Syriza’s ‘long and arduous’ road for LGBT rights

 

 

I know that Syriza can’t do miracles, because I know that it has to face very strong and underground channels of global capitalistic powers such as IMF, global banks and European social democratic or right-wing governments. But the thing I know and it makes me feel optimistic is that the bipartisanship of the past has been defeated on the 25th of January. It is very positive for me that it is the first time in the history of Greece that a radical left party won the elections.

 

 

The last 30 years Greece had been a country where there was a political fight between New Democracy and PASOK, two parties that started with different political positions, but ended up the same brutal and extreme neoliberal policies after 2 decades of corruption during the country’s governance.

 

Their similarities has become even more clear from the last elections in 2012 where these two parties, right-wing New Democracy and socialist PASOK decided to govern the country together under an alliance, in order to reach the 151 out of 300 members needed for the devise of a legal government. Which means that the two parties that one after another won the past elections and led the country in the IMF and European Central Bank through distractive policies and extended corruption, they decided that they had more commons than things that separate them ideologically. So, how can I not be at least happy that this past decayed political system will be left out of the important political decisions?

 

 

I am optimistic, because Syriza is the only party within the parliament that supports a wide range of social rights, such as the citizenship to immigrants living in Greece for a long time or the solidarity to incoming immigrants due to wars and financial reasons, such as the same-sex civil partnership and marriage and supports non discrimination practices. Moreover, its foreign policies are not structured upon hate and nationalism.

 

 

Syriza has promised to give an end to austerity measures in Greece which have led middle and low class citizens to poverty or inadequacy to cope with heavy multiple taxes, while the government had been granting money to the banks and was erasing the taxes of big companies and TV channels that support the policies of austerity as well.

 

 

It is the first time in the modern history of Greece that its premier, Tsipras, has not been sworn premier through a religious vow. It is the first time that a political vow took place without the clergy to interfere. After all, one of the policy statements of Syriza was to separate the state from religion, which has been promoting its own conservative and nationalist agenda in Greece, while on the same time the church would have to pay zero taxes and have one of the biggest real property. It was very contradictory when the church had zero taxes for its huge real property, while people had to pay a special tax, the "real property tax" for their first and second house.

 

 

Of course, Syriza used to have even more radical political opinions which became by time less radical in order to gain more voters and win the governance of Greece, something which is widely criticized even from its own members and especially from the Left Platform within Syriza.

 

 

Now as concerned to Syriza’s policy statements about LGBT rights, it is clear that Syriza and Antarsia are the 2 political parties that supported the rights of the LGBTs the most. Antarsia didn’t make it to the parliament.

 

 

Syriza was the party that responded to most of the calls for support from the LGBT community, they took part in panels for LGBT issues, they supported LGBT issues publicly under the pressure of conservative parties, they took part in pride parades and Syriza also has its own Gender and LGBT group within the party.

 

 

However, within Syriza there are radical voices and less radical voices. Voices who support LGBT rights intensively and voices who don’t want to come in conflict with the existing conservative status quo, because this would mean less conservative voters, whom they needed to become government.

 

 

Tsipras comes from Synaspismos, a group within Syriza which is not so radical compared to the Red Platform of Syriza, and in a recent interview he was asked about same-sex adoptions and his answer was extremely disappointing.

 

He said "it is a difficult issue to talk about and the scientific community’s view is also controversial. We will not add it in our policy statement." His answer was a complete setback.

 

 

 

So as we can see, despite Syriza’s most comprehensive law proposal for civil partnership in the parliament and its intense support from its members to civil marriage and gender identity addition to our legislation, Tsipras and the less radical part of Syriza, which is the majority, do not have clear positions on LGBT issues. This is creating the belief of an underground opportunism to keep the votes of the LGBT community from the one side, but also keep the votes of the conservative part of society as well.

 

 

Syriza is taking its decisions through collective procedures and there is no doubt that there will be a big conflict and lack of political cohesion when such issues come up both within Syriza and in the parliament.

 

Another very crucial issue, let’s say the most crucial of all, is that although Syriza did manage to come first at the national elections, it didn’t manage to gain the overall majority, which led the party to compromise in a cooperation with another party. This party, "Independent Greeks", although it shares quite similar beliefs as concerned to financial issues, such as the end of austerity measures and the political will for transparency, it unfortunately has very conservative beliefs as concerned to human rights.

 

 

They are against any type of LGBT rights, from partnership to marriage and adoption legislation and they do support very anti-Semitic and nationalistic beliefs as concerned to immigrants in Greece, as well as our relation with Turkey and Macedonia.

 

For this reason, and as long as Syriza’s decisions are dependent on Independent Greeks, we can somehow foresee that the road for the LGBT rights will be long and arduous.