Eyewitness to Greek happenings

By Eric Ribellarsi

I arrived twelve hours ago in Athens, and rushed to find the crowds of streetfighters. The police tear gas has already hit around me about twenty times.

Athens’ Syntagma Square has for weeks been the site of the People’s Assemblies, huge rallies that challenge the government’s plans. Tonight this Square, the very heart of Greece, is a battleground where the police and resistors have been fighting face to face, line against line.

And all the while, people are singing and dancing and debating about revolution.

Welcome to the General Strike

The moment I stepped off the plane, any grogginess from two days’ travel disappeared.

I’m ready to join the action and start sending you my reports, but there is one problem. No buses. No way to get out of the airport.

Working people have shut down the entire country with a general strike. Their workstoppage is a determined rejection of the massive budget cuts and austerity measures being forced onto Greece by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the European Union (EU). These measures come in the midst of a 1-in-6 unemployment rate and a widespread hatred of capitalism.

A general strike like this is not routine, or symbolic, or passive or pre-orchestrated – this is a real fight by one class of people against another class. It is part of a serious power struggle and a real uprising: Which way will Greece go? What will the people’s future be like? Who will decide?