"Hands off the public education!"
A review of the ongoing movement for free and public education
in
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From May 2006 until the moment that we are writing these lines,
The situation that led to the outbreak of the movement
In
1. Evaluation of the universities "according to the EU standards" (further reduce of the state funding would then be "justified" by the results of a made-up "evaluation").
2. Creation of an organization that would declare equivalent the foreign 3-years bachelor diplomas with the 4-years or 5-years Greek ones.
3. Institution of organizations of "continual education" (thus undermining the professional rights of the graduates).
The initial reactions of the student movement to these "reforms" were rather inadequate. This had to do with the pathogenesis of the Greek student Left. For example, it was almost the rule to have two or even three different protests in the same day, in the same town, for the same subject. Although the creation of a common left front against the social democrats and the right-wing seemed more than logical in front of the global attack of neoliberalism, it has been for years something really impossible. The "civil war" between the different formations of the student Left was bitterer than the fight against the social democrats and the right-wing. This frustrated and disappointed the great majority of the students, who wanted to participate united to the struggle against the neoliberal reforms, and also gave very poor results to any resistance that was put up, as the mobilizations were divided and thus weak and ineffective. Moreover, many of these radical left groups are almost exclusively student-orientated and student-composed.
So the first part of the "reforms" ended with the right-wing government headed by K. Karamanlis being one step ahead, imposing the "principles" of evaluation, equivalency and continual education. However, the practical implementation of these "reforms" has stagnated, mainly because of the refusal of many universities' administration and students to apply them, and because the government hesitated at that time to push further by introducing the necessary legislation for the materialization of the "principles".
The last reform, which provoked the outbreak of a united, resolute and combative student movement that started last May 2006 and continues until today, was a new frame-law bill concerning the universities' functioning. This law described how the universities should work, according to the EU criteria and in application of the afore-mentioned "principles". The main changes were:
1. Constraint of the political asylum inside the university campus (Since the fall of the fascist dictatorship in 1974, the entrance in Universities' ground is prohibited to the police forces. The asylum has been violated a few times during the last 30 years, but each time with heavy political cost for the government).
2. Constraint of the student unionism (Considered as "a Greek anachronism" because of its often militant and radical character, compared to the "responsible and moderate European student unions").
3. Set of maximum duration of the studies to 6 years for the 4 years faculties, and 7 years for the 5 years faculties (In Greece there are a lot of students who work full time, so they are obliged to prolong their studies; a limitation of the duration would result in excluding the most poor, and also the socially-politically active students).
4. Introduction of yearly fees and suspension of state funding for free university books.
5. Introduction of student loans or "scholarships" and business funding (Both last measures aiming at suppressing the officially public and free of charge character of the education for all students).
May - June 2006: The students against the new frame-law bill
With the announcement of the government's plans for a new frame-law, a vast mobilization of the student Left began. It started right after the huge and militant international demonstration of Saturday 6 May that marked the works of the 4th European Social Forum in Athens; this demonstration, with its united and combative character, filled with enthusiasm the left people and the youth and created a favorable climate for the struggle, that started on Monday 8 May with the first occupations of universities. The difference now, compared to the past, was that almost all the radical left formations were obliged, under the pressure of the students' will for united and determined resistance, to form a joint front-type movement. Also, the movement was influenced by the echo of struggles in other countries and regions, as well as by the positive experiences from the international movement. For example: the spirit of united struggle and the creation of popular initiative committees as it happened in France against the "EU Constitution" and the "CPE" bill; the mobilizations repeated the same day each week, as it happened in Germany with the "Monday demonstrations"; the spirit of adamant struggle and the creation of coordination committees and assemblies on local and national level, which brought together various social and political forces, as it happened in Oaxaca, Mexico and other countries.
The first week the occupations concerned about 70 faculties all over
The first (good) surprise was that even the universities with very weak student unionism were now occupied by students almost impulsively. The second (bad) surprise was that a big part of the student Left, the one controlled by KKE (Communist Party of Greece), was opposing the occupations. KKE argued that the occupation is a "wrong form of struggle", and suggested to "reopen the universities, continue with the exams, and prepare mobilizations in fall". However their "responsible" line was rejected by the vast majority of the students, and they lost a lot of their influence because of their dividing and compromising attitude. Thus, they were finally obliged to change their line, and after the 2nd week of June they joined, with the heads down, the "occupations' bloc". This bloc was initially formed by the students of the radical left, including the students of "EAAK", "Coalition", KOE, and other left groups (many of them almost exclusively student groups).
This first wave of mobilizations lasted two months (May and June 2006) and faced the brutal police repression by the state and a slanderous campaign of calumniation by the "mainstream" media. However, the bourgeois forces were not able to crack the movement. The mobilizations and the occupations stopped only when the government announced that it withdraws the new frame-law in order to "ameliorate" it, "considering" the student reactions. The students' General Assemblies declared that they will start again the occupations whenever the government reintroduces its "reforms". The outcome of this first round of struggle was a clear tactical victory of the students' movement, and a confirmation of the line for resolute and united struggle, which was imposed over the sectarian divisive attitude of the main student Left forces. Thus, it became the first victory of the popular camp marked over the reactionaries since many years.
September - November 2006: The teachers on the first line
The university students' movement was followed by the secondary education pupils' movement and the teachers' strike right after the summer vacations. The secondary education pupils started the school occupations in October with the demand for increase of the education funding, against the privatization. The school occupations lasted about one month and sustained the same calumniation campaign from the media: the bourgeois newspapers and TV channels were shamelessly talking of "great damages of the school buildings", of pupils "using drugs and making orgies" inside the occupied schools, etc…
Alongside with the pupils, the primary education teachers declared since mid-September a national strike, with the main demand of a decent salary. The hard core of the strike movement were the poorly paid young teachers, who imposed their combative spirit and enthusiasm over an otherwise rather traditional and "responsible" trade union leadership. The teachers made a six week long heroic strike, almost without any real support from the official trade union movement or the left political parties. The duration and the militancy of the strike was something very rare for the current Greek labor movement, especially because primary schools are a very sensitive social space. Nevertheless and despite the bourgeois propaganda and the practical problems created by the strike in every day life, the majority of parents were supporting the teachers.
At that time, the creation of a victorious broad front composed by all those working in education plus the students and the working people in general was a real possibility, which scared the government. Moreover, there was a demand that was unifying all the sectors of the education: "5% of the state budget for the education" (the percentage of the state budget for the education is reduced each year, causing great problems in the functioning of schools and universities, and keeping the salaries extremely low). However, the leaderships, including those of the main left forces of the university students, were limiting their support for the teachers' strike in declarations. The problem (or, more correct, the "problem") was that the universities were in an exams period, and so it was "impossible to call for General Assemblies". There was only a typical support to the teacher's mobilizations from the secondary education national federation as well. Would the attitude of the trade union and student left's leadership be different, joining the movement instead of letting it alone, this struggle would conclude with another victory. Unfortunately, what prevailed at that critical moment in the biggest part of the student and trade union Left was the idea to "guard our forces for the next round"…
When the universities came out of the exams, there were no occupations in faculties, but the student mobilizations and Assemblies restarted. The movement now turned against the government's new plans to amend the Article 16 of the Constitution, which assures the public and free of charge character of the education and prohibits the establishment of private universities. Indeed, the right-wing government of Nea Dimokratia, assisted by the leadership of the social democratic PASOK (who agrees with the privatization of the education), declared in mid-December its decision to immediately proceed with the amendment of the Constitution. The two bourgeois parties based their calculations on the fact that it would be impossible for the students and the movement to mobilize right before, during and right after the 2 weeks-long Christmas holidays…
January - February 2007: In defense of the Article 16 of the Constitution
Article 16 of the Constitution is the last institutional stronghold of public education in
Consequently, the right-wing government of Nea Dimokratia was interested even more for this "reform", than for the frame-law bill that failed to impose in May and June 2006. And so was the social democratic PASOK, whose president G. Papandreou declared since long ago its support for the establishment of "non-state universities", despite the negative opinion of its own electoral base's majority. These two parties, that form a particular bipartisan neoliberal front on the main issues, had both undertaken the obligation to advance this "reform" in favor of the parasitic Greek capital and their foreign masters.
When the students returned from the Christmas break, they were already in agitation. During the Christmas break, thousands of people signed a document of the newly-founded Panhellenic Initiative for Article 16, which was formed with the political support of left organizations, with KOE playing a considerable role in this development. Simultaneously, KOE produced a tract and a poster that were the first to be distributed in tens of thousands of copies on national level, putting on the agenda the necessity for joint and determined struggle with a concrete tactical-political goal that may unite a broad spectrum of social and political forces and is the "Achilles' heel" of the neoliberal reform: the defense of Article 16. Many local popular initiatives in support of Article 16 were also formed in several Greek cities with the impulse of the Left and of local groups. These local initiatives were uniting the biggest part of the Left, opposite to what happened on central level, where a part of the radical Left as well as KKE preferred to form two more separate initiatives, apart of the Panhellenic Initiative… However these separate initiatives were not particularly active, while the Panhellenic Initiative for Article 16 organized popular meetings and mobilizations all over
Within two days since the reopening of the Universities after Christmas break, more than half of the faculties were occupied again, according to the decisions of mass General Assemblies of their students. Once more, the organized forces were obliged to put aside the pretext of their ideological differences and to follow the will of the students' majority for common action against the renewed neoliberal attack. Within two weeks, more than 300 university faculties were occupied. The movement "pattern" is the same with last summer: there is a weekly march each Wednesday or Thursday, the occupations are one week-long and at the end of each week there is a faculty's General Assembly to decide the continuation of the mobilization. There is also an assembly in each city or university, which decides "locally", and a coordination assembly composed by delegates of all the local assemblies, which meets after each demonstration. This time the students of KKE supported since the beginning the mobilizations and the occupations, and moved on with more unity characteristics than in previous struggles. This equals to a miracle for us here in
The Panhellenic Federation of Associations of University Professors also declared continuous weekly strikes in defense of the article 16. This was very important for the student movement, as the bulk of their professors stood side by side with them in the first lines of the struggle. It was also important in order to secure the support of the public opinion in front of a huge smearing campaign against the movement. Because of their courageous stand, the progressive and left university professors became fast the target of the government and the bourgeois media. The police even accused the chairman and other leading members of their Panhellenic Federation of "promoting the incidents and forming an illegal alliance with anarchist and leftist elements"! At the same time, the reactionary and some "left" university professors, especially those implicated in dark transactions with private companies, were clearly supporting the government plans for privatization and repression, and calumniated the majority of their colleagues.
The neoliberals suffer another tactical defeat
As the movement continued the struggle, the discontent against the two neoliberal parties (Nea Dimokratia and PASOK) grew bigger. For the popular masses it was now much clearer that these two supposedly opposed parties were forming a neoliberal black front and were aggressing together the right of the youth and of the people to a free and public education. Even inside PASOK many members and cadres spoke openly against the leadership's support to the government plan to amend Article 16. Thousands of them signed a declaration, calling their leadership to respect the base's will and to stop supporting the privatization plans. Finally, on 8 February, the leadership of PASOK was obliged to withdraw its support to the process of changing the Constitution. Practically, this meant that the proposals to amend a series of Articles of the Constitution were not supported anymore by the necessary number of members of Parliament in order to be declared effective by a simple majority during the next legislature.
This was a great tactical victory for the movement, which succeeded to provoke an important crack to the neoliberal front. The united and mass struggle led to failure the actual government's attempt to promote the privatization of education and to transform neoliberalism into a constitutional principle! Just months ago, very few left forces believed that such results could be achieved. While practicing a lot of revolutionary verbalism, in reality they were disheartened by the crashing neoliberal majority in the Parliament and could not believe that the united, mass and combative extra-parliamentarian struggle was able to achieve tactical victories and to oblige the bourgeoisie to retreat. They had no trust in the people and in the youth. They were almost laughing at the line of KOE who insisted that we must put aside our differences and become a Left that is useful to the people, able to unite, inspire and lead a resolute common struggle with concrete tactics and political targets. However, the reality obliged them to change, even temporarily, their attitude, and that is a very positive development.
Nevertheless, even today KKE and some radical left groups' leaderships are diminishing the importance of the tactical victory, arguing that… "there is no victory because neoliberalism remains strong and we still live in the capitalist system"! Definitely, sectarianism, self-isolation, lack of any self-criticism, underestimation of the people and detachment from the reality are going hand-by-hand with the impossibility and unwillingness of these leaderships to proceed to a concrete analysis of the concrete situation and to act politically, in the service of the people's interests…
New government attack: Reintroduction of the "frame-law"
After its failure to amend the Constitution, the right-wing government decided to counter-attack by suddenly re-introducing to the Parliament the new frame-law for the higher education. With this new attempt, and hoping to take advantage of a certain exhaustion of the movement after many months of struggle (combined with the danger that the students will loose yet another exams period if the occupations will continue), the government tries to redress its wounded image and to enforce what it failed to impose through the amendment of Article 16. However, the first reaction of the movement was more than adequate: 40.000 people took part in the last weekly demonstration on 22 February in
Demonstration: "This law shall not pass!"
Forty thousands of students, university professors, teachers but also working people marched in the streets of
The demonstration had a national character, as delegations of the occupied Universities from all over
The demonstration went through the center of
Near the
The fascist attack of the police proved once more the revengeful rage of the government against a mass movement that does not yield in front of the reactionary policies. Especially targeted by the government is the youth, that puts itself on the forefront of the struggle since 10 months and has achieved (for the first time during the last years in
Onwards, for new victories!
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