Statement on the 41st anniversary of the Athens Polytechnic Uprising
This year marks the 41st anniversary of the events that took place on November of ’73 in Athens. The messages of the popular uprising of the Polytechnic University in Athens, Greece, are timeless and are calling us to be alarmed. The will of the Greek people to break the imperialist dependency of their country, for democracy and more humane conditions of living, was expressed with its continuous resistance to the dictatorship, and it found its best expression in the face of the militant youth of the Polytechnic.
Their uprising was a result of long-term, painful and persistent struggles against the fascist regime of the military Junta and its foreign mentors, who were the representatives of the US and NATO imperialism in the country. The 17th of November is the day to honour and remember the fallen students of the Polytechnic University whose uprising gave the signal for the popular uprising of the Greeks against the dictatorship, a fact that cost them even their life.
After the popular uprising of the Polytechnic, the remaining Junta, embraced the fascist EOKA B’ in Cyprus, thus opening the door to the Turkish invasion that occupied 37% of our island. It is with their acts that they marked the darkest page of the contemporary history of Cyprus.
41 years since, and the messages of the Polytechnic Uprising are more bright than ever. Today’s’ financial “dictatorship” has invaded in every poor house but also in the entire education centre, from the kindergarten to the primary, high school and universities.
The Anastasiades Government walks in dangerous paths by dissolving the welfare state, which the previous government had prioritized. The closing of kindergartens, the primary schools, high schools etc was just the beginning. The danger of the introduction of tuition fees in the public universities, the dissolution of the school administrations, the fees on the public transportation for students and pensioners, the abolition of free medical and pharmaceutical care, the falsification of history, the cuts from the budgets of the public universities, the reduction of all social allowances, the sharp increase of youth unemployment and immigration, are just a few examples from the financial distraction in which the government has put the people into with its policies.
Today, the government is outside the gates of our own Polytechnic, our own universities, our own education. They are ready, to bring down the dreams of thousands of young people for a better future. It is our duty to resist to this policies followed by the Anastasiades government, to get all together in the road of struggle to oppose all those who wants us to become slaves of the 21st century. Only with the massive and organized struggle we can overcome the policies of poverty and misery.
The 17th of November has been declared as the International Day of Students. In this framework, the Commission of Europe and North America (CENA) of the World Federation of Democratic Youth (WFDY), is organizing a Week of Action, against the privatization, for a public education for everyone. EDON, calls the youth to participate massively and militantly to the demonstrations that are organized every year by the organized secondary and higher education student movement in Nicosia and Limassol.
Press Office of the CC of EDON
16/11/2014