The false coin of our dreams…

Who is the third who walks always beside you?

When I count, there are only you and I together

But when I look ahead up the white road

There is always another one walking beside you

T.S. Eliot, The Waste Land, V. What the Thunder Said

We are indeed living in strange times. We are being forced to bare witness to the demolishment of the social foundations of the very essence of ʽEuropeʼ. The winds of history are bringing a rather nasty face of a brave new world, glimpses of which had already been prepared in many episodes in the world, like in Iraq, Rwanda, the TienAnMen Square and more recently in Fukushima..

We are the youth of this continent, who were promised a future, a common identity, regardless of race and border, and what we got back instead was unemployment, forced immigration and diminished hopes. We have been brought together by a ʽEuropean Unionʼ, a union of markets and goods but not a union of souls. We were told that a ʽsingle currencyʼ would equalize our pockets -as well as our fancy attitudes-the false coin of our dreams..

Countries and peoples are being held hostage now, scared of losing the hard-won prosperity of recent times. The once ʽcollegiateʼ gatherings of the european elites, have suddenly been turned into a boxing ring; each one of them against the other, trying to save their part of the loot. A spectacular show to drag the peoples of Europe in their game, is being played every day in the newspapers and media, lots of ink and talk in the name of fear and loathing for your next-door..

The movements that have grown in this background, all have a common numerator: to restore hope to a different future, one that will not be ruled by the iron fist of money-markets and corporations. We owe a lot to the brave people of Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and οf the martyred land of Syria and we promise that their sacrifices will strengthen our struggle even more.We need to follow the example of so many revolutionaries before us in time, who gave everything for the common cause.

In the same way that capitalism today is showing us the door, treating us as expendable guinea-pigs (with Greece as the plat de jour) so too we must answer back, showing that we have nothing to lose, that the promises of prosperity will always be false. We need to show that we are ready to lose everything, and we really donʼt give a damn about the ʽgoodsʼ that we are missing. We live as we say and we say as we believe.

It is not just jobs or money that we are after, so that we can sit back and relax after this nightmare will be over. It is the vision of a better world, a world in which there will always be another one walking beside us when we look up the white road..

Amsterdam, 10 October 2011