I am
honoured to be here, but ashamed that I don't speak your language. So, let me
begin: Late in his life, Sigmund Freud, the father of psychoanalysis, asked the
famous question; “What does a woman want?” Admitting the perplexity, when faced
with the enigma of feminine sexuality. And a similar perplexity arises today;
“What does Europe want?”
This is the
question you, the Greek people are addressing Europe. Because you know what you
want, you want this guy to be your next Prime Minister. Europe doesn't know
what it wants. The way European States and Media relates to what is going on
now in Greece, is, I think, the best indicator of what kind of Europe they
want. Is it the neo-liberal Europe, is it the Europe of isolationist states or
maybe something different. Critics accuse SYRIZA of being a threat to the
Euro, but SYRIZA is, on the contrary, the only chance for Europe. Far from
being a threat. You are giving a chance to Europe to break out of its inertia
to find a new way.
In his
notes towards a definition of culture, the great conservative poet, T.S. Eliot,
remarked the moments when the only choice is between heresy and non-belief.
That is to say moments when the only way to keep a belief, to keep religion
alive, is to perform a sectarian split from the main course.
This is
what happens today with Europe; only a new heresy represented at this moment by
SYRIZA, can save what is worth saving in the European legacy; Democracy,
trusting people, egalitarian solidarity. The Europe that will win, if SYRIZA is
out-maneuvered is a Europe with Asian values - and of course these Asian values
have nothing to do with Asia, but with the clear and present tendency of
contemporary capitalism to suspend democracy.
SYRIZA is
said to lack the proper experience to govern. Yes, I agree, they lack the
experience of how to bankrupt a country by cheating and stealing. You don't
have this experience. This brings us to the absurdity of the politics of the
European establishment; they bring the preach of paying taxes, opposing Greek
clientelism and they put all their hopes on the coalition of the two parties
which brought to Greece this clientelism.
Christine
Lagarde, recently said that she has more sympathy for the poor inhabitants of
the Niger, than for Greeks, and she even advised the Greeks to help themselves
by paying their taxes, which, as I found a few days ago, she doesn't have to
pay. Like all liberal humanitarians, she likes the impotent poor who behave
like victims, evoke our sympathy and bring us to give charity.
But the
problem with you Greeks is that you suffer, yes, but you are not passive
victims, you resist, you fight, you do not want sympathy and charity, you want
active solidarity. You want and you demand a mobilization, a support for your
fight.
SYRIZA is accused
of promoting leftist fictions, but it is the austerity plan, imposed by
Brussels, which clearly is a work of fiction. Everybody knows that this plan is
fictitious, that the Greek state, cannot ever repay the debt, in this way. In a
strange gesture of collective make-belief, everyone ignores the obvious
nonsense of the financial projection on which the European plans are
based.