True to its tradition, the European diplomacy of lies and half-truths has claimed since last week that the Greeks left the negotiating table at a time when Brussels had presented new and generous proposals for the Greek bail-out. It is an old European habit of saying without batting an eye lid what it never said, and the liar has to be always the other party. It blamed the Greek leaders of having rejected its generosity and slammed the door of negotiations by announcing a popular referendum which excludes the last generous offer of troika.
At no stage it is or will be admitted that the generosity of the banker-sharks consisted in letting the debtor Greeks survive for another five months with less food, or rather until they become too weary to refuse a fresh bout of generosity of some more billions of loan, with some more millions of interest rate to fatten the capitalist bellies.
The capitalist ethic rules that dying hungry is better than committing suicide. Varoufakis described the interference of the EU leaders in the referendum as “terrorism”. The Russian RT described the banksters as mass-murderers who needed to be hauled before IIC for crimes against humanity. But if ICC too belongs to them, who can bell the cat?
The Greeks have opted for NO, rejecting creditors’ imposition of new forms of austerity, and have defeated all the media manipulation of polls that sought to influence the referendum. The Greeks have thereby rejected the reading of the EU leaders that the NO vote would mean rejection of Euro and EU, challenging thereby the unilateral readings of these leaders and their unwillingness to listen to the people through a most democratic channel of referendum. The credibility of the democratic credentials of EU will be put to severe test in the coming days and weeks.
If Greece is forced to exit Eurozone as a result of dictatorial impositions of troika, EU may be cutting its own nose to spite the face, forcing Greece to seek alternative sources of assistance outside EU. That could mean adding to the financial stress of EU a geostrategic conundrum that in the prevailing circumstances the Russian leadership must be relishing in the background. The ruling Greek government has so far been very restrained without ever referring to this option for pressing its negotiations with IMF or EU.
At a juncture when EU partners of Greece and IMF are hardening the positions, the West should not blame Mr Putin if he comes up with a multi-billion loan to help Russia’s Greek Orthodox brethren in their hour of need, alluring them in exchange to join the CIS (Commonwealth of Independent States) or its amplified version of Eurasian Union, puncturing thereby the underbelly of NATO and deriding the impact of US-dictated EU sanctions? It will expose the EU as the enemy within, a new Trojan horse of the neocolonial system that has been put in place to replace the lost colonies in Asia and Africa.
The prospects seem gloomy for the neo-liberals in USA and EU, who are hurrying up with the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), a proposed free trade agreement between the European Union and the United States, as a way of propping up a shaky and divided Europe. Just as it was done during the process of the creation of EU, the people and their parliaments were kept in the dark about the real implications of the project for their future, fearing that they might block the shady schemes of the financial lobbies.
The decisions are taken by the so-called inter-governmental agencies which are pampered by capitalist funding and by influencing national elections. The hungry masses have no energy or time to question and fight against this dangerous financial despotism that buys the consent from the comprador-collaborators within individual states.
In the upper reaches of the Euro elite in Brussels, the leaders look forever grave and self-important for the cameras, and as smooth diplomats they know that the best way to get business done is to be discreet and keep the more grave matters out of the ear-shot of their noisy voters at home, forever a nuisance with their generous advice to their elected representatives. Tsipras proved to be a spoiler of the game, but we need to remember that he comes from the cradle of the Western democracy, far before the much touted Magna Carta of the English feudal barons.
If Grexit means a break on the western capitalist scheming with Mr Putin’s gracious support, we can foresee a return to the Cold War which could benefit the victims of the neo-colonialism in the West, and revive the old non-alignment politics as a bargaining chip to exact concessions from the contending super-powers who cannot survive without the poor countries of Europe to consume the industrial waste that the present Pope Francis has been denouncing with unusual courage.
(Teotonio R. de Souza is the founder-director, Xavier Centre of Historical Research, Goa (1979-1994).
