MeRA25 is reorganising and strengthening: Electing its 1st Central Committee!
A year after entering Parliament, MeRA25 is not complacent.
Building on last year’s solid foundations, the party is strengthening its institutions and activating our membership all over Greece.
After the ratification of its new Statutes by all DiEM25 members, MeRA25 now needs to elect the new organs that will govern it, starting with the Central Committee.
The 1st Central Committee is comprised of the members of the current Extended Political Secretariat, 15 members chosen by sortition amongst all MeRA25 members (who are also DiEM25 members), 2 members from every Administrative Region (excluding Attica) put forward by the Secretary in concert with the Committee for the Organisation of the Congress and Movement Outreach, and 1 member from every electoral district, selected by the members of that district through e-voting.
The election process starts on August 24, with the launch of MeRA25’s e-platform for the submission of candidacies from each district. On the same day, the 24 members put forward by the Secretary will be announced.
Below you can find an outline of next steps:
12/9 deadline for submitting candidacies and for new members to register in order to take part in the vote for the Central Committee.
13/9 until 18/9 candidates are given the opportunity to present themselves in teleconferences at the regional level.
During the same interval, the 15 members chosen through sortition are selected, who can either accept or reject the position.
19/9 until 23/9 complementary vote (if needed) for members who rejected their position.
E-voting per district takes place.
24/9 the final composition of the Central Committee is announced.
26/9 until 27/9 the Central Committee convenes for the first time and elects its Coordinator as well as the organs: Political Secretariat, Committee for the Compliance with the Code of Conduct and Statutes and Financial Control Committee.
Over the coming days, all members are kindly asked to confirm their full e-registration with MeRA25 by visiting internal.diem25.org with their passwords, in order to be able to take part in the upcoming e-voting.
If you encounter any difficulties, MeRA25’s communication hotline (00302103810675) will be available every day from 10am to 8pm (excluding the week 12-19/8), to provide any assistance required.
United we make our voice stronger!
News from Turkey: Hagia Sophia, COVID-19 and violence against women
The Provisional National Collective in Turkey is pleased to inform DiEM25 members with the first issue of a monthly review on Turkey’s social, economic, and cultural state of affairs.
After 86 years as a museum, Hagia Sophia has now been converted back into a mosque.
On July 24, several hundred people, including President Erdoğan, and according to official figures, several hundred thousand people prayed before Hagia Sophia.
Ali Erbaş, head of Diyanet, the state religious office, gave a first presentation of the religious ritual by holding a sword as a symbol of conquest during Friday sermon in Hagia Sophia. This act was protested in two ways: Religion should not be merged with violence and in particular it will definitely offend the non-Muslim population, as it recalls an Ottoman saying “sword residue”. It means, after a pogrom some get stuck on the lineage because a cruel man couldn’t kill enough.
Sultan Mehmet the Conqueror has converted Hagia Sophia to a mosque and established it as a legacy of his foundation. In 1936 Mustafa Kemal Atatürk had signed a decree and converted it into a museum. Without mentioning the name, the head of Diyanet has accused him of betrayal. The opposition as well as the majority of population strongly condemned him and asked for his resignation.
This transformation has been interpreted in local and international press and social media as follows: Turkish President’s power politics, the ongoing pressure of strong or mild religious units since a decade, preparations for an early election and an initiative step towards caliphate.
Curiously, the Society for Byzantine Studies AIEB has canceled its congress planned for 2021 in Istanbul; officially it was cancelled because of the coronavirus pandemic.
According to official Turkish information, around 1,000 people contract the virus every day.
The mask requirement in public in 48 provinces has recently been extended to August 30. Turkey is also on the list of countries for which a travel warning has been issued. During the 4 days Feast of Sacrifice the holiday resorts along the Aegean and Mediterranean coast of Turkey were extremely crowded by local population; it is widely observed that COVID-19 restrictions were not followed properly.
Turkey, meanwhile, quietly suspended its research and natural gas wells in the Eastern Mediterranean over the four-day holiday.
An escalation had occurred shortly before when ships of the navy of Greece and Turkey faced each other in the Aegean. After interventions in Iraq, Syria and Libya, also with the use of foreign mercenaries, the Turkish armed forces are now also participating in the maneuvers on the Armenian border — parallel to the Armenian-Russian war games in the Caucasus.
DiEM25 Turkey, Greece and Germany collaborated on the proclamation of DiEM25 on recent tensions in the Aegean Sea, inviting Greece and Turkey to peaceful and diplomatic solution of the current conflict.
Since 2011 over 2000 women have been killed in Turkey, and 36 women were killed only in July.
The Istanbul Convention (signed in 2011) is considered an effective justice instrument to prevent the murder of women, child abuse and the violation of LGTBQ rights. Ultra conservative and religious sects have been pressing for Turkey’s withdrawal from the Istanbul Convention, arguing that it destroys the unity of the family and paves the way for the recognition of LGBTQ groups.
The opposition has stood by the convention, as well as numerous NGO’s, including KADEM, an association of women rights founded by President Erdoğan’s daughter. The latest viral social media challenge — #ChallengeAccepted — invited women across the globe to post black and white photos of themselves and nominate other women to do the same.
Beral Madra
on behalf of DiEM25 PNC in Turkey
Against the extradition of Julian Assange to the United States: Our right to know is his right to publish
The Courage Foundation in cooperation with DiEM25 opens the Europe-wide exhibition “We Are Millions” in Leipzig.
On the 1st of August at 6pm, the Courage Foundation in cooperation with DiEM25 continue the Europe-wide exhibition “We Are Millions” in Leipzig to draw attention to the possible extradition of Julian Assange to the USA.
On the 7th of August, it will host a speaker, as well as performances and video installations in order to shed light on Assange’s case. He is current suffering of psychological torture contrary to human rights and the charges against this journalist are a threat to and restriction of freedom of the press.
Programme:
- 19-20h : Opening and photo portrait shootings
- 20-21h : Speech and Q&A Session with Biologist Esteban Servat on EcoLeaks; which published a secret Argentine government study of the environmental effects of fracking Mendoza
Esteban Servat
The photo exhibition:
Famous representatives from politics and the arts (Ai Weiwei, Srećko Horvat, Yanis Varoufakis, Pamela Anderson, Vivienne Westwood, M.I.A. etc.) have repeatedly offered support to Julian Assange.
The journalist, activist and founder of WikiLeaks is currently serving time in London’s high security Belmarsh prison. After the first hearings on February 24, the exhibition is drawing the public’s attention in Leipzig to the continued violation of the human rights of Assange.
The exhibition shows supporters holding signs that express simply and clearly why they are standing up for Julian Assange, who the United States wants to punish for publishing hundreds of thousands of diplomatic and military documents in 2010.
These publications have exposed war crimes against countless civilian victims, rampant corruption and abuse. The Trump administration has brought 17 espionage charges against Assange, the first ever such charge against a journalist threatening life imprisonment.
Noam Chomsky: On the weaponisation of false anti-Semitism charges against radical progressive movements
Fifty years ago, the distinguished Israel statesman Abba Eban wrote that “One of the chief tasks of any dialogue with the Gentile world is to prove that the distinction between anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism is not a distinction at all. Anti-Zionism is merely the new anti-Semitism.”
As the examples he gives make crystal clear (e.g., the committed Zionist I.F. Stone), by “anti-Zionism” he means criticism of the policies of the government of Israel and some sympathy for Palestinians.
That principle has become a last-ditch defense of apologists for Israel crimes under the occupation. Any critic, any proponent of Palestinian rights, can be tarred as an anti-Semite. This weapon has recently been wielded to great effect against Jeremy Corbyn in a campaign of vulgar deceit and slander that is shocking even beyond the disgraceful norm.
It would not be surprising if DiEM25 is soon subjected to the same treatment as its success increases and its outreach grows. Be prepared.
Open Call: In the era of coronavirus, participate with one word
OPEN THE BLACK BOXES
The art project OPEN THE BLACK BOXES! will provide free access to an ongoing open source database created by mapping people’s hopes and fears. This is in collaboration with Vital Space, which is a global, interdisciplinary, cross-media art platform.
At a time marked by a global pandemic, economic uncertainty, environmental catastrophe, social unrest and xenophobia, we find ourselves in the clasps of multiple fears. This project aims at giving voice to individual anxieties so as to ameliorate them and thus to enable collective solutions overcoming common predicaments.
OPEN THE BLACK BOXES! is a participatory Digital Art Project that asks people from local communities to reply with one word to one of the two questions: “What threatens you the most?” or “What are you most eager to preserve?”
The submitted words will be presented digitally as infographics that can be filtered by age, gender and country of the participants, and they will become part of a physical exhibition when the covid-related restrictions are overcome. Gathered without intermediaries, the words will become an extremely valuable record of our time: raw materials for artists, researchers, and people from every walk of life to make sense of the present crisis and reimagine our future.
Open the Black Boxes is an ongoing collaboration with Vital Space, a non-profit organization co-founded by DiEM25 Advisory Panel member (AP) Danae Stratou in 2010. It is dedicated to the initiation of art projects, research programs, conferences, publications and the formation of educational and media products designed to reach and influence a wide and diverse audience.
Joint Statement on the rising tensions between Greece and Turkey
The perpetrators of war, the profiteers of the fossil fuel industry and political leaders wedded to an unsustainable economic system are, today, escalating tensions in the Eastern Mediterranean — especially between Greece and Turkey.
Intent on drilling for oil and gas everywhere, with lethal effect on the local environment, the earth’s climate and the prospects of peace and prosperity for the peoples of the region, this harmful fusion of oligarchs, warmongers and politicians with vested interests are working diligently toward dividing and ruling over the people so as to rob them of their future.
DiEM25, as we state in our manifesto, is committed to an Ecological Europe engaged in genuine world-wide green transition; a historically conscious Europe that seeks a bright future without hiding from its past; an Internationalist Europe that knows that no European can be free until humans everywhere are free, a peaceful Europe de-escalating tensions in its neighbourhood and beyond.
That is why at a time of increasing tensions, DiEM25 chooses instead to work towards the conversion of the Aegean and the East Mediterranean into a Sea of Peace, Cooperation, Shared Renewable Energy and shared green prosperity.
Signed
DiEM25’s National Collective in Germany
DiEM25’s National Collective in Greece
DiEM25’s Provisional National Collective in Turkey
The most dangerous case against press freedom continues in silence
The war against free press continued from a London courtroom yesterday.
A hearing was held in the case against Wikileaks founder Julian Assange allowing the prosecution, led by the US government, a chance to enter new indictments released in June against Assange and strengthen their bid for extradition from the United Kingdom.
A growing case against Wikileaks and whistleblowing.
The current US case against Assange has grown in size since it was revealed in 2019.
The current charges against the Wikileaks founder focus on computer hacking and, most concerning to free press advocates, violating the Espionage Act.
Developed in World War I to discourage spying, the Espionage Act applied in the case against Assange focuses on the “criminality” of publishing state secrets. Wikileaks, a whistleblower organization, has published classified documents from governments around the world, most notably a video of US soldiers in Iraq killing two Reuters journalists.
The Obama administration, who charged more under the Espionage Act than all predecessors combined, examined the legality of a case against the Wikileaks founder. Their pursuit was abandoned after failing to find a distinction between Wikileaks publications and reporting from newspapers like The New York Times.
Conflating hacking and journalism.
The Trump administration has coupled the Espionage Act indictment with two computer hacking charges.
The former hacking charge alleges Assange “conspired” with US Army intelligence officer Bradley (now Chelsea) Manning to hack – rather than receive leaked documents from – a US government computer. The second hacking charge, part of the recent indictment released in June, alleges Wikileaks worked with fellow hacking groups LulzSec and Anonymous to obtain classified US documents.
Wikileaks editor-in-chief Kristinn Hrafnsson noted in a statement yesterday these new indictments are a “third try” by US prosecutors after being “unable to build a coherent and credible case” with the previous charges.
The show trial of the century.
The US case against Assange seems designed to work against the Wikileaks founder.
The defense claims the Wikileaks founder has been denied access to his legal team in over 17 weeks. This is compounded by allegations that Assange was “stripped naked and had legal documents taken from him.”
There’s further speculation about the fairness of the trial after it was revealed the husband of the judge, Vanessa Baraitser, has connections to corporations exposed by Wikileaks, and that US prosecutors are relying on evidence from a deemed “psychopathic” FBI informant who infiltrated the whistleblowing organization.
Unfit to stand trial.
The health of Assange is another ongoing challenge to a fair trial.
There have been long concerns about the ‘psychological torture’ of his imprisonment, but also the scant protection from COVID-19 in Belmarsh Prison. Many of Belmarsh Prison’s staff members have asked for medical leave during the pandemic.
The defense team urged bail — later denied — after Assange developed a lung condition and a COVID-19 outbreak was reported in Belmarsh.
Standing up for Press Freedom.
DiEM25 stands in solidarity with Assange and asks you to join us in doing so. It is exactly those deemed controversial by elite circles and the extreme Center that we must protect. If they make an example out of Assange, other journalists and thinkers will be next.
The war on whistleblowers is also threatening labor advocates like Chris Smalls, who stood up to Amazon. Whistleblowers are more necessary than ever in a time of private sector takeover.
Without information about what governments do in our names, we cannot have functioning democracies. In order for another (post) pandemic world to be possible, we need radical thinkers and rigorous journalists that will hold the powerful to account.
Why Bitcoin is not a socialist’s ally: Reply to Ben Arc
On 15th July, Ben Arc published in Bitcoin Magazine an open letter addressed to me in a bid to convince me that I should reassess my rejection of Bitcoin as a force for good; as a bulwark for democratising capitalism and paving the ground for socialism. Here is my reply.
Dear Ben Arc,
Thank you for your open letter and your efforts to bring a socialist perspective to bear upon my assessment of Bitcoin.
In my reply below, I shall address you as a fellow socialist, rather than put together a reply meant to address all sorts of different perspectives (e.g. Keynesian, Hayekian, neoclassical).
As you know, I am one of those who, back in 2011, were genuinely intrigued, fascinated even, by the remarkable blockchain algorithm. The prospect of a decentralised ledger controlled by its community of users was mesmerising.
As you also know, I was unimpressed by Bitcoin as an alternative to fiat money that is either likely, or indeed desirable, under our current capitalist predicament.
Having read your open letter, I remain as enthusiastic on blockchain’s capacities and as unimpressed by Bitcoin’s ability to help us either civilise or (as any socialist dreams of) transcend capitalism.
Two propositions support this view. In the hypothetical case where Bitcoin were, under presently-existing capitalism, to replace fiat money: (1) It would lack the mechanism necessary to stop capitalist crises from yielding depressions that benefit only the ultra-right; and, (2) Its community-based, democratic protocols would do little to democratise economic life.
I shall explain my two propositions briefly below. But, before you despair (at my continued negative take on Bitcoin), let me foreshadow the concluding sentence in the Epilogue below: Once (and, of course, if) socialism dawns, money will have to be founded on a distributed-ledger, monetary commons enabling technology.
In other words, I shall argue that Bitcoin is not fit for purpose under capitalism, or as a vehicle toward transcending capitalism, but something like Bitcoin will characterise monetary systems in a future world free of private banks and share markets.
OK, let me now support my two propositions:
Proposition 1: Bitcoin lacks the shock absorbers necessary to prevent capitalist crises from doing untold damage to the working class.
Consider the Crash of 2008 or the more recent 2020 Covid-19-induced crisis. Suppose that Central Banks did not have the capacity instantly to create trillions of dollars, euros, pounds and yen — and instead had to rely on a spontaneous majority of Bitcoin’s users to agree to a massive increase in the supply of money. The result would be a 1929-like collapse of banks and corporations.
While socialists would shed no tears for the tragedy of the oligarchy, socialists should beware that a 1929-like systemic collapse is bound to strengthen the forces of the ultra-right — not of the socialist left (that has been, since at least 1991, languishing in the doldrums of political paralysis).
Technically, there is of course nothing that would prevent the Bitcoin community from agreeing instantly to even a doubling of the money base. However, the Tragedy of the Commons guarantees that Bitcoin owners will be subject to the usual prisoner’s dilemma dynamic that prevents the boost in the money supply necessary to avert the liquidation of potentially viable businesses and jobs. Moreover, this free-rider problem is made far, far worse by the fact that Bitcoin ownership is very unequally distributed, thus giving the Bitcoin-rich powerful incentives to restrain the growth of the money supply (since such restrictions would boost their private rents at the expense of the public interest).
In short, the free-rider problem that guarantees the maximal reinforcement of any capitalist crisis (in any economy relying on Bitcoin as its main currency) will be turbocharged by the unequal ownership of Bitcoin – which is unavoidable in any monetary system overlaid upon contemporary capitalism.
Proposition 2: Under capitalism, Bitcoin’s dominance will not democratise economic life — or give socialism a chance.
Suppose, again, that some magic wand is waved and Bitcoin replaces fiat money under contemporary capitalist conditions. In other words, as Bitcoin replaced dollars, pounds, euros and yen, property rights over land, resources and machines remain as they are while private equity firms and pension funds continue to own the bulk of shares trading in Wall Street, the City etc. All that will have changed is that Central Banks will vanish and the community of Bitcoin users will determine the global money supply (subject to the free-rider problems mentioned above).
At the firm level, nothing will have changed. Jeff Bezos will still control a massive monopsony-cum-monopoly, Facebook will still own the whole marketplace within its platform, Exxon-Mobil will continue to lean on weaker developing country governments to drill for oil and gas that should be left in the Earth’s guts etc.
And what of private banks? They would, make no mistake here, find ways of creating complex derivatives based on Bitcoin – derivatives that will soon (just like Lehman Brothers’ CDOs prior to 2008) function as stores of value and means of exchange; i.e. as private money. Massive bubbles denominated in Bitcoin will build up and they will burst just as they did in the 19th century under the Gold Standard. And then?
In the absence of Central Banks and with the Bitcoin community in the clasps of the aforementioned free-rider problem, depression will follow – as it did before the Fed was instituted in the US. Thus, the tragedy mentioned in Proposition 1 above kicks in.
In short, not only will the democratisation of money via Bitcoin fail to democratise capitalism but it will also give an almighty boost to the forces of regression.
Epilogue.
Bitcoin’s great appeal is that it breaks the cronyist chain linking central banks and private bankers. However, it does not undermine the cronyism of the network of bosses, politicians and private bankers.
Lest we forget, 19th Century bimetallic America also lacked a central bank. Under the gold and silver standards, the public money supply was fixed — and could not be easily manipulated by the state (either the government or the, then non-existent, Fed). But that did not stop private bankers from leveraging public money out of thin air to create huge quantities of private money with which to fund the Robber Barons, i.e. the Jeff Bezoses, of the era.
In this sense, replacing fiat money with Bitcoin would take us back to a postmodern version of 19th Century America — not exactly a prospect socialists should go to the barricades for.
In summary, the monetary system is like the dog’s tail. It cannot wag the capitalist dog, in the sense that democratising money by means of a monetary commons will not democratise economic life but, rather, make capitalism uglier, nastier and more dangerous for humanity.
Having said all this, a monetary commons (that may very well rely on something like the blockchain underpinning Bitcoin) will, I have no doubt, be an essential aspect of a democratised economy; of socialism.
Yanis Varoufakis: The Aegean and Mediterranean should become seas of Peace, Cooperation and Shared Green Prosperity
Neither War Nor Joint Exploitation of Energy Resources! The Aegean and Mediterranean should become seas of Peace, Cooperation and Shared Green Prosperity.
Today at 10:30 am, MeRA25’s Secretary was briefed by the Prime Minister on Greco-Turkish relations.
In turn Mr Varoufakis informed the Prime Minister on the estimations and positions of MeRA25, stressing that, today, on the 46th Anniversary of the Restoration of Democracy, our obligation is not to forget how Democracy returned to Greece: As a result of the Cypriot tragedy, brought about by nationalist choices of a foreign-led greek regime that opened the door to the Occupation of Northern Cyprus.
Ever since, Turkey has been elevated to a peripheral power, especially following the debilitation of Egypt, the disintegration of Syria, Iraq and Libya, the failure of the European Union to chart a foreign policy and, of course, the US withdrawal from the Middle East. Greece, in contrast, by being a constant yes-man, has succumbed to pathetic debt bondage.
The farcical endeavor of austerity governments to box in Turkey behind its coastline, surrounding it with extraction drills and oil rigs in concert with Netanyahu, Trump, Macron, Exxon-Mobil, Total et al, could not but have turned into a fiasco. Instead of “fortifying” Greece and creating the much sought after “safe footings”, it ended up isolating Athens while rendering Erdogan even more dominant.
Varoufakis stressed to the Prime Minister MeRA25’s estimation that the European Union, especially Berlin but also Paris, want to drag him into talks with Turkey under their own intermediation and with an agenda they themselves will have agreed with Erdogan.
With this in mind, Varoufakis called upon the government to:
- Set real red lines, which we are in fact prepared to defend no matter what the cost is – since without such reliable red lines, whether negotiating with the troika or with Ankara, dialogue ends up in one capitulation after another.
- Convene a Peripheral Summit, without intermediation, with the participation of all countries in the Eastern Mediterranean, to determine the limits of Exclusive Economic Zones in the area in the context of International Law. This is the only way to diffuse bilateral tensions between Greece and Turkey, to suppress the role of foreign intermediaries and open therapeutic dialogue between Ankara and Athens.
Finally, Yanis Varoufakis explained MeRA25’s answer to the dilemma “War or Joint Exploitation of Energy Resources?” to the Prime Minister : Neither War, nor Joint Exploitation! Instead, the Aegean and Mediterranean should become a sea of Peace, Cooperation and Shared Green Prosperity.
Read the original MeRA25 statement in Greek on our website.