By Yanis Varoufakis and Alex Sakalis
Source: open democracy
October 27, 2015
Excerpts:
AS: A self-coup?
YV: Yes, but that of course was precisely the intention of the troika. That is what they really enjoy doing. Making us not only renege on everything we said, but also forcing us to be the ones who must implement the very programme we loathed and which we were elected to challenge.
So once this happened, the only question was: was it worth starting something afresh in Greece? To have another go? Another bite of the cherry? And my conclusion was that the answer to that is no. What would be the point of starting another campaign for two years – that is how long it would take – just to return to where we were, where I was, one up against eighteen?
If my diagnosis is correct, what is going on in Greece is simply a reflection – an echo – of a far deeper crisis throughout the eurozone, which cannot be solved at any national or member-state level. The obvious conclusion one must draw from this is that either you argue for a dissolution of the monetary union, and then you can talk about national politics again quite sensibly. Or you should be talking about a pan-European movement for change throughout the eurozone. It is one or the other.
YV: Absolutely. But you see it is important to make this point. This is not going to be a coalition of parties. It should be a coalition of citizens. They can belong to any party they want. This will not admit parties into it. It is not a party and it is not an alliance of parties. The idea is to create a grassroots movement across Europe of European citizens interested in democratising Europe. They can belong to any party. Of course they will be involved in other campaigns in their local communities, in their member states, in their nations. Maybe you will have people from different parties from the same country. I can easily imagine that, and actually I would like that. Because if the idea is not to replicate national politics, why can’t you have that? But personally, I count a lot on the Corbynites.
YV: The single most important lesson that I have learned is that it doesn’t matter. Because if the message is strong, given the need for a movement that expresses this craving for a modicum of democratic control over the sources of power in Europe, I think the groundswell of people will, as it did in Greece, carry us through. We won 61.3% of the vote in the referendum against every single television, radio station and every newspaper. They were all campaigning for the yes. We could do it in Greece, we could do it in Europe.
And in the final analysis, it is as Homer has taught us. It is not so much the journey that matters as the destination. It is a good fight and we have to fight it.
Full article:
https://zcomm.org/znetarticle/one-very-simple-but-radical-idea-to-democratise-europe/
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