“What is worrying is that the extreme polarisation that is being created is the best fertiliser to further develop the anti-establishment climate. And it certainly sends by itself the people to the squares of 28th February, reinforcing he conditions of destabilisation of the country. I suppose it’s hard to explain what that means in a world that’s becoming increasingly unstable after the rise of anti-establishment in the US…”
To Vima [mainstream Greek newspaper], G. Papachristos, 24-2-2025, The fertiliser of destabilisation
“In the age of global madness, we could easily leave the rails of logic and get into a phase of non-governance and chaos. The Greek society, however, knows to avoid disasters, perhaps because it brushed past one such disaster ten years ago. We have matured. […] Many of the citizens who went to the streets know well that they will have no choice other than Mr Mitsotakis when the ballot boxes are set up again.”
Kathimerini [mainstream Greek newspaper], A. Papachelas, The resounding message of anger
In the immediate period preceding the 28th of February for the 57 dead in Tempi, a number of publications described the “disturbing findings of the polls, which cause dark thoughts”, about the “danger of anti-establishment” as “Greece stands on the threshold of an era of new adventures”. Opponents of the rally, journalists, analysts, government deputies and ministers, tried in every way to discourage people from participating, because then the participants would turn into an object of exploitation by the “populists”, with the result that “the new division” would have disastrous consequences for “democracy and institutions”, “stability” and the “hard-won normalcy”, while also hiding “national dangers”.
Efforts to weaken the rallies of 28th of February and to consolidate the climate of terrorrism continued with prosecution orders for criminal investigation and persecutions against “online incitement to commit violent riots”, but also announcements about policing, preventive prosecutions, arrests and “zero tolerance” by the 6,000 police officers who will monitor the protesters.
And yet, all of these designs failed miserably.
As we were emphasising recently, the “return to normalcy” was set as a common ground for the political system, whether it was promoted as a project of anti-left orientation or as an anti-right political project, with the reconstruction of the “progressive faction”. But the vision of a “return to normalcy” has faded, and it is no longer persuasive, as it is no longer persuasive the kind of logic of “the glass is half-full, not half-empty” or “certainties” of an unbroken general opposition and aversion in the social sphere to new “adventures and instability”. As we wrote shortly before the elections in the summer of 2023, the “new normal”, however, symbolises further social inertia for its left- and right-wing creators and for the securing of social peace. They are counting their chickens before they are hatched. Neither the benefits, nor the micro-amenities, nor the “beautification” of the health and labour system, nor the family ministries and the digital “paradises” promised by Mitsotakis’ state can hide the reality.
For this very reason, the ivory tower of the current administrators of state affairs is proving to be very fragile, while at the same time the next most “suitable” administrator after Mitsotakis emerging is “Nobody”, according to a number of polls, reaching the same level of social denial and questioning of parties, institutions and politics as that recorded in the years of the crisis, especially in 2010-2012. We have to repeat here that the left, socially discredited and exhausted in its capacity of assimilation, is suffocating and is unable to mobilise even its few members and its bored followers, let alone to exploit a social anger that remains politically unsupervised.
According to Max Weber, the emergence of the “charismatic” leader presupposes the manifestation of “crisis”: “The charismatic leadership […] always appears in extraordinary, especially political or economic, circumstances, in unusual mental, especially religious, situations, or when the above coexist”. So, in times of “crisis”, the “charismatic leader” appears as the “called-for”, that is, the one who is “called” to help, the “comforter”, with “extraoridnary” duties, and with “extraordinary” mission. Let’s not forget that today’s political caricature, called Tsipras, wore exactly this mantle of the “unparalleled” and “charismatic” leader in monents of “crisis” and greate collective “over-agitation”, while also demanding blind obedience and loyalty of the subjects to the “mission” he embodied.
Mitsotakis emerged in 2019 again as a “called-for” leader, that is, as a technocratic politician, who dominated by stepping on the evolving political disintegration of the ruling left, appearing as the “only one”, and therefore as the “charismatic” one, who could wield the “new normalcy” and even through a global exposure.
On 16-5-2022, an article in the German newspaper Handlesbatt stressed that Mitsotakis will become the first Greek prime minister to address the US Congress and “will do everything to distinguish himself as a trusted partner of the alliance”. In early September 2024, Mitsotakis receives the Global Citizen Award from the Atlantic Council think tank (American think tank in the field of international affairs, favoring Atlanticism and founded in 1961 based in Washington). The Atlantic Council, it should be noted, has as its founding objective and mission to encourage the continuation of cooperation between North America and Europe, which began after World War II. The prize was awarded to Mr. Mr Mitsotakis by the chief executive of Pfizer Albert Bourla, who described the Greek prime minister as “a visionary champion of a new era of economic prosperity, a leader committed to his country, who has won the trust of the Greek people. A humble leader, whose re-election has shown that he keeps his political promises, while having the respect of the world’s leaders.”
Since then it seems as if a century has passed!
The change of administration in the US, the developments in Ukraine, the fragmentation of interests within the so-called collective West, and even the questioning of the usefulness of NATO by the American “friends”, seem to place the current managers of state affairs in the Greek space, rather, on the wrong side of international relations. Moreover, the “right side of history” in these terms has been judged in every historical period, and even more so in the current broader period, in which the post-war order of things is changing dramatically.
***
As we have already described, the crushing failure of the orchestrated campaign against the 28th of February demonstration proved to be more than monumental. All the methods used to slander the demonstration and its participants were not enough to prevent or even mitigate the earthquake, which was recorded by the largest Metapolitefsi gatherings in Greece, a total of 262, as well as 124 demonstrations in European cities, Turkey, the USA, Australia and even Mexico, Japan and South Korea.
In Athens, an unprecedented influx of protesters began at 9:15 a.m., with the area around Syntagma Square already flooded by 11 a.m. Hundreds of thousands of protesters continued to approach the city centre from many areas of Attica, flooding Patision, Vasilissis Sophias from the height of Ilision, Syngrou from the height of the Acropolis metro and then, the main avenues and streets, Vas. Amalisas, Vas. Sophias, Panepistimiou, Akadimias and Stadiou. For many hours almost all the central districts of Exarcheia, Kolonaki, Victoria, Clathmonos Square, Omonoia and of course Syntagma remained suffocatingly crowded.
Around 1:00 p.m. and while the speeches were over, hundreds of protesters launched a fierce attack on the Parliament and against the repressive forces in the courtyard area, with Molotov cocktails, stones, marbles, smoke grenades, as well as metallic and other objects. Protesters were also setting fire to a compartment of the Evzones regiment. Violent attacks against the forces of repression continued for hours, in scattered locations around Syntagma Square, along the entire length of Vas. Amalias Avenue, which resembled a quarry, on the Sygrou Avenue, through the columns of Olympian Zeus, in Kallirois, in Panepistimiou, in Stadiou, around Omonoia, up to Patisia.
In total, both in the prevention phase and during the attacks, the repressive forces detained 220 people, of which 73 turned into arrests with dozens of protesters being referred for criminal acts, while dozens of injuries were recorded among protesters and police officers.
Rallying of Anarchists
Posted in ΔΙΑΔΡΟΜΗ ΕΛΕΥΘΕΡΙΑΣ [ROUTE OF FREEDOM], issue 257, March 2025
Source: Anarchy Press GR