Inside LabourStart

Gisela writes:

On the eve of the Greek elections, which brought a huge victory for the decidedly left-wing Syriza and will – hopefully – challenge and change the austerity discussion in Europe a good deal, 285 German individuals and organisations published an open letter to the Greek public in a Greek newspaper, EFSYN. In the letter, they spoke out in defense of the freedom of the Greek people to decide themselves on their government, and against the interference particularly by German politicians and media in the pre-election debate. It condemns the threats and bullying, and expresses solidarity with the social forces that want to change the political and economic course in Greece, pointing out that their victory could change whole political debate in Europe.

The LabourStart Berlin offline group, founded after last May’s LS conference in Berlin, decided unanimously that we’d support the initiative. Our signature appeared, together with the others, on two different days in the week before the election and was seen by tens of thousands of readers. We don’t claim, of course, we’ve won the elections – that was the Greeks choice, in the end! – but we hope to have contributed a little bit to balance out the power play of the European neoliberal camp, and to building transnational worker solidarity against neoliberal austerity policies and the onslaught on social and political rights in Europe.