With the agonized screaming coming from the various offices of the European Union, you’d think Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou’s announcement of a referendum was the next-best thing to the emergence of the Antichrist. Mick Hume explains that the reason the Eurocrats took it so badly is that, from their point of view, democracy is Kryptonite:
‘If voting changed anything, they would make it illegal.’ So goes the famous old slogan, attributed to the anarchist Emma Goldman, expressing radical cynicism about the capitalist elites’ traditionally contemptuous attitude to political democracy.
In the current Euro-crisis, however, it appears that matters have gone further still. Europe’s political, media and economic elites are now so insecure, isolated and fearful of any hint of popular opposition that even the suggestion of giving Greeks a vote seemed to change everything for them — and some of them would clearly like to make such referendums illegal if they could.
No sooner had Greek premier George Papandreou announced his plan for a referendum on the latest Euro bailout and austerity package than, in two shakes of an imaginary ballot paper, all that the elites hold dear had apparently been destroyed: the ‘historic’ deal to save Europe agreed days earlier was now reportedly ‘in ruins’, the financial markets were sinking like stones, there were warnings that the Euro itself was now in mortal danger and even that the world was heading for a global depression. All this panic and chaos, apparently, because somebody suggested the outrageous idea of giving the Greek people a say on their future? No wonder that many in authority talk as if they really would like to ban voting today.
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Papandreou’s announcement of a referendum, described even by the sober BBC as a ‘nightmare’ for Europe, could hardly have caused more shock, anger and revulsion in high places if somebody had placed a bomb under this week’s G20 summit in Cannes. The mood of Europe’s rulers was captured by President Sarkozy’s French regime, which described the Greek prime minister’s dalliance with democratic politics as ‘irrational and dangerous’. Trying to square this disdain for public opinion with his own need to seek re-election by the French people, Sarkozy himself has generously conceded that ‘giving people a voice is always legitimate’ before adding the obligatory ‘but…’: ‘the solidarity of all Eurozone countries is not possible unless each one agrees to measures deemed necessary’. In other words, whatever the Greek or any other electorate wants, their government will have to adopt those ‘measures deemed necessary’ by the Euro-elite, primarily the Germans and the French, if they want to remain members of the club.
