Tsipras: Society’s desire for democracy remains alive
ΣΧΕΤΙΚΑ ΑΡΘΡΑ
“The meaning of the Polytechnic uprising is everlasting. It has not been affected by time and continues to touch all the generations and particularly those young people that were not born at that time. We are holding the thread of the Polytechnic uprising and we are creating a new Greece,” said Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras in the parliament plenum on Thursday in a session dedicated to the Polytechnic uprising of 1973.
In his address Tsipras underlined that “the society’s desire for more democracy remains alive and is renewed every day according to each period’s problems,” adding that the Polytechnic uprising was the Greek people’s demand for democracy.
Before the uprising, nobody believed that the Greek people would confront the junta. Since then Greece has been undergoing the longest period of democratic normality in its modern history. However, the demand for more democracy remains and will always exist, stated Tsipras adding that “in the globalisation era, democracy refers to the struggle against corruption and conflict of interests. The democracy in the Greece of memoranda has been wounded and downgraded.”
He also said that his government has received a mandate to restore those damaged in the era of memoranda.
“We achieved a lot but we have a long way ahead of us but now the exit is visible” he said referring to the second review of the Greek programme and to the debt relief.
Moreover, Tsipras underlined that it a historic duty “for our people to fight in order to prevent the return to isolation and authoritarianism.”
Finally, referring to US President Barack Obama’s visit to Greece he said that “the country has won the respect of the international community in its struggle to tackle the refugee crisis. Greece is synonymous with solidarity…Greece is turning into a protagonist, instead of a pariah. Instead of being part of the crisis, it is turning into part of the solution and the solution is peace and safety. We will continue on this path, utilizing the symbolic responsibility carried by Greece as the place where democratic ideas were born,” he concluded.