The first issue that is clear for any one arriving in Athens from far away on this May 20th is that there happened a true General Strike. The transports did not work, not even a subway or a bus.
Some people believe it is an error to have a full stoppage of this section of the working class. They worked for a couple of hours during the last General Strike in May 5th, primarily to bring protesters downtown to join the mass rally that always happens during each general strike in Greece. Thus, some believe that this was one reason for the decrease of protesters downtown. For sure, it was not the main reason for decrease from 350,000 in May 5th to 85,000 today.
The activists and the Media seem to have a consensus that the rally downtown was smaller but the effective stoppage of services, plants, ports, universities, schools, transport, etc., was much more significant than last general strike. Possibly there is some tiredness after so many general strikes and huge rallies accomplished in 4-5 months. Possibly another reason is the fact that these rallies do not have a concrete goal to achieve or a specific bill to be overthrown. In fact, all of these protests are an expression of the anger against the capitalist system and the austerity measures. That is why the people are pouring into the streets.
In any case, the General Strike held today was taken as very positive for all the leftwing sectors. The government prepared itself by placing hundreds of riot police standing mere 1-2 meters from the protesters in a provocative fashion. They also decide to postpone the parliamentary approval of the harsher austerity measures (PEC) to next June.
It seems that a new General Strike is called for mid June to fight back the new backlash. We should say that among the protesters there were the ones that were prepared for the best and the worst, that is, rows of protesters holding a kind of baseball bats in disguise with small red flags for preemptive defense (I say…) just in case the police decides to assault the protesters. Another interesting feature was that no incident with the police happened (many leftwing activists said it was the first time “incidents” did not happen during general strikes and marches – just today that I was there). Nevertheless many shops and hotels fully barricaded themselves with iron gates and dozens of riot police to protect them from the passing by marchers, as everyone expected some conflict to happen.
Another interesting feature of this General Strike, followed by a rally, in a country with little more than 10 million inhabitants, was the democratic environment and the respect for the different positions. True workers’ democracy reigns inside these demos, something hardly ever found in other countries. We could watch since early morning each political caucus, big or small, preparing themselves.
They could, in any place and at any moment take their signs, shout their chants, show their standpoint without any hindrance from a sound truck from the ‘sponsors” to boycott them. So were the proceedings along all the way to the Greek parliament. Greek left wingers use to say that all this plurality of political organizations and their columns have been integral part of the Greek political life for years.
Nevertheless, the upsurge of many dozens of political groups, some that have been considering themselves M-L (Marxist-Leninist) for 35 years, some anarchists, many splinter groups from the Greek CP (KKE) and other caucuses that are called in English “far-left”, or radical left, here called Antarsya, all together, I have just seen in this “new” good shape during the Portuguese Revolution of 1974. If this is not a revolutionary situation in Greece, it is close to be.
