BY DUNCAN MILLIGAN


Victory – it’s a clean sweep for Greece’s workers


social and community structures within those communities facing the bite of austerity – and this helped build their political base. It was a movement which directed anger at those backing austerity. But it also offered hope and practical help on a community-based level.


What austerity produced in Greece was a more “kaleidoscopic” political landscape. The political “battleground” was no longer fought between two static armies painted in the primary colours of the left and the right.


It became a new political war of movement between the differing political forces ranged on the election battlefield.


And there was nothing predictable about those results. In Greece, the voters lost their fear, says Mason. He stresses the “importance of time” in the eventual victory of the radical left and that fear “probably fell away with the years of austerity”.


Mason wants to help find the story and tell it and is raising money to fund a longer film about Syriza as seen through the eyes of the Greeks themsleves. “We need to really look at what happened and tell it before the myths set in.


“Syriza has compromised, for example, but has bought time. If it hadn’t, it would’ve been the shortest


government in history. At this stage we 29 uniteWORKS Spring 2015 serving radical


“”


Conservative parties don’t lose members by supporting austerity; centre left parties do Paul Mason,


economics editor


don’t know how the Syriza story will end.” story will end.”


But there is a warning from Mason which may also be relevant to the UK.


“What I’ve noticed, reporting the anti- austerity movements in Greece, Ireland and Spain, that whatever the differences, there is always one constant: social democratic parties get it in the neck. The lesson is – conservative parties do not lose members by supporting austerity: centre left parties do.”


If you would like to help raise the funds to help tell this story please go to page: http://tinyurl.com/pucye8s


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