FraserWords

Greece was the place that showed us how to do things like democracy, thinking and sport, so it’s appropriate that in 2015, it’s Greece that shows us how to be brave.

It’s a lesson the southern English need, badly. For several years now the southern English have decided to support – or, in a particularly cowardly twist on their spinelessness, ignore  – policies that bully the poor and disabled.

They have even forgotten what those Greeks taught us about democracy: when this country had an election, a minority of the southern English was enough to hand power to rich white men who want to continue hurting the sick and the less well-off in order to protect their own, and their friends’, wealth and status.

Other parts of our country know their history, of course, and vast swathes of the north and Scotland have shown the courage to believe that the world does not have to be ordered for the benefit of those who inherit great wealth, or are gifted great, yet unmerited, reward for pointless tasks like hedge fund managing or investment banking.

But now… Now Greece has shown what courage means. Scapegoated by the European establishment to take savage punishment for the crimes of the bankers who massaged the figures to inveigle Greece into the Eurozone in the first place, forced to suffer and watch the rest of Europe carry on regardless, the Greeks could have been forgiven for giving up. For surrendering. For saying ‘yes’ to anything that might for a moment put a loaf of bread on the table and feed a hungry child.

But no. The Greeks showed what courage means.

It’s the courage that says to a bully ‘No, I will not stand to one side while you hurt that child.’

It’s the courage that says to banks ‘Don’t lecture us for getting into a terror of debt – you leant us the money so you could prop up your Euro project in the first place.’

It’s the courage that says ‘I will not stand by while you refuse help to that disabled person.’

In this country, cowards moan and whine about the European project – yet while power is handed to unelected corporations through measures like the international TTIP agreement, they do nothing. In European elections they do not vote to force unelected European Central Bankers to work for the good of all people, they snivel about foreigners stealing their jobs.

But the world does not have to be ordered for the benefit of the elite, it does not have to be governed by unelected banks, it does not exist so corporations can make money for rich shareholders. The world should be governed by us, for us – and what a fabulously courageous reminder the Greek people have roared out to the world.

Maybe the English will one day remember, too, what courage is: for the English are a people who have shown the most tremendous courage in standing up against bullies, in creating a society that looks after everybody. They’ve forgotten it, that’s all.

History can help.

For example. The English once stood against fascism even though right-wing media such as the Daily Mail, then as now, tried to persuade the people that the unpalatable was acceptable (in the case of the 1930s, by praising Hitler).

For example. England and Greece were once among countries that showed courage and magnanimity in helping a broken economy to rebuild by cancelling debt. The year was 1953, the conference was held in London and that broken country was Germany.

For example. The English were generous in extending taxpayers’ help without penalty and by the billion to bankers who’d broken our economy in 2008-09.

For example. England has courageously stood by its American friends in their orgy of consumer spending and environmental destruction that has pushed the US economy into the sort of indebtedness that makes the Greek crisis look, by comparison, like asking for the loan of a fiver til Friday.

Yes, society – English society – does have courage and generosity of spirit, English society does put people first. It’s just that English society seems to have forgotten how.

Well. Greece has shown us how to be brave once more. It’s simple. All you have to do is take to the streets and stand up for yourself. All you have to do is tell the bullies to fuck off.

And you have to have the courage and strength to keep on doing it.

Because this won’t be the end. Corporate Europe will now turn on Greece with even greater and ever increasing ferocity, for the unelected establishment cannot afford democracy to insist upon the return of power to people. Greece’s suffering is not over.

Unless, of course, the rest of Europe shows the same courage as the Greek people….

People are stirring.