Have the Athens Polytechnic Uprising Ideals Lost their Glow?

The November 17 Polytechnic uprising anniversary in Athens, once a symbol of resistance against the Greek military junta, is now often overshadowed by clashes between police and far-left groups.

Furthermore, what should have been a ceremony in honor of the young men and women who died for liberty and democracy, it has become an advertising of far leftist parties calling on citizens to overthrow the government of the time.

The Greek Communist Party (KKE) has appropriated the brave struggle and sacrifice of the people who fought the junta in 1973 as if it was its own struggle and victory. Today, the hammer and sickle dominates in the November 17 celebration, obscuring the true reason the rest of Greeks go to the Polytechnic building to place a flower on the iron gate the tank broke down on that eerie night.

After the restoration of democracy, Konstantinos Karamanlis, the winner of the first post-dictatorship elections, in a grand gesture for the unity of Greeks, legalized the Greek Communist Party (KKE) that had been outlawed after the Civil War. On the first Polytechneio anniversary, the slogan “EAM-ELAS-Polytechneio” marked the rally, claiming the students’ struggle as a struggle of the Left alone.

The KKE at the time was funded generously by the Soviet Union and there was plenty of money for propaganda. Soon, all the Polytechneio heroes were claimed by KKE, as if the only people who didn’t want the dictators were the KKE members and other leftists.

Maria Damanaki, representing the Greek Communist Party, was elected a member of the Greek Parliament.  KKE propaganda had arbitrarily divided Greeks into leftists and junta sympathizers as if no people were standing on middle ground.

Up until the late 1990s, the highlights of the Athens Polytechnic commemoration day were laying wreaths at the school gate that stands as a monument in the campus yard, followed by a rally culminating outside the U.S. Embassy with the shouting of anti-American slogans — because of CIA support of the colonels — and the occasional clash with the police.

By then, the Greek people had seen many people proclaiming themselves as the Polytechnic heroes, capitalizing on their professed “fight against the junta”. They saw hardcore leftists selling out and becoming rich capitalists, discovering that some anti-junta heroes had actually done business with the dictators during those seven years.

Even Maria Damanaki started as a KKE parliamentarian, then moved to the more conservative left, then to PASOK, and then to the European Commission. She is one of the many rebellious youths of Greece who ended up serving the establishment as years passed.

Polytechnic celebrations waned over the years

In part due to the appropriation of the Polytechneio struggle by the Left, in part, because people were less interested in politics in the “roaring”, affluent 1990s, and in part out of sheer boredom, the November 17 celebrations waned.

Year by year, participation in the rally was diminished to just a few thousand people, with the vast majority of them being KKE members, including KKE youth.

After the tragic killing of Alexandros Grigoropoulos by police in December 2008 and from the 2009 commemoration day onward, the Polytechneio rally and related protests became the starting point for mindless destruction, vandalism and violence by anarchist groups.

News reports on November 18 were essentially damaged logs and accounts of injured police officers. Fewer and fewer people participated in the Polytechnic commemoration day each year.

Even politicians started to snub the wreath-laying ceremony in the campus courtyard. Every year there are fewer and fewer people.

In addition, the economic crisis has reminded Greeks that there are more important things than politics and that political colors are not exactly what they appear to be. Greeks endured a harsh, crippling recession with the conservatives of New Democracy, the socialists of PASOK and the leftists of SYRIZA.

They saw that in their everyday lives during the years of crisis, whoever is in power — left, center, or right — the bread on the table is always meager. The ideals of the Athens Polytechnic uprising are not very important to them at present.

The average Greek citizen knows what to expect on November 17: anarchists clashing with the police, firebombs, destruction of public and private property, injuries to policemen, and hollow statements by politicians.

More than half a century later — perhaps Greeks find that the meaning of November 17 has been lost behind the smoke of Molotov cocktails, antisocial sloganeering, and general apathy.