Give Greece a chance

Zizek speech in favour of Syriza...

Late in his life, Sigmund Freud asked the famous question "Was will das Weib?" - What does a woman want? - admitting his perplexity when faced with the enigma of feminine sexuality. A similar perplexity arouses today: What does Europe want? This is the question you the Greek people are adressing Europe. Because you know what you want! You want this guy as a prime minister! Europe doesn't know what it wants! The way European states and the media relate to what is going on in Greece is the best indicator of what kind of Europe they want: is it the neoliberal Europe, is it the Europe of isolationist nation states, or maybe something different?

Critics accuse Syriza of being a threat to Europe. It is quite the contrary: Syriza is right now the only chance for Europe! Far from being a threat, you are actually giving us a chance to break out of our inertia, to find a new way! In his notes towards a definition of culture, the great conservative(!) poet T.S. Eliot remarked that there are moments when the only choice is the one between heresy and non-belief. That is to say, moments when the only way to keep a religion alive is to perform a sectarian split from its mainstream. This is happening today in Europe! Only a new heresy, represented at this moment by Syriza, can save what is worth saving in the historical legacy of our continent: democracy, trust in the people, egalitarian solidarity. The Europe that will win if Syriza is outmaneuvred is a Europe with "Asian values". This of course has nothing to do with Asia, but all with the clear and present tendency of contemporary capitalism to suspend democracy.

Syriza is said to lack the proper experience to govern. Yes, I agree! They greatly lack the experience in how to bankrupt a country by cheating and stealing! You don't have this experience! This brings us to the absurdity of the German position regarding Greece: they preach endlessly about paying the taxes, about efficient government, about fighting corruption, while at the same time they put all their hopes into the tho parties which were responsible for this vicious culture of corruption and inefficiency in the first place.

Christine Lagarde recently said that she has more sympathy for the poor inhabitants of Niger than for the Greeks. (She also adviced you to help yourselves by paying your taxes - which, as we learned a few days ago, she doesn't have to pay.) Like all the bleeding heart philantropists, she loves the impotent poor who behave like the helpless victims of great tragedy, evoke our sympathy and motivate us to do charity. The problem with you Greeks is that you are not willing to take this passive role of helpless impotent beggars. You resist, you fight! You do not want sympathy and charity but active solidarity! You demand a mobilization of support for your struggle!

Syriza is routinely accused of promoting naive pipe dreams of left-wing utopianism. This is not true! In fact, it is the austerity plan imposed by Brussels which is lacking the tiniest bit of realism! Everybody knows that the Greek state cannot ever repay its dept this way! In a strange gesture of collective make-believe, everyone seems to ignore the obvious nonsense of the financial projections on which this plan is based. So why does Brussels impose these measures on you? The true aim of this rescue plan is not to save Greece but of course to save European banks.

These measures are not presented as decisions grounded in political choices but as necessities imposed by a neutral economic logic: "if we want to stabilize our economy, we simply have to swallow the bitter pill", or tautological platitudes, proverbs like "you cannot spend more than you produce". But the American banks and the United States as such are a big proof for the case that you can spend more than you produce!

To illustrate the mistake of austerity measures, Paul Krugman often compares them to the medieval practice of bloodletting. A nice metaphor which I think should be radicalized further! The European financial doctors, themselves not sure about how this medicine works, are using you as test rabbits. They are letting your blood, not the blood of their own countries. There is no bloodletting for the great German and French banks! On the contrary, they are getting big transfusions.

So is Syriza really a group of dangerous extremists? No! Syriza is here to bring pragmatic common sense to clear the mess created by others. It is those who impose the austerity measures who are dangerous dreamers! The true dreamers are those who believe that things can go on indefinitely as they are, just with a few cosmetic changes. You are not dreamers! You are awakening from a dream which is turning into a nightmare. You are not destroying anything! You are reacting to how the system is gradually destroying itself. We all know the classic scene from cartoons where the figure reaches the precipice and it goes on walking, ignoring the fact that there is no ground under its feet. It starts to fall down only when it looks and notices that there is nothing. This is all you are doing! You are telling those in power: "Hey! Look down!"

The political map of Greece is clear and exemplary. In the center, there is - I hope you noticed it - one big party. One party with two wings: left and right, Pasok and New Democracy. It's like, you know, cola which is Coke and Pepsi: an indifferent choice. The true name of this party is, I think, something like "Nekkad": the New Hellenic Movement Against Democracy. Of course this big party claims it is for democracy, but I claim they are for "decaffeinated" democracy! Like, you know, coffe without caffeine, beer without alcohol, ice cream without sugar. They want democracy where, instead of really making a choice, people just confirm what wise experts tell them to do. They want democratic dialogue, yes! But they want it to be like the late dialogues of Plato where one guy talks all  the time and the other only says every ten minutes "By Zeus! So it is!", or something like that.

You, Syriza, are the true miracle: a radical leftist movement which stepped out of the comfortable position of marginal resistance and courageously signaled your readiness to take power. This is why you have to be punished! Here is what Bill Frezza - a nobody but an ideologically important nobody - recently wrote in Forbes magazine, in an article with the title "Give Greece what it deserves: Communism"... Here is a short quote: "What the world needs, lest we forget, is a contemporary example of Communism in action. What better candidate than Greece? Just toss them out of the European Union, cut off the flow of free euros and hand them back the printing plates for their old drachmas! Then stand back for a generation and watch..." In other words: Greece should be exemplarily punished so that once and for all the temptation for a radical leftist solution will be blocked.

I know that the task of Syriza is almost impossible. Syriza is not the extreme left madness! It is the voice of pragmatic reason counteracting the irrational madness of neoliberalism. Syriza will need the formidable combination of principled politics and ruthless pragmatism, of democratic commitment and a readiness to act swiftly and brutally when needed. If you are to be given a chance - a minimal chance - to succeed, you will also need an all-European solidarity. This is why I think you should avoid cheap nationalism: all the talk about how Germany wants to re-occupy you, destroy you, and so on. Your first task is to change things here. Syriza will have to do the job which the other guys should have done: the job of building a better, modern, effective state. To clear the state apparatus of clientelism. It's a hard job and there's nothing enthusiastic in it. It's a slow, hard, boring job.

Your pseudo-radical critics are telling you that the situation is not yet ripe for a true social change... That if you take power now, you will only help the system by making it more efficient. This is, if I understand it correctly, told the "party of the people" KKE, which is basically the party of the people who are still alive because they forgot to die. True, your political elite clearly demonstrated its inability to rule. But there will never be a moment when the situation will be fully ripe for the change. If you wait for the right moment, the right moment will never come. When you intervene, it is always premature. So you have a choice: either comfortably wait and watch how your society disintegrates, as some other parties of the left suggest, or heroically intervene, fully aware of how difficult the situation is. Syriza made the right choice!

Your critics... Now I want to say something very serious! Your critics hate you because they secretly know that you have the courage to be free and to act as free people. When you are in the eyes of the public, those who observe you understand at least for a fleeting moment that you are offering them freedom. That you dare to do what they also dream about. For that instant they are free, they are one with you. But it is only for a moment. Fear returns and they hate you again because they are afraid of their own freedom.

So what is the choice you are facing on June the 17th? You should bear in mind the paradox which sustains the "free" vote in our democratic societies. You are free to choose on condition that you make the right choice. Which is why, when the choice is the wrong one - for example when Ireland voted against the EU constitution - it is treated as a mistake. They repeat the vote and "enlighten" the people to make the right choice. This is why the European establishment is in a panic! They see that maybe you don't deserve your freedom because there is a danger that you will make the wrong choice (from their standpoint).

There is a wonderful joke in Ernst Lubitsch's classical comedy Ninochka: the hero is in a cafeteria and orders coffee without cream. The waiter replies: "Sorry, but we are out of cream, we only have milk. Can I give you coffee without milk?" In both cases you get coffee alone, but I think the joke is a correct one. Negation also matters! The coffee without cream is not the same as the coffee without milk! You are in the same predicament today. The situation is difficult, so you will get some kind of austerity. But will you get the coffee of austerity without cream or without milk? It is clear that the European estabblishment is cheating. They are acting as if they gave you the coffee without cream - that is to say, the fruits of your hardship will not profit only European banks - but they are effectively offering you coffee without milk. It is you who will not profit from your own sacrifice and hardship.

In the very south of Peloponnese, around Mani - I was there, I know it - they still have so-called "weepers": women hired to cry at funerals. They do the spectacle for the relatives of the deceased. Now there's nothing primitive about this! We in our "developed" societies are doing exactly the same. Think about this wonderful invention, maybe the greatest American contribution to world culture: the so-called "canned laughter"! You know, laughter which is part of the soundtrack on TV. You come home in the evening, tired, you turn on the TV, some stupid show like 'Cheers!' or Friends, and you just sit and the TV even laughs for you! Unfortunately it works. That's how those in power, the European establishment, want to see not only Greek people but all of us! They want us to keep staring at the screen, observing how others are doing the dreaming, crying and laughing.

There is an apocriphal but wonderful anecdote about the exchange of telegrams between the German and Austrian armies in the first world war. The Germans send the message to the Austrians: "here on our part of the front, the situation is serious but not catastrophic". The Austrians replied: "here, the situation is catastrophic but not serious". This is the difference between Syriza and others! For the others, the situation is catastrophic but not serious: things can go on as usual. But for Syriza, the situation is serious but not catastrophic because courage and hope should replace fear. Ahead of you is, to quote the title of an old Beatles song, a "long and winding road". When decades ago the cold war threatened to explode into a hot one, John Lennon wrote a song. You remember it if you are old enough: "All we are saying is give peace a chance!" Today, I want to hear a new song all around Europe: Give Greece a chance!

[This slogan is also claimed by a joint PR campaign of corporate interests.]

Allow me to conclude with a reference to one of your greatest classical tragedies, Antigone: "Don't fight battles which are not your battles!" You know what would be my ideal Antigone? We have Antigone and Kreon. If you ask me, they are representing two sects of the ruling class, a little bit like Pasok and New Democracy. In my version, as the two are fighting each other, threatening to ruin the state, I would like to see the chorus - the voice of the people - stepping out of this stupid role of just wise comments! Take over! Constitute a public committee of the people's power, arrest both of them and establish the power of the people!

Allow me really to finish with a personal note! I hate the traditional intellectual left which likes a revolution, but one which takes place somewhere far away, so that while your heart is beating for it, you can pursue your career in peace. You know, when I was young, the further away it was, all the better: Vietnam, Cuba, today it's Venezuela! But you are here, and that's what I admire! You are not afraid to engage in a desperate situation knowing how the odds are against you! And this is what I admire! 

There is a principled opportunism, an opportunism of principles, in saying "this situation is lost, we can't do anything because we would betray our principles". This appears as a very principled position but actually it's the extreme form of opportunism! Syriza is a unique event of how precisely that left, you know, the usual extra-parliamentary left where they care more if some criminal's human rights are violated than if thousands are dying, this kind of left has finally gathered the courage to do something! So I conclude now with a great honor to give the word to your future prime minister!