The Whole Hog: Syriza and the Future of Europe

Remember when the Tea Party emerged in the US six or seven years ago? Styled as a grassroots movement, it was populist, against the government, against perceived elites. The tone and mood were of anger, of getting back to their version of fundamentals. They had town hall meetings. And they brought a new abusiveness to American politics and a new level of personal targeting and attack.

The Irish commentariat went mad for it. Some of these commentators, of course, are wealthy themselves. Others are employed by very wealthy media owners and feel they have to adopt a bloodthirsty, paleo persona in any debate regarding that area where politics and economic interests intersect. (They don’t have to adopt that persona, actually, but that’s another day’s discussion).
Sadly, but unsurprisingly, I even remember some wondering when we were going to get our own Tea Party movement. It sounded as though they couldn’t wait. I don’t know why. Maybe it was that the movement coincided with the collapse of the economic order. Maybe they just fancied the town hall meetings and the idea of ordinary people venting. Or maybe they just felt that, if they had it over there, well, we should have it over here.
This thinking infected the presidential election of 2011. As the campaign unfolded the media, and the political correspondents in particular, looked for “the people’s candidate” – in their version of things, the candidate who wasn’t associated with the established parties and whose run would signal a new politics, a grassroots rebellion against the old order, yadda yadda ya… And when Sean Gallagher surged in the polls they thought they had their man. Never mind that he was Fianna Fail, just not wearing the colours. No, he was announced as the one to beat.
Well, now that the Tea Party has peaked, we don’t hear calls for an Irish Tea Party any more. Now at least some of the same mouthpieces want an Irish version of Greece’s Syriza movement. And again, this desire takes little account of the differences between here and there, and the history that informs and drives those differences.
Syriza has formed a coalition government, but the party itself is a coalition, bringing together no less than thirteen groups as well as independents. It originated in an attempt by left wing and radical parties to identify common ground, to agree on a range of things they would campaign on together.
Anyone who has observed the bizarre and byzantine wrangling and infighting of the far left in both Ireland and the UK will agree that this is no mean achievement. But we should also remember that Greece, like the neighbouring countries of the Balkans, endured a savage occupation by the Germans during World War II and its resistance movement included nationalists and communists, of whom there were many (unlike Ireland).
At the conclusion of the war the communists sought inclusion in a government of national unity, but this was resisted by the Allies and their favoured local groups. Not only that, but they were attacked and repressed. As Ed Vulliamy described in the Observer in November, twenty eight people were killed in Sytagma Square in Athens on December 4th 1944, when police and British soldiers opened fire on a leftist demonstration…
It was a wretched betrayal, a cold and callous mass murder. Vulliamy argues that the Greek communists were repressed because Churchill wanted to restore the Greek monarchy. The horrors of WWII in Greece and of the 1946-49 civil war that followed are far too numerous and appalling to be detailed here. Suffice to say that the present day Islamic State is a good comparator. There was huge destruction and loss of life, not to mention the engendering of great and inter-generational hatreds.
Vulliamy quotes the Greek historian André Gerolymatos:
“In Greece, you found yourself fighting – or imprisoned and tortured by – the people who had collaborated with the Nazis, on British orders. There has never been a reckoning with that crime, and much of what is happening in Greece now is the result of not coming to terms with the past.”
We can recognise common threads with our own experience, of course, but we shouldn’t over-identify. For a start we stayed out of WWII. Also, we never had a numerically significant communist movement (though one acknowledges the Limerick Soviet of 1919). Also, Greece had it far worse then than us – and has it far worse now.
It is important to understand that the election of Syriza hasn’t ended the Greek financial crisis; and also that the crisis wasn’t caused by austerity. Austerity is a name for the tight fiscal regime that accompanied the bailout. Ending that approach won’t in itself solve the crisis. In short, something else is needed if we are to avoid it all ending in disaster. Syriza want a write-down of debts in order to end austerity and kick-start their economy. Which begs the question: well, who is going to pay? In many ways, the future of the European idea – that Europeans will pool their resources and work together towards the common good – depends on finding the necessary accommodations. The problem is that, in a Union where different rules and regimes operate in different terrttories, no one knows how those accommodations can be constructed…
As for looking for our own Syriza, well the Shinners like to see themselves as just that, though in truth there is no comparison. If all the left wing parties and independents merged, the resulting entity might be comparable to the victorious Greek movement. But tell me this: d’you see Sinn Fein submerging its identity? And do you see the others joining Sinn Fein or agreeing to being led? On both counts: not a chance.
Then there’s the core question: other than opposition to the present tight fiscal policy, what do the parties of the Irish far left agree on? Opposition is easy. But if, like Syriza, a leftwing coalition were elected in Ireland, what would they actually do beyond “ending austerity”? We’ll need to be told.
And, crucially, how would they pay for keeping the ship of State afloat? How would they avoid the kind of huge increases in tax that accompanied our last attempt at paying for everything through general taxation? I’m talking about the period after Fianna Fail abolished local taxes on private dwellings in 1977. Look it up. It led to mass marches by PAYE workers, marches just as big and just as disaffected as the current anti-water charge protests…
Right now, however, the first question is: can Syriza square the circle? These are nothing if not interesting times!!
The Hog