most people – rich, poor or middling – don’t take kindly to being shoved off their land or out of their homes, however ‘discreetly’.
The Zionists tried to make out Palestine was a shithole, ‘a malarial swamp’ in Lloyd George’s words. That no one wanted. Early on in the project two rabbis were dispatched to Jerusalem to report on the lay of the land: ‘The bride is beautiful’ said the surprisingly truthful rabbis, ‘but she is married to another man’.
That man was Palestine. O well.
Plans to establish a home in a ‘land without a people, for a people without a land’, barged ahead.
Who cared that this vaunted ‘land without a people’ actually held one and a half million Palestinians on it?
That far from being a ‘malarial swamp’ it was fertile, with cities, farms, orchards, waterways, harbours, schools, markets, a functioning administration, and much loved by its people.
Jerusalem on VE Day, 8 May 1945.
Enter the British.
Still in full colonial mode the Brits decided having Palestine under their control could be extremely useful. The Suez Canal was close by. It was bordered by Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, and Egypt.
In good old colonial divide and conquer mode, they threw their weight behind the Zionist movement now gathering members, and financial backers, throughout Europe and America.
When the British walked into Palestine, Zionists literally walked in alongside them.
Britain’s Governor General said: ‘our aim is to create a loyal little Jewish Ulster in Palestine. To ‘guard against a sea of hostile Arabism’.
Lovely.
The British government ‘gave’ Palestine to the Zionists, and heartily encouraged Jewish ‘ingathering’, while openly supporting, armed, and turning a blind eye to the vicious terrorist activities of Zionism’s infamous militias.
‘We have a strong presence on the ground here’ boasted one militia group, ‘the British cannot say no to us’.
Zionist communes were encouraged and financed, to buy up thousands of acres of Palestinian land and expel the farmers. Zionist militias did what they wanted to the Palestinians, while inward migration of Jewish peoples from Russia, Eastern Europe, Europe and America increased tenfold.
As Zionist terrorists and British soldiers bullied, harassed and belittled the Palestnians, a census of the entire territory was carried out, by the British, aided by Zionists who often entered Palestinian villages disguised as indigenous Arabs taking advantage of traditional Palestinian hospitality, which welcomed, and fed, strangers.
Every single Palestinian village was listed and mapped, the number of men who might resist, where the stores were kept down to the number of olives and apricots on the trees. Crucially how the village could be accessed and exited from.
Arab revolt against the British.
Resistance
When a Palestinian resistance movement rose up, distraught at the stealing of their land, the lack of civil rights, the blatant privileging of the Zionists, and an ever-increasing inward flow of Jewish migrants, the British, and their Zionst pals, were armed with a blueprint of every single village’s strengths and vulnerabilities.
The uprising was put down with extreme brutality.
By its end, three years later, all Palestinian men of fighting age had been wiped out. Thousands of Palestinians driven out, their land confiscated, their homes blown up, while Zionist militias roamed the streets triumphant.
When the ‘catastrophe’, the Naqba came with Israel’s declaration of statehood in 1948, and the ejection of Palestinians, Palestinians were defenceless. Hundreds of thousands were forced into exile and refugee camps, carrying what they could on their backs. Their abandoned villages and orchards instantly taken over by the Zionists, or what was now the Israeli government. During the Naqba 530 villages were destroyed.
Then, as one commentator said, the Israelis were handed a ready-made State. The only difference workers noticed when they came into their offices the next day was that their Palestinian colleagues had been expelled. From their own country.
Having utilised their favourite colonisers trick of pitting an implanted group against the local people to further their own ends, the British buggered off, leaving an unfolding catastrophe behind them.
Just as they did in India. In Ireland. In Sri Lanka. In huge swathes of Africa where inequality, historic injustices and bitter racial divisions poison all life and all political institutions to this day.
Palestinian resistance, already fatally wounded by the British, was helpless as Zionist armed terrorist groups surrounded and torched entire villages, blew up Palestinian buildings, killed and displaced hundreds. Entire cities supposed to be under Palestinian control, were surrounded and bombed. All men of fighting age were removed to concentration camps.
Lovely, hey?
As Zionist groups – now the Israeli army – grew ever stronger, attacking and taking over village after village, David Ben Gurion wrote: ‘in each attack a decisive blow should be struck. It should result in the destruction of homes and the removal of the population’.
Sound familiar? Gaza anyone? The West Bank? Silwan?
Zionism’s deadly history of violence against the Palestinian people hit a peak this past ten days as the Israeli army, armed, thanks to billion dollar yearly gifts, grants and loans from the US, and in furious revenge mode after an attack by Hamas, bombs home after home in Gaza, the biggest open prison in the world, where half the population is under fifteen years of age.
Who cares if some old granny, or a few terrified children are still in there? Blast away dear boy, blast away. This is Israel. We can do whatever we want to the Palestinians. The West has always said so.
Fire ahead, say the Americans. We’re monitoring the situation, say the Brits. We love Israel, says Ursula von der Leyen of the EU.
Warsaw Ghetto boy, perhaps the most iconic photograph representing children in the Holocaust.
Sympathy for the Jewish People
The truth is, everyone in the world with a heartbeat sympathises with the Jewish people for seemingly endless pogroms, culminating in the most terrifying pogrom of all, the Holocaust, where six million completely innocent people were burnt, shot, gassed, tortured to death.
But the Holocaust happened in Germany. In Europe. Almost every country in Europe collaborated with the Nazis in ‘exterminating’ – that terrible word – the Jewish people.
France, Poland, Ukraine, Italy, Belgium, the Channel Islands, Norway, Albania, Romania, Yugoslavia, Latvia, just to name a few.
Businesses that collaborated include Coca Cola, Ford Motor Company, and IBM.
American companies in Germany included General Motors, Standard Oil, IT&T, Singer, International Harvester, Eastman Kodak, Gillette, Coca-Cola, Kraft, Westinghouse, and United Fruit.
Hollywood studios ‘adjusted’ films to Nazi tastes.
Financial operations were facilitated by banks such as the Bank for International Settlements, Chase and Morgan, and Union Banking Corporation
And of course delightful German outfits like IG Farben that produced ‘Zyklon B’, the infamous insecticide used by the Nazis to gas millions of Jewish people, communists, socialists, Romanies, jazz players, gays, and ‘undesirables’.
The Allies, horrified at what they’d found in the concentration camps, vowed to destroy IG Farben after the War.
But the top twenty-three directors tried at Nuremberg for their involvement in developing the science behind the extermination of millions of human beings, were given risible sentences of two, three or six years.
And, oops, before you could say ‘O what a lovely Holocaust’ IG Farben was back in production.
No real recompense was ever made to the Jewish people. A handful of Nazi top dogs were topped. Others fled to America, North and South or slid back into their old jobs as ‘captains of industry’. As for art ‘to this day, some tens of thousands of artworks stolen by the Nazi’s have still not been located.’ Never mind returned.
Nobody really paid the price for the horrors perpetrated. Deadly nerve gases magically became pesticides. Companies like IG Farben became vast international corporations gifting humanity: .nerve gases, pesticides, insecticides, heroin, Zyklon B, Lindane, DDT, Agent Orange, Bovine Growth Hormone, Round Up, and GM.
Hey ho. Business is business.
‘Somewhere else’
Instead of truly understanding why and how such hatred had exploded, instead of truly recompensing victims, the idea of a Jewish homeland, of exporting the problem to ‘somewhere else’ was promoted ever more vigorously, gaining mythic status.
Far easier to promote Valhalla on someone else’s land than deal with European Nazism.
Exporting the problem to Palestine, which had not been implicated in the torture of a single Jew, never mind the murder of six million Jews in the most horrific ways possible, of stealing the Palestinians land, of getting rid of them by whatever means you could get away with, i,e, anything, was more heavily promoted than ever, with America, now ‘leader of the Free World’, the Zionists new best friend.
America was more or less happy to play along with Zionism. When Israel won the Six Day War in 1967 – against three Arab nations – they became genuinely enthusiastic. As one American Senator (Jesse Helms, 1995)put it, ‘Israel is the equivalent of a U.S. aircraft carrier in the Middle East. Without Israel promoting its and America’s common interests, we would be badly off indeed.’
Did somebody say the land on which Israel, Britain and America had built this ‘aircraft carrier’, this militaristic, ethnocentric, ethnic cleansing, colony, actually belonged to the Palestinian people?
Em, no. O well.
Big players play while little people, very often brown or black people, get squished.
Funnily enough, another REALLY big player in torturing the Jewsh people, the Catholic Church, criminally responsible for placing a target on Jewish people’s backs for two thousand years – as ‘THE PEOPLE WHO KILLED JESUS!’ – seem to get a free pass.
This vicious and untruthful slur was only rescinded by the Church in 1960!
‘A Sorry about that lads’ kind of apology issued forth: ‘yeah shure thousands of ye were murdered and boiled alive for killing yer man when we all knew it was actually the Romans what done it, but no hard feelings, right?’
So folks is Israel a land of milk and honey, or a catastrophe? A homeland for Jewish people built on a Palestinian graveyard? An aircraft carrier for the U.S.? Or a Western ‘dagger’ plunged into the Middle East?
Who knows where Israeli/Zionist nationalism – fueled by fear, terror, propaganda, militarism and the cynical manipulations of the Big Powers, and a bad conscience – will lead next.
All out war in the Middle East?
All out war in the world?
In the meantime, one can only pray for Gaza. For Palestine. For the ordinary people of Israel not supporting the madness.
For us all.
Feature Image: The Dome of the Rock, Jerusalem. Frank Armstrong, 2003.
Public anger has erupted over a lack of political accountability in the wake of the tragic train crash near the city of Larissa in Greece.
On Wednesday, March 8, after a general strike had been proclaimed for that day, a massive crowd gathered in the centre of Athens. Avenues connecting Syntagma Square, right outside the Parliament, all the way to Omonoia Square (the second central square of Athens) were packed with people.
It was unquestionably the largest demonstration in over a decade, with an estimated crowd of up to one hundred thousand. Public anger had reached a tipping point, and it took only a spark for an extended, severe riot to break out.
The protest was in response to the tragic train crash, which happened the previous Tuesday night, February 28. The exact number of casualties is yet to be determined. Fifty-seven have been pronounced dead so far, with many more injured. Wednesday’s demonstration wasn’t the first of its kind, but rather the culmination of protests all over Greece since the previous Wednesday, March 1.
At first glance at the news, a foreign reader might be puzzled by why a tragedy of this sort would be politicized to such an extent, but to the majority of the Greek public this wasn’t just a horrific misfortunate. It was, as the graffiti reads in Greece these days, “A Crime of the State”.
The events of February 28, definitely involve human error. A passenger train ended up in the same track as a cargo carrier coming from the opposite direction. For twelve whole minutes the two trains were speeding towards each other at 166km/h, eventually crashing in a nightmarish head on collision, at Tempi, just outside the city of Larissa.
The fifty-nine-year-old station master of Larissa has since been arrested and charged with multiple counts of manslaughter, and disruption to public transport security.
His lawyer made the following statement on Thursday, March 2, hinting clearly at the broad scope of responsibility for the disaster: “The accused is literally devastated (…) He has assumed the share of responsibility that is proportionate to him, within the frame of responsibility that he should have and he does, but beyond that, we should not focus on the tree when there is a whole forest behind it.”
On the same day, the rail workers held a strike, blaming all governments and especially the current one of Nea Dimokratia, for criminal neglect that led to the tragic events. Union representatives have been appearing on national television, exclaiming that they have warned about such dangers repeatedly, protesting against poor working conditions, chronic under-staffing and a failure to implement basic infrastructure upgrades.
However, whenever they have attempted to strike over this in the last few years, these were deemed illegal, based on new legislation introduced by Nea Dimokratia Minister Kostas Hatzidakis.
Public debate in Greece has also focused on the damage to the railroad system caused by privatization, which was always championed by the current right-wing government, but was in fact signed into law by the previous left-wing SYRIZA government.
The leader of MERA 25 (another left-wing party in Parliament) and former finance minister Yanis Varoufakis tweeted on Wednesday, March 1: “Now is the moment to grieve and to look after the injured and the victims’ families. But soon we shall bring to Greece’s parliament the underlying issue: yet another tragedy caused by a hideous railway privatization. Paddington 1999, Larissa 2023.”
Already on that same day, protests had started, with violent clashes erupting in Athens between riot police and protesters.
The Government followed a tactic of heavily policing every relevant gathering, even in situations where people were grieving peacefully. The sadly predictable Greek standard of police brutality ensued, further fueling the public’s anger.
More demonstrations were held on Thursday and Friday. There was a call out to more than twenty cities across Greece, with heavy clashes erupting again in Athens and Thessaloniki.
The situation kept escalating and on Sunday, March 5, a thirty-thousand-strong-crowd gathered in Syntagma Square and went on to march through the centre of Athens. Once again, violent riots broke out and spread throughout the city centre.
Another aspect of the tragedy, which has stoked public anger, has been the mainstream media coverage, which in many cases has been simply to parrot all the talking points of the Nea Dimokratia government about the crash.
The media situation in Greece is exceptionally dire under the current administration, which has consolidated an unprecedented amount of control over it, which is only broken by social media, as has been explained in a previous article.
In the aftermath of the train crash we have seen one of the most blatant manifestations of such corrupt journalism. But in this case it seems the public is not buying it, to a greater extent than ever before.
A video from a popular YouTube channel, mocking several well-known TV journalists for their coverage of the disaster, has gone viral, trending #1 for several days as it received over six hundred thousand views in less than two days. A huge figure bearing in mind Greece’s population is ten million.
The communication strategy of the government and its client media in terms of damage limitation, has been primarily to scapegoat the Larissa station master and secondarily – when the first approach fails – to make the case that this is a chronic problem, and not the responsibility of the current government. But the information that has been coming to light is damning to this narrative.
According to multiple testimonies of people who are or had been working in the railway in various positions there was a significant drop in security precautions – which were already incomplete and defective – since Nea Dimokratia took office.
Staff numbers have been cut, resulting in there being just one station master working the shift instead of two. Also, there were monitoring systems in operation until the summer of 2019, when Nea Dimokratia came to power.
Finally, even the communication tactic of pushing all the blame onto the station master has backfired, as it was proven he was recently hired and put in his position despite lacking qualifications, in a typical Greek manner of “rousfeti”, which refers to politicians doing favors to win over influential constituents.
The Minister of Transportation, Achileas Karamanlis, a member of one of the three major political “clans” of Greece, was forced to resign. His resignation however, seems blatantly tokenistic, as he is still included in the Nea Dimokratia ballots to be reelected MP in the forthcoming election.
Reflecting particularly badly on him is a video of his speech before Parliament, which surfaced a few days after the tragic events. Just one week before the accident, Karamanlis is heard castigating members of the opposition for even implying that there could be a problem with safety in the railway system.
The Nea Dimokratia government has shifted its communication strategy and primary narrative a few times already, in an effort to adapt it to the public’s negative reception. But this in itself has undermined their credibility, creating an impression that they are solely focusing on a communication strategy, relying on shills within the mainstream media.
The situation is still unfolding as the street protests have not finished. There is another general strike proclaimed for Thursday, March 16 and that will be the point when it can be determined whether we are looking at a seismic popular revolt or a de-escalation.
Whatever the outcome, the Mitsotakis government has suffered a severe blow to their image at the worst possible moment. They are now likely to try and push out the date of the elections as far as May. This is the latest date permitted, but it’s unlikely to leave sufficient time for this affair to blow over.
Fellipe Lopes joins Frank Armstrong to discuss the results of the first round of the Brazilian Presidential elections in which former President Lula failed to secure the required 50% to avoid a second round run-off against the incumbent President Jair Bolsonaro. Nonetheless, Lula remains favourite to win in the second round.
However, Fellipe argues that Bolsonaro “has already won the election”, given that ultraconservative candidates have emerged victorious in state legislatures and the Congress. It will be difficult for Lula to do very much, he says, even if, as assumed, Lula wins the second round.
The importance of Brazil in the world cannot be overstated. It contains most of Amazonia, the lungs of the world, and a huge, and growing, population of over two hundred million. Many Brazilians are living in Ireland now too.
Fellipes points to the historic difficulties of Lula’s P.T. (Workers’ Party), arising particularly after the impeachment of President Dilma, and a number of corruption scandals.
He also looks back at Bolsonaro’s background. For a long time he was an unremarkable representative for Rio de Janeiro, but he was able to connect with the public through cheap jokes and an emphasis on family values and law and order.
They also discuss the importance of Evangelical Christianity in Brazil, which has been around for a long time in an historically Catholic country. Many pastors are now powerful political figures.
Fellipe argues that the Brazilian left failed to connect adequately with vulnerable communities, unlike their opponents, who have also been adept at harnessing the power of social media.
Maryam was just a child when one day her parents left her at home alone and took her younger brother to the clinic. They refused to take Maryam, although she insisted.
When they returned home, Maryam’s brother was in a white skirt in his father’s arms. For some reason they were very happy and congratulated her brother. “You have become a man,” they said. “Well done”. Maryam’s brother was crying, and they went on and on congratulating him on something.
Maryam wanted to hug her brother and calm him down, but when she approached him, Maryam’s mother immediately pulled her away and said: “What are you doing? Can’t you see he’s in pain? Don’t disturb him until he recovers.”
Maryam went to her room and plugged her ears so as not to hear his crying. A little later, the whole family – aunts and uncles – came to their house with a lot of gifts and food. Everyone was celebrating and dancing. Maryam’s father bought to her brother a toy car that he promised my brother a long time ago.
Maryam cautiously asked her mother, “Is it my brother’s birthday today?”
Her mother answered sharply “no” and left. Maryam was left with many questions in her head: why was everyone rejoicing and congratulating her brother; why was he in a skirt; why was it impossible to approach him? Everyone just said that he had become a man. From that day on, Maryam understood what circumcision meant.
Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.
Shameless
Becoming a woman for Maryam turned into a disaster. Maryam still cries when she remembers the first day of her period. That day was the worst in her life.
One day, when she was returning home from school, she felt severe pain in her stomach. Maryam writhed in pain. Having somehow made it home, she went to the toilet and saw blood on her underwear. She was shaking with fear, and for some reason she felt very ashamed. Overcoming fear and embarrassment, she called her mother. Suddenly, at the moment when Maryam, trembling with fear, was talking about the blood on her underwear, her mother hit her hard in the face, uttering only the word “behaya”.
The Persian word “behaya” (بی حیا) is used for those who never listen to the rules of the female role. Usually people use the word “behaya” when describing someone’s behaviour as shameless.
Maryam was shocked and started to cry: “I felt that all my pride and my personality was crushed, that the world had come crashing down on me. I thought, what did I do wrong?”
Her mother took her hand, “Calm down, don’t cry, it’s a family tradition to follow when a girl first reports her period.” She added that the slap in the face would stop the girl from being shameless and rebellious in future, and would help her to remain worthy and innocent.
Her mother began whispering to Maryam what it means to become a woman, and that becoming a woman should be kept secret between women. She explained different ways to hide this secret, and showed how and where to hide the menstrual pad before and after using it.
Moreover, sometimes, according to the assurances of the mother, the pad must be washed so that none of the men sees menstrual blood. The mother said that when Maryam had her period, the brothers and father should know nothing about it.
Maryam should not behave in such a way that someone understands that she is on her period. From that day on, she learned to hide her pain for a few days each month so that no one would notice that she was on her period.
That day there were no gifts, no parties, no congratulations on Maryam becoming a woman. Even that purple toy horse, which Maryam had wanted for many years, and which her parents had promised, was never presented to her.
While Maryam was growing up she had access to the Internet, and at the same time the path to the fight. Masih Alinejad’s “White Wednesdays” campaign on Instagram first showed her this path in 2014. Many women, including Maryam, posted photos without a veil with hashtags.
Since 2015, Maryam has ventured not to wear a veil: “It was much more difficult not to wear a veil in Tehran than in other regions of Iran. I was arrested every week by the morality police in Tehran. I was molested, I was constantly called the most terrible words every day by both the police and religious people. But I didn’t give up.”
In March 2018, Maryam left Iran. She now lives in Georgia and works for World Vision and UNHCR as a community group facilitator. Now Maryam Sharifi has become a well-known human rights activist. She is one of those who tirelessly disseminate information about all the crimes of the Iranian regime abroad.
Feminism and feminist activities are against the Islamic laws in Iran. Therefore, there is no organization or feminist community in Iran. Some large cities have boarding houses or women’s shelters, but these are under government control.
Maryam considers the elimination of taboos against women and informing women about their rights as the first and main priority in her activism:
“Unfortunately, the number of women who do not even know or do not want their basic human rights in Iran is greater than the number of feminists or women who are aware of their rights. Many women have accepted the traditional, unequal role of mother or daughter in their family, and they believe in all the laws of Islam, the laws of misogyny.”
Before agreeing to give an interview, Maryam asked not to censor her words: “I am not afraid of anything and do everything for the freedom of women. People around me are always telling me, “Don’t say things like that. This is dangerous. Your life may be in danger or even fired from your job,” but I don’t care if I get fired or killed. I don’t care, I just want to have a better society for future generations.”
According to Maryam, Islam and the politics of Islamic countries in the world are resisting the struggle of women in the Middle East with all their might and using the media around the world for this, creating a positive image of Islam:
“Islam is dangerous for the whole world, but people in the West think that Islam only affects the Middle East and has nothing to do with them. They are even afraid of the reaction of Islamic fanatics. They go to compromise. You can see for yourself in Europe, in the West and all over the world, Muslims promote Islam and violence. The media and international forces are silent and give them space. But when we criticize Islam, we are silenced or censored.”
Maryam has a Muslim colleague who is a facilitator for a community vision group. At one of the meetings, Maryam recalls, her colleague publicly defended patriarchy, where discrimination was discussed, and said that men should have more rights and power because they are the heads of the family.
“She even told me once that if she saw a same-gender couple expressing their love in front of her, she would want to kill them. I wonder why this woman should work for a human rights organization? They want to show that a Muslim woman in a veil can be successful, but they do not show what dangerous thoughts this woman has and what dangerous children she can raise.”
Maryam herself is fundamentally against wearing a veil. She is convinced that it has become a symbol of control over women, imposed around the world for millennia to control the body and role of women.
A few days before the murder of Mahsa Zhina Amini for improperly wearing a hijab by the morality police in Iran, Dilnaz, a student from Saqqez, wrote: “It’s so hot here, at least 30 degrees, and I’m in a fucking chador.”
At the university, Dilnaz, like all students, is required to wear a chador. But as soon as the opportunity is given, Dilnaz immediately rips off her chador. She posts photos on Instagram in a traditional Kurdish dress. “In Kurdish culture, there is no obligatory wearing of the hijab or veil. What people know about Iran and its laws against women is the ideology of the Islamic government, not the culture of the peoples living here,” Dilnaz explained.
Dilnaz was raised by a Kurdish grandmother, who passed on many Kurdish traditions to Dilnaz: “When I got my first period, my grandmother told me to anoint my cheeks with menstrual blood so that, as my grandmother said, my cheeks would always be red.”
Now Dilnaz reads with gusto all the news about Rojava in northeastern Syria, where the Kurdish liberation movement has proclaimed a women’s revolution, and consoles herself with the hope that one day she will definitely come to Rojava.
Dilnaz is studying under a contract at the university as an elementary school teacher. During her studies, the state pays her a scholarship, and after graduation, Dilnaz will have to work for several years in Iran.
If Dilnaz violated this contract and refused to work after training, she would have to pay compensation of approximately eight thousand dollars, a huge sum for her and her family. Moreover, she will have to leave such an amount as a pledge if she wants to leave the country even for a short time. Those are the terms of the contract.
In addition, Iranian universities have a quota system that limits the number of female students. Many of Dilnaz’s entourage say that she was lucky. But Dilnaz dreams of leaving: “I’m scared to be here. I don’t see any happy future for myself in this country.”
Dilnaz has an older sister. Her parents forced her to marry a man who, a few days after the wedding, began to beat her. “My parents were very secular people throughout my childhood. But then my father lost his job, our financial situation worsened, and for some reason, after that, my parents suddenly became very religious. After that, they ruined my sister’s life, and I’m afraid the same thing could happen to me. And no one and nothing will save me,” she said.
Recently, there have been at least three events that directly related to the status of women in Iran. Shortly before the murder of Mahsa Zhina Amini, in the city of Marivan a girl jumped out of a window in an attempt to escape from an attempted rape.
Protests began in Marivan demanding that the rapist be punished. A little later a death sentence was passed against two LGBT activists – both women. There was also news about the ban on women in commercials in Iran, which was publicised in some foreign media.
The are banned from working in ninety-one professions: they cannot be judges, lawyers, geologists, archaeologists.
Women are also not allowed to play sports, sing and dance in the presence of men. This is considered “avret” – that is, as Dilnaz explains, something shameful.
Commemoration of Iranians killed in anti Regime protests. Mahsa Amini Protests in Stuttgart, Germany.
I can stand up for myself
When the protest movement swept across Iran, Dilnaz wrote: “Don’t worry about me, I’m a Kurdish girl, I can stand up for myself.” She went out to protest every day, and when she returned home, she shared her impressions of what was happening with me: “I was very scared. I have never seen such a lot of police brutality and so many injured people.”
Dilnaz left her phone at home so that if the police caught her they would not have access to the contacts of her friends, protest news sources, and to her instagram account in which there are photos of her and her friends without veils.
Women have become a symbol of the current protests in Iran, and not only the deceased Mahsa Zhina Amini. Women in Iran and around the world have taken to social media to post videos of themselves ripping off their veil, burning them and cutting off their hair in protest.
One of the protesters, Hadis Najafi, who tied her hair into a bun before clashes with police, was shot dead. One of the most common protest slogans was “Woman, Life, Freedom”, which originally emerged from the Kurdish liberation movement in Rojava, northeast Syria.
In Iran itself protests went on for over eleven days in some cities. As she prepared to protest once more, Dilnaz said: “I am sure that these protests will not be easily suppressed. I believe we can make a difference.”
Then the Internet was turned off all over Iran, and when it was turned back on Dilnaz did not appear online anymore.
At this stage, according to various sources, more than 76 people have died in the protests in Iran, thousands have been injured, and more than 1200 have been arrested. There are even children among the dead.
Feature Image: Mahsa Amini Protests in Stuttgart, Germany.
In our latest podcast Frank Armstrong is joined by Massimiliano Galli and Daniele Idini to digest the result of the recent Italian general election.
This has resulted in a resounding victory for a Right or ‘Far Right’ coalition composed of The Brothers of Italy (Fratelli d’Italia) led by Giorgia Meloni, League (Lega) currently under the leadership of Matteo Salvini, and Silvio Berlusconi’s – ‘the Highlander of Italian politics’ – Forza Italia.
For Massimiliano the result is entirely predictable, as Meloni led the only party that had remained on the side line during the period of Mario Draghi’s unity government. He adds that the only certainty in Italian politics is that the right will always form successful coalitions.
According to Daniele, Meloni represents a wider movement of European conservative parties. But he expects her government to gain legitimacy, and not rock the boat in terms of European membership or NATO’s involvment in the war in Ukraine. However, he suspects that not much will change for the ordinary person.
Daniele says: ‘Italian people like to vote for the new thing, even though behind the new thing there is the same people from the last twenty or thirty years.’
He also draws attention to the electoral law of 2017 which favours coalitions, and which is now favouring the right. Nonetheless, he wonders how the parties will be able to govern effectively given their differences, particularly in terms of foreign relations.
Massimiliano explores the undercurrent of resentment in Italy that leads to political instability. He draws attention to the low salaries compared to other European countries, and the paradox of working class people voting for parties that oppose a decent system of social welfare.
Forcing indigenous peoples off ancestral lands to create so-called Gardens of Eden, pasture for grazing, or massive dams, is nothing new. It forms the basis of many colonial and neo-colonial projects.
Recall the clearance of hundreds of thousands of small Irish farmers friom the1840s. Or the formation of the national parks of America, led by John Muir, considered the Daddy of wilderness projects, who openly stated that his nature parks would NOT include people, particularly not the indigenous people whom he regarded as ‘unclean’ blots on his perfect ‘wilderness’.
Thanks to Muir, thousands of First Nation American Indians were driven off lands they had lived on for hundreds of years, to make way for National Parks; places where they would never be welcome.
In more recent days Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro has been ramping up his rhetoric, encouraging the rape and pillage of the Amazon, forcing thousands of indigenous Indian tribes from their lands.
That a similar atrocity is now being visited on the Maasai people who have lived on, and with, their lands in northern Tanzania for hundreds of years, long before Tanzanian independence, to create killing fields for the super-rich Royal family of the UAE is deeply shocking.
Since the 1980’s a luxury safari company – the Otterlo Business Company (OBC) – has been trying to complete a deal with the Tanzanian government whereby hundreds of thousands of Maasai will be driven from their ancestral lands. 1,700 acres is to be stolen from them to create a private shooting park for the UAE Royal family and their super rich mates.
Acting for the Royal family, the OBC, a hugely wealthy private safari set up, have had their eyes on privatising thousands of acres of Ngorongoro, and Loliondo, key parts of the Maasai homeland in Northern Tanzania for decades.
Ironically, part of these lands were actually set aside for royalty under British colonial rule – in the ‘good old days’. These days, thanks to OBC, ‘hundreds of members of Arab royalty and high-flying businessmen spend weeks each year hunting antelope, lion, leopard and other wild animals’.
The area is leased (under the Otterlo name) by a member of an Emirati royal family who is a senior officer in the UAE defence ministry ministry.
The OBC is no newcomer to the ‘big game’ slaughter scene. They have been busy in Tanzania’s wildlife parks for decades. Under a deal brokered with the Tanzanian government in 1992, involving the transfer of millions of dollars to Tanzania’s Armed Forces, Maasai homes were burnt down, their cattle stolen or killed, leaving villagers ‘homeless and without food, clothing, land, water or basic medical needs’. Now they want this deal cemented – and all Maasai removed. Their villages, schools, fields and medical stations destroyed.
As the leader of the Maasai, Julius Petei Olekitaika, says, ‘Imagine your home being burned in front of you to clear your land for foreigners to hunt. Imagine not being able to graze our cows because the government wants to protect a foreign investor whose only interest is hunting the wildlife.’
The Tanzanian government, which gets 17% of its GDP from tourism, has made vague gestures towards the Maasai in the past, assuring them they will be protected, but recently pressure has been upped with the government saying the Maasai population is ‘detrimental to wildlife’.
This is of course nonsense. Hugely wealthy game hunters, with massively powerful rifles, and virtually no government oversight, have been a good deal more ‘detrimental to wildlife’ than the Maasai.
Neighbouring Kenya, which banned big game hunting in 1978, says 80% of wildlife which should be funnelling through the corridor between the game parks of Tanzania and Kenya has been affected. Samwel Nangria, a Maasai organiser, says these guys ‘shoot anything they come across’.
The Maasai on the other hand, famous for their nomadic and pastoral lifestyle that actually depends on maintaining the balance between people, ecology and animals remaining stable, are the ones being demonised, hunted, shot at, and driven from their homes.
Already impacted by years of racism and bullying to try and get them out, recently the Maasai have had their livelihoods further damaged by a blanket ban on planting crops, and by climate change. With a ban on planting, food shortages are now common. In 2022 the Red Cross reported 60,000 of their cattle died.
In June 2022 the Tanzanian government sent armed soldiers to evict Maasai. Thousands fled. Hundreds were injured as troops opened fire.
Not that the big game hunters give a damn. All they want is an abundance of animals they can slaughter and to hell with the Maasai. To hell also with climate change.
For all of us sharing this beautiful planet, and facing our greatest existential crisis – will we actually survive climate breakdown? How can anyone, or any government, justify allowing extraordinarily wealthy men to jet in, with guns, to take the lands, the livelihood and even the lives of a centuries old people so that they the rich ones can kill some of the most beautiful, and some of the most endangered, animals on earth? And probably take photos of themselves doing it.
‘For us’ says Samwel Nangiria, ‘the land is a source of knowledge, a source of life, a source of identity’.
For the hunters one imagines the land is meaningless. Just somewhere to go and kill stuff.
A few men enriched by this deal may think they’re the smart ones, but wouldn’t Tanzania’s freedom fighting, Socialist, first president, Julius Nyerere, be turning in his grave if he knew?
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