The political issues posed by the mass protests in Greece
By Ulrich Rippert
Global Research, December 20, 2008
World Socialist Web Site - 2008-12-19
The World Socialist Web Site solidarizes itself fully with the tens of thousands of students, young people and workers who have taken to the streets of Greek cities in protests, strikes and pitched battles with armed riot police. This mass social struggle, unleashed by the police murder nearly two weeks ago of 15-year-old Alexis Grigoropoulos, is a harbinger of revolutionary upheavals to come, not only in Greece but throughout Europe and around the world.
Underlying its sustained and militant character is the response of millions of working people and youth who are seeing their conditions of life destroyed and their futures stolen by the unfolding of the deepest global capitalist crisis since the Great Depression of the 1930s.
The events in Greece have provoked shock and dismay in capitals throughout Europe. Governments in London, Paris, Madrid, Rome and Berlin are well aware that deteriorating conditions at schools and universities are not limited to Greece. Nor are-low paid jobs, mass unemployment, police brutality and a general lack of a future for young people conditions peculiar to the Hellenic peninsula.
Across Europe and worldwide, the younger generation is confronted with a society in which ruling elites have been able to enrich themselves enormously at the expense of the broad masses of people. Government budgets have been plundered and education and social systems gutted on behalf of a small, immensely wealthy layer which—with the help of corrupt states and parties and armed police—vehemently defends its privileges. Millions of high school and university students are denied meaningful education or a job that guarantees them a future. Instead, they face poverty, war and the militarization of society.
The fact that
By Ulrich Rippert
Global Research, December 20, 2008
World Socialist Web Site - 2008-12-19
The World Socialist Web Site solidarizes itself fully with the tens of thousands of students, young people and workers who have taken to the streets of Greek cities in protests, strikes and pitched battles with armed riot police. This mass social struggle, unleashed by the police murder nearly two weeks ago of 15-year-old Alexis Grigoropoulos, is a harbinger of revolutionary upheavals to come, not only in Greece but throughout Europe and around the world.
Underlying its sustained and militant character is the response of millions of working people and youth who are seeing their conditions of life destroyed and their futures stolen by the unfolding of the deepest global capitalist crisis since the Great Depression of the 1930s.
The events in Greece have provoked shock and dismay in capitals throughout Europe. Governments in London, Paris, Madrid, Rome and Berlin are well aware that deteriorating conditions at schools and universities are not limited to Greece. Nor are-low paid jobs, mass unemployment, police brutality and a general lack of a future for young people conditions peculiar to the Hellenic peninsula.
Across Europe and worldwide, the younger generation is confronted with a society in which ruling elites have been able to enrich themselves enormously at the expense of the broad masses of people. Government budgets have been plundered and education and social systems gutted on behalf of a small, immensely wealthy layer which—with the help of corrupt states and parties and armed police—vehemently defends its privileges. Millions of high school and university students are denied meaningful education or a job that guarantees them a future. Instead, they face poverty, war and the militarization of society.
The fact that
