What can the Syriza disaster tell us about modern politics in general? Quite a lot, I think.
To refine my focus to a single thought: it demonstrates something quite surprising that we should be coming to take for granted – that the most destructive thing that can happen to a radical leftist political party is that they win.
In other words, radical parliamentarian approaches do best when they are in opposition, because only here can they pursue a consistent political strategy – one of voicing broadly laudable criticisms of the prevailing situation, whilst also lacking the power to be expected to do anything about it. As soon as they get into government, however, the abject hollowness of their agenda is laid bare for all to see. Suddenly all the radical rhetoric that was used to scoop up votes – the talk of ‘challenging the establishment’, or of ‘putting the people in power’ – begins to look quite out of place, precisely because it is revealed as having come from a party that, by the very fact it has assumed a position of such abject authority, obviously did not believe in its own words in the first place.
To be authentically radical – to be serious about decentralizing political power in any way – can only mean challenging the assumption that one individual or group should be granted the power to rule over the rest of society. But this is the very assumption that any engagement in parliamentary politics presupposes, meaning that it is taken for granted by anyone who lends their support to a political party. This is why the moment that a radical leftist party gets into power is also the moment that their strategy is revealed as being totally inconsistent with their stated aims – be it of enacting socialism, or, in general, of bringing the general public any closer to real political involvement.
How revealing it is that leftists further north than Greece have already abandoned their appraisal (or, really, any mention whatsoever) of Syriza, as if to pretend that such an unparalleled victory for their cause had never even happened. Instead, the excitement for Syriza, now swept casually under the carpet, is swapped for a renewed enthusiasm for parties like Podemos – an option that, by contrast, ultimately failed at the ballot. Here the winners are cast off for the losers, precisely because the deceptive consistency of their pointless agenda is dependent on the very fact that it does not come to fruition.
With the impotency of Syriza becoming overwhelmingly clear, we can only hope that the anarchist movement in Greece – previously deprived of so much of its revolutionary zeal by the political confusion of a leftist government – can begin to regenerate its strength. As it turns out, there are few things that will depoliticize people quicker, and cast doubt on their collective agency more damningly, than the parliamentary success of those who pose as our friends. No less, and with just a little forethought, perhaps our comrades abroad can learn from this unambiguous debacle, and save time by abandoning in advance the political professionals who pretend to be on the side of the people whilst simultaneously campaigning for the right to rule them.
Let’s do everyone a favour by confronting these facts head on.
The times are far too urgent to vote!
p36-37, March 2017