Doctors and hospital staff protest against closing hospitals and lay-offs, 2013. Demotix/Thanashs Kambyshs. All rights reserved.Various articles have been written in the last few days over why Greeks should vote No. The restoration of hope and dignity are of course topping the agenda, as my friends Antonis Vradis and Hara Kouki explain in this platform and elsewhere. But I would argue there is another, less obvious reason why we should vote No.
We have already voted No. Since 2009, we have been facing brutal neoliberal reforms and yet we resisted becoming neoliberal subjects. We refused to judge people by their falling spending power and commodity value. We came together in local assemblies and public squares, formed solidarity trading networks and alternative economies as well as self-managed health centres, education centres and time banks that catered for all - independent of class, race, age and gender. It was all about solidarity across difference and distance, the struggle to retain human dignity, and our collective capacity to overcome fear.
This is why in a sense, we have already voted No. We are simply called to deliver at a more structural, macro-economic level what we have already delivered at the micro-level of everyday life and social struggles. We have to say NO before our solidarity structures fail, before we become subaltern in an increasingly dystopian Europe.
