Is Syntagma racist?

Syntagma feels like something of a political sun. On the up side, the events in and around the square have fully entered the public consciousness. Everyone – everyone – is talking about it, and/or going there and framing their politics in terms of what’s going on  there. On the down side, politics and Syntagma seem to have become interchangeable, despite the scepticism. You get the feeling that if it aint connected to, or going on in the square, then right now, nobody has the time for it; nobody considers it politics.

Syntagma represents vast sections of Greek society, but its still a very white and Greek space. I don’t know how to participate there, and the only way that non-white migrants appear to be participating so far is in selling the green lasers that people are using to shine on the Parliament.

Since the decision was taken to cancel the annual anti-racist festival in the city, Saturday in Syntagma Square (day 33 of the occupation) was dedicated to a celebration of migration. I guess the logic was something like (for want for a better phrase!) if the mountain won’t come to Mohammed, then Mohammed must go to the mountain.

The migrants’ social centre (Steki Metanaston) had discussed ensuring a good turn out to the events and as I scanned the crowed, it was funny to identify half the people as steki Metanaston regulars. Like a ‘Where’s Wally’ with half the crowd made up of Wally’s. And it was nice to feel an affinity with them too. People gathered for some songs, performed by people from the steki. The warm up act equated to blasting the crowd with feedback, but the performance itself was nice, jovial, meaningful: the songs were songs of protest and rights.

Afterwards came a Syntagma assembly on migration issues. There was a panel of speakers: of Greek natives and people who had migrated to Greece. It amounted to an informed, impassioned and biased avocation of migrant rights (some spoke of their own experiences of violent exclusion as a result of their identification as ‘migrant’). The overall theme of the panel I think forms a pretty nice and concise response to anyone who comes at you with a variant of the argument: ‘I’m not a racist, but migrants have created the social/economic crisis here’:

·         Capitalism is a system that pits workers against each other, these days on a global scale

·         With this in mind, poor people/workers beating on poorer people/workers makes no goddam sense.

·         Actually it is doubly dangerous by a) creating and reinforcing exclusions and b) distracting attention from the real culprits: those that wield power in the global system of capitalism.

Apart from an occasional slanging match, or a few old gits shouting at the gathered crowd: “where are the Greeks to speak about the situation! I wanna hear from Greeks, not migrants” even as the assembly entered into an open discussion, the biased nature of the discussion remained unchallenged. The space created by the assembly did not – and was not intended to – create a space for a ‘gloves off’ discussion as some might have hoped. But in a space where the possibility of extreme racism is possible, what is wrong with that? Migrants have so far been given virtually no means and very little encouragement or motivation to join Syntagma. This day’s events essentially amounted to a vastly inferior gesture to open the space to other communities.

And the racism in Syntagma was present that day too: Firstly, one of the invited speakers, a woman representing a community of African women, had been phoned and threatened that if she attended the assembly she would be killed. She didn’t attend the assembly.

Secondly, as one of the day’s events, a cricket match had been planned between the Pakistan community and natives. The match had not gone ahead, because racists had attacked those who had gathered to play.

Syntagma has an active racist minority within it. Syntagma has formed as a space that can  not prohibit such behaviour. Indeed, I would suggest that people are so afraid of partisanship, that any restriction of political view – as long as it can be presented as personal, rather than party political – is deemed unacceptable; the ‘I will fight for the right to share a platform with racists’ kind of argument. In a space that is free for anyone – to the extent that Syntagma claims to remain free of political parties - it remains brim full of politics: Fascism, liberalism, anarchism, -ism, -ism, -ism; all alive and well.