Message from SYRIZA to Chicago anti-NATO protests

http://links.org.au/node/2873

Dear comrades, dear brothers and sisters of the
anti-war movement

We salute your mobilisations against the NATO Summit
[in Chicago] and we send you our solidarity from
Greece.

We don't need to say much about the reasons to raise
our voices against NATO. Millions of people are
familiar with its record or crimes over the last years
in the Balkans, in Iraq, in Afghanistan, in Libya to
name just a few.

And if we look further back, NATO has provided nothing
but wars, dictatorships and terror around the globe,
from the day it was founded, and during all the years
of its existence.

In summits like the one here in Chicago, they are
planning the creation of a "new kind of NATO", even
more ruthless, aggressive and dangerous. Under the
guise of the so-called "global war on terror", NATO
wants to act as the global watchdog against anyone
resisting the imperialist interests of Western powers.
We have seen how they label people or movements as
"terrorist" in order to target whole countries in the
Middle East, but also anti-war activists in the West.
In a previous summit in Lisbon, NATO named a new
challenge it will deal with: they call it "political
turbulence in member states" and it's a direct threat
to social and political movements in the West.

Here in Greece, the struggle against NATO has always
been important and the demand to exit the war machine,
and shut down its military bases in Greece had always
been central for the Greek left since the '70s.

More recently, we still remember that the foundations
for the emergence of the radical left, SYRIZA, that
today is on the rise, are back at the anti-war movement
of 2003 against the invasion in Iraq. And today, the
country that is most hardly hit by the crisis and
austerity, maintains military presence to Afghanistan,
it supported actively the war on Libya, it deploys its
navy in Somalia and Lebanon. Greek governments, in
their competition with the Turkish state about which
power can act best as the"military bully" of the area,
had been spending billions of euros in a frenzy of
constant armaments. And the military spending continues
even now, at the time of the most severe austerity that
threatens public schools and hospitals with collapse.
We know that the same is happening with your government
in the USA, and the trillions of dollars that are spent
on wars on Iraq and Afghanistan, and not in education,
health care and jobs.

Today, fighting against NATO is also a fight in
solidarity with our brothers and sisters in the Arab
world who revolt against their dictators. The Arab
revolutions are under threat and NATO is the sword and
shield of the counter-revolution. The anti-war movement
in the member states of the war machine has the duty,
and the power, to block any attempts to derail or crush
the revolt of the Arab peoples. We face this task more
than ever before here, as Greece has established a
strategic alliance with the Zionist State of Israel,
becoming its no.1 ally in the eastern Mediteranean.
This is against the will of the Greek people, who have
traditionally been pro-Palestinian, and we pledge to do
our best to break this alliance. We know that the same
goes with the US, that what the White House and the
Pentagon are doing is against the will of the American
people. And we are happy to learn about demonstrations
like the one you are staging today, where the "other
America" speaks, where ordinary people can shout "not
in our name".

The struggle against NATO, against imperialist wars,
against occupations and dictatorships, in defence of
the Arab revolution, in solidarity with Palestine, in
defence of the right of every people to
self-determination is a global one. But you comrades
and friends in the US are the ones who are struggling
in the "belly of the beast". It is a hard struggle, but
it is a struggle worth fighting. The anti-war movement
in the US is the one that can stop the leading force of
the war machine.

For these reasons, you have our deep and sincere
respect for all your efforts, and our solidarity to
your struggle. Today's demonstration in Chicago is
exciting news, and we are sure that your presence in
the streets is really bad news for the warmongers. The
press in Europe said the previous days that "NATO is
preparing for war in Chicago". You should all be proud
for being out there.

There is this slogan we use in Greece, it doesn't rhyme
in English but today it's dedicated to all of you
demonstrating in the US: "From New York to Palestine -
workers' struggles, internationalism, peace".

In these times of severe economic crisis, their war
machine is more dangerous than ever, threatening with
holocausts in Iran or in the eastern Mediterranean,
just to protect their profits. And in such times of
austerity, it becomes even more important to organise
and fight for our needs and not more fuel to the war
machine. And we can achieve that. In the US, in Greece,
and in every country waging and sponsoring wars abroad
while ruining the lives of the working people and the
poor inside them, its important more than ever, to
remember and realise an old slogan back from the 1960s
and the movement against the war on Vietnam: "Bring the
war home!".


Antonis Davanellos and Sotiris Martalis, members of the
coordinating secretariat of SYRIZA, the Coalition of
the Radical Left of Greece

___________________________________________

Portside aims to provide material of interest to people
on the left that will help them to interpret the world
and to change it.

Submit via email: [log in to unmask]

Submit via the Web: http://portside.org/submittous3

Frequently asked questions: http://portside.org/faq

Sub/Unsub: http://portside.org/subscribe-and-unsubscribe

Search Portside archives: http://portside.org/archive

Contribute to Portside: https://portside.org/donate