GREETING OF THE STUDENTS’ MILITANT FRONT TO THE PARTICIPANTS OF THE 17th WORLD FESTIVAL OF
YOUTH AND STUDENTS IN SOUTH AFRICA
Fellow Participants at the 17th World Festival of Youth and Students,
We express the warmest militant greetings from the Students’ Militant Front (MAS) and thousands of Greek students in the ranks of MAS.
The Students’ Militant Front is the hope of the student movement in Greece; it rallies student unions, over 150 student committees of militant students in the direction of rupture with the monopolies and imperialism. Involved in the Students’ Militant Front are children of workers’ families who recognize the need for the student movement to fight together with its natural ally, the working class movement, to organize the struggle against the capital, its political representatives, the policies of the European Union and against all imperialist organizations.
MAS is rallying the students developing a rich militant action on the side of the All Workers Militant Front (PAME) and the side of the anti monopoly rallies of small peasants, small businessmen, the militant unions of women and the coordinating committees of students. MAS is the "healthy pole" in the students’ movement, the answer against the degeneration and disruption which is prevailing. It was created to become the base for rallying and development of the student struggles and to respond to the dissolution of the student movement that exists the last 15 years as a result of the choice of the bourgeoisie governments to dissolve the student movement and the tactics of the opportunist parties in Greek universities and Τechnical colleges. The attitude of the socialdemocratic, neoliberal and opportunist factions is not random at all, since its their responsibility as well that EFEE, the panhellennic national union of the students is not in function, so that the big capital, the monopolies will be undisturbed to gain profits through their business in the universities.
The Students’ Militant Front was founded on November 6th, 2009 by the first Nationwide conference of the struggle committees held at the Philosophical University of Athens. A month ago we held our 2nd Pan-Hellenic Meeting. During this one year of its existence, MAS worked together with PAME and participated in the great strikes that shook the whole of Greece. We are proud that we fought together with our parents in the “blockings” of the peasantry, outside of factories and businesses and ships! Also, MAS was in the first line of the struggle, organizing the fight for everything that tortures students daily – the right to education, free education, permanent and stable job, a life of dignity.
Today in Greece, the Socialdemocrat government with the other bourgeois parties, the capitalists, the EU and the IMF have launched an unprecedented attack on the rights of the workers and the youth of the country. They load the burden of the capitalist crisis on the people, so that when the capital overcomes the crisis the people will be deemed to be decimated without labor rights, worn wages etc. In the same direction they try to dismantle Education that is why they close down university schools/programs they feel like they don’t need, that is why they have essentially eliminated the public nature of education by placing managers in schools. This situation has prompted tens of thousands of our colleagues to work alongside their studies and many of them to eventually give up their studies. All this essentially expresses the implementation of Bologna and Lisbon treaties. This policy only benefits the enterprisers, as they see their choices and needs being promoted in the educational system.
We believe that:
Today there all conditions exist to make all the knowledge produced by mankind property of the people and the youth. Obstacle to this is the power of the monopolies and the private ownership of the means of production. The way out is the struggle for the other way of development in terms of satisfaction the contemporary needs of the people. In this way can the Higher Education be centrally planned and organized, so that it is not a commodity and privilege of the few but an instrument for development and prosperity for the people themselves.
That's why we clearly say:
The plutocracy must pay for the crisis. The people did not create this crisis. The crisis was created by the policy of the capital, the policy which all parties supporting the EU implement and support. We organize the struggle in every workplace; every neighborhood; in every school to abolish the barbaric long term Memorandum and so that the Memorandum for the education will not pass.
We call for disobedience and disruption against the education that is subjected to market forces and the needs of the monopolies! Struggle for an education that fits the needs of the people! We reveal, everywhere we go, the role of the social democratic leaderships and the opportunists in the trade union movement and repudiate the university professors who are guided by the monopolies. We break all those who want to split the bond between the student movement and the class oriented workers’ movement. We create the great social alliance to pave the way for a society free from monopolies; where the means of production are popular estate. Only this will ensure full, stable job, only in this way will there be free Health, Welfare and Education.
With these thoughts and conveying the situation in Greece to you, we hope to have a great anti-imperialist festival, which will give impetus to the struggle of the peoples and the youth of the world. We are of the opinion that our future does not fit within the limits of the capitalist system and we are confident that the 21st century will be the century in which the people will come to the forefront of history by putting the issue of the abolishment of the exploitation of man by man in the agenda.