There was for a moment a breath of democracy in the crisis of the European currency and an attempt at honesty. But the Greek referendum was not to be. This was heavy duty blackmail says openDemocracy founding editor. Takis Pappas could not disagree more.
In the 1990s, Argentina was an IMF poster boy, but it soon became a byword for the failures of the Washington Consensus. Tying its currency to the dollar, cutting public spending and selling its assets led to a deepening debt spiral from which it could not escape, until it defaulted.
The political class want the London occupation to make demands of them - but the protestors aren't accepting this power dynamic. They are instead assembling publics: the first step towards understanding the present and building for a better future.
By showing us the possibility of democracy in revolution, they have ignited a revolution in democracy, one that is redefining the meaning of both terms.
Far more dangerous than the present financial crisis threatening the euro, Greece looks like a failed EU state, which puts at risk the stability of the entire European project.
It is necessary to find a new system where decisions can only be taken if they have sufficient support from the people to legitimate them. This is why we cannot deny that we have entered into a new era.
For all those who are afraid or suspicious, I invite them to go to the streets of Syria. One main defect with academic writing is that it avoids bombast. Hence, it doesn’t say that those young men and women who have been protesting in the streets of Syria for more than five months are heroes.
What do the mountains of debt of a west that used to be rich have in common? Were errors made in the construction and constitution of the European Union? If so, how do we mend them?
Yes, European leaders could all agree when it came to imposing austerity on Athens, Dublin, Lisbon and Rome, ‘reassuring’ financial markets, saving creditor banks, increasing countries’ financial burdens and putting public enterprises on the market at sale prices. But such policies make exiting th
