Demonstration in Athens. Demotix:Alexandros Michailidis. All rights reserved.
On 5th July 2015 the curtains will draw on the final act of this modern Greek tragedy. Greece’s citizens will vote in a referendum on whether to accept the Troika’s bailout terms which have been described as “humiliating” by Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras. If default is not already declared today when a €1.6 billion debt repayment is due to the IMF, then it will follow soon after. Yet as analysts frantically contest whether the economic consequences of such an outcome will lead to disaster or salvation for the country, the potential for its citizens to come together and engage in actions to cope collectively during the aftermath has been conspicuously absent from the debate.
What is certain is that the Greek people should not fear default. Not only do they know that things cannot get much worse having already endured five years of punitive austerity, decimated livelihoods and economic depression but in addition, given that over 90 percent of IMF, EU and European Central bank bailout funds are allocated to banks rather than to social programmes for the people who actually need them, they also have little to lose by voting “no”. More crucially, they can take inspiration from the people of Argentina who, in the wake of their country’s 2001 US$ 93bn debt default (the largest in international history at the time) demonstrated extraordinary unity in supporting each other through the tough times in the year that followed. Subsequently abandoning its national currency’s dollar-peg under the Convertibility model and then devaluation (the equivalent of Greece leaving the Euro), it went on to become the fastest-growing economy in the Western hemisphere, enjoying average growth of 9 percent between 2003-07.
