From the squares of the “Against” and the “anti-monetary” struggle, to the “antisystemic” of the political extremes, who want to tear down the… system, even if they have to tear down the country.
On the road to the polls, the lack of serious opposition discourse will become increasingly apparent. But it will also be an excuse for the populists who run horizontally through the political system and unite the two extremes with their actions and discourse.
Written by Ersi Papadaki
From the early memorandum years and before the era of the great divide that culminated in the referendum in the summer of 2015, under the Syrrizanel government, which was also a peculiar mixture of populism and cooperation between the two extremes, it was the country itself that paid very dearly for the terminology of these populists.
It was precisely at this time that the concepts of “Indignados”, “up” and “down” squares and myriad others entered the political – and non-political – vocabulary. It was then that many were dressed in the mantle of “anti-memorandum”, but even Alexis Tsipras himself and Syriza in the second phase of its government and despite the “No” in the referendum and the… dances in the Constitution, they voted for the memoranda to save the country that was on the brink of collapse. But thanks to their own regressions, their own actions and their own omissions.
In other words, it was the time when… romanticism or dangerous ignorance, if you prefer, and revolutionary proclamations about the memoranda being torn up and abolished “with a law and an article” gave way to realism.
A realism, however, that was dictated by the instinct of political self-preservation of all those in power rather than the need to save a country already divided by the trolls of social media, the targeting of specific political and non-political figures and character assassinations.
They feed on hatred
This was of course preceded by the “black” extremes of the Golden Dawn criminal organisation with the “assault battalions”, which, yes, were not born in the “up” and “down” squares, but the common ground shared by the “Indignados” who gathered in them and came from either the left and far-left or far-right was their hatred for the traditional political system and the need – as they claimed – to get rid of it by any means possible…
The years have passed, of course, and together we have moved to a normality, especially with the ND government from 2019 onwards. But the extremes are here and they remind us, unfortunately, of this dark period. And yes, there are no memoranda for there to be “anti-memorists”, but there are the so-called “anti-systemic” ones.
Who move on either side of the political extremes, have similar or even the same political discourse and in any case the same goal: to end, as they say, the traditional political system and its spokesmen. Because, according to them, it does not matter what you say and what ideas you stand for or what your vision of the future and your programme as a party is, but the only thing that should be of interest is to go against power and the system.
To… revolutionise, regardless of whether it might set the country back years. So if that’s not populism, then what is it? The (double) result of the 2023 election showed that the majority of citizens are conscious. Now?
