It is about the dignity to do away with the criminal gang-in-suits that has made even the otherwise despicable face of political power appear well-intended and innocent. And it is a question of whether we (as individuals, not as this weird idea of “a people”: more on this in a second) want to continue living a life of excruciating uncertainty, never-ending ultimatums and emergencies, of humiliation and sorrow.
It is a question those of us lucky enough to have made it to the ballot box will have to answer for those who didn’t make it. This is why, should the referendum go ahead, I will be casting a vote, for the first time in my life. I will be voting for my friends and family chased away and denied the capacity to live over here. I will be voting for my dear friend who decided, in the darkest hours of the crisis, that his was a life not worth living. I will be voting in the hope that doing so will help make the lives of the criminal market gang truly unlivable.
As an anarchist, I have no faith in the system of electoral representation, nor do I have the will to surrender my political demands to any leader, for any amount of time. But this is not what this referendum will do. Should this be a well-orchestrated plan on the side of Syriza to let people swallow the austerity medicine, their bluff is already called. Sure enough, a ‘no’ vote on Sunday doesn’t guarantee that yet another austerity programme won’t follow. But we’ll deal with that if and when it comes. And sure, in voting ‘no’ we have no idea what we are actually voting ‘yes’ to.
But I have a pretty good idea who my ‘no’ will go out to. This ‘no’ will go out to the market, this ubiquitous force we have allowed to permeate even the most intimate of our spaces, even the innermost, the core foundations of our existence. It will go out to the parasite scum in suits and ties, the priests of the banking orthodoxy and their pompous, arrogant belief that they can keep running the show, for ever.