greatest youth upsurge in the last 20 years in Greece. 2500 high schools have been occupied for more than 3 months. All higher education facilities were occupied for two months. Scores of mobilizations and marches took place in all big cities, the biggest being the marches of January 10 and 11 with the participation of 200,000 people (the biggest demonstrations since 1960). Severe conflicts with the police led to the death of five people.
Greek youth have been facing a deep and abrupt attack on their living conditions. Since last April 200,000 young people have been dismissed from their work. Each year 70,000 young people abandon their studies in secondary school. Less and less children from working families manage to enter university, in contrast to children from wealthier families.
Authoritarianism is becoming more and more severe. It is extremely provocative that, in conditions of great austerity, the only wage increases have been those given to the police riot squads. Authoritarianism grows in all spheres
At the same time, authoritarianism is growing in all spheres of the social and political lives of youth. The most recent examples are the laws which essentially ban strikes and the so-called antiterrorist law which enables the police to arrest whoever they consider to be a terrorist without even having a warrant.
All this was prepared by the two social democratic administrations of PASOK (1981-89) and the two governments with the participation of the Left Coalition which led to the achievement of an absolute majority by the conservatives New Democracy).
The full dependence of this government on the USA and the EEC led them to wage war against the working people and youth through broad privatizations, attacks on social security, the closing of problematic enterprises, "terrorist" laws and much more. All this, promoted with the tolerance of the official opposition, has opened a gap between the official political scene and the youth. This was the social basis of the youth upsurge, and not simply the measures of education.
The first stage of our struggle was in mid-September. The first occupations in 26 high schools took place in the country. Within 20 days almost all schools were International Viewpoint #201 • March 4, 1991 murderers!
THE following statement on the recent youth upsurge in Greece was issued in
January by the Central
Committee of the KNE, a
Greek socialist organization originating from a left split in the Communist Party. It has been altered slightly for space and stylistic reasons. occupied and there was objectively a problem of coordination in the struggle. From the very beginning the government portrayed the struggle as being promoted by the opposition parties, whereas in fact the opposition voted against the sit-ins or kept a neutral position.
The occupations followed the banning of union activity in schools and the imposition of an authoritarian framework in education, involving even surveillance of the life of students outside school. As far as universities are concerned, a series of faculties were at the point of closing down permanently due to the bad financial situation (art schools, teachers academies, and so on)...
...The sit ins were continued during the Xmas vacation. There was a dramatic change in the movement right after Xmas. The government tried to break the occupations by force and this led to conflicts in many schools with people beyond the school community. This situation reached its most dramatic peak with the murder of a teacher in Patras by cadres of New Democracy, while trying to defend his students from the invasion. On the next day there were demonstrations of 10,000 people in Patras with conflicts.
Mass mobilizations in
At this stage of the struggle the movement acquired characteristics which enabled it to express the interests of society as a whole. There were great mobilizations in Athens focusing on authoritarian-
The slogan government of murderers" expressed the anger of all the democratic people of the country. On Thursday January 10 thousands of people waged an all night battle with police riot squads. During this battle, the police caused a fire in a department store which led to the death of four people. Another mobilization followed the next day, as massive and militant, with the participation working people. This made the government reorientate its tactics by changing the Minister of Education and forwarding a proposition of "dialogue", which nevertheless did not manage to deceive anybody as to the democratic sensitivity of the government.
After the outbreak of the Gulf War, the government tried to suppress the movement and impose a series of anti-popular measures in the name of the emergency conditions. Nevertheless there is now an attempt to bring the movement to a higher level by setting goals of an anti-imperialist character, such as the immediate halting of the war, the withdrawal of Greek military forces from the Gulf and the use of money for educational and other purposes.
The movement can be regarded as a victory. It succeeded in postponing the reactionary laws in education. The laws banning union activity in schools have been completely ruled out. The govern ment has also promised to give an extra 15 billion drachmae for education. Concering the founding of private universities they have restricted permits to public owners rather than individual entrepreneurs.
Shattered myth of invincible government
The movement shattered the myth that the government is invincible. Thousands of working people joined in these strug gles, defying the police riot squads, the official opposition parties and the mass media. Furthermore, a series of sectors of working people (teachers, bus drivers and so on joined in the struggle through strikes against authoritarianism and for their own rights, despite the fact that according to the new laws this was illegal.
For the first time there was actually a common front of struggle by secondary and university students as well as teachers.
The struggle made it necessary to go beyond the traditional forms of organization and the official students unions which proved to be inadequate. There were new students' coordinations which organized and decided on the struggles, open to all students who wished to join in...*
A wave of racism and
"A WAVE of racism and chauvinism