Major developments have been taking place in the whole world in the last 5 years. On the one hand the crisis that emerged in 2008 has hit the capitalist production by the falling profit rate. The governments in the Western World and especially in the EU and the Eurozone have made efforts to restore the profit rate of the capitalists through the implementation of huge austerity policies and budget cuts obliging the workers, the unemployed and the youth to sacrifice working rights and to pay for the crisis that they did not cause. The attacks from the capital, the governments, the fascists, the IMF, the EU and all supranational mechanisms, take advantage of the capitalist crisis to pass a sweeping capitalist restructuring.

On the other hand we are observing social uprisings in more and more countries. People reacted and resisted against the real destruction of their lives. From December 2008 in Greece, to Tunisia one year later, to Indignados in Spain, Occupy movement in USA, the labour movement struggle in Greece, to Egypt, and to the recent development in Turkey and Brazil. The current development of social movements all over the world emphasises the social need for struggle and, simultaneously, the will of the workers, not only to participate, but also to create new and more dangerous, for the system, struggles.

One of the national economies that have been mostly hit by the crisis is the Greek one. Three years after the first Memorandum, which has imposed catastrophic measures against the labour, not only there has not been any economic growth, but the crisis has deepened further. Additionally, the crisis in the EU and particularly the Eurozone has deepened, too. The strategic choice of the capital in Greece to remain in the euro and its absolute connection with the EU and its more reactionary perspective is a factor that both supports the internal attack against labour and exacerbates the negative evolution of the crisis in the Greek economy.

Contrary to the claims of the governments of the last 5 years, recession continues. Greece is the only developed economy since the WW II that is in economic recession for six continuous years with a total loss of 25% of its total production. The unemployment rate from 7.7% in 2008 has rocketed up to 27.6% in May 2013 with an increase of more than 1,200,000 of unemployed people. The Greek public debt is “unsustainable” even in capitalist terms. Fighting against the EU and the Eurozone which are capitalist integrations is necessary since they remain very important factors for these developments.

The crisis and the austerity policies of banks’ bailouts have hit the workers and the youth in all over the EU, mainly in the Periphery. This has caused major migration movements. Hundreds of thousands of youth and unemployed were forced to leave, mainly, Greece, Spain and Portugal and to migrate in the UK seeking a job and a better future.

However, problems exist in the British society in both pro- and post-crisis period. Huge inequalities had been persistent in the UK in pro-crisis period. These inequalities have deepened since Cameron’s government has decided to attack the workers and youth by implementing bedroom tax, by allowing Transnational Corporations operating with very low taxation rate, attacking the health service (NHS) and by increasing the tuition fees in tertiary education. The Government Austerity Program for pushing down current account deficit and for creating the conditions for increasing capitalist profit rate attacks on the welfare state.

These are not new developments. Exploitation of labour and increasing inequalities among people and classes and among places constitute prerequisites for increasing profit rate and proper capitalist production. In other words, the problems that are observed at the current period have been persistent even in the context of economic growth. This is the reason that we fight against capitalism.

The resistance of the people to austerity is not isolated in Greece or in other EU peripheral economies. The workers and youth in the UK have been resisting against the austerity policies that have been applied. This fight is common! The struggles across Europe are greatly interrelated. Fighting against the Bedroom Tax and fighting against the huge reduction of wages and pensions in Greece is the same struggle.

On Saturday 5^th October 2013 the founding assembly of ANTARSYA UK took place in the University of SOAS in London. ANTARSYA (Anti-capitalist Left Cooperation for the Overthrow) is the Anti-capitalist Left Cooperation in Greece which emerged in 2009 through the struggles of the previous period. We decided to establish the ANTARSYA UK in order to:

-transfer the experience from Greece and to organise solidarity events to the movement in Greece.

-to stand solidary to the Greek immigrants in the UK

-to participate to the social struggle and to the labour movement in the British society in an internationalist perspective against capitalism

-to contribute to the explanation and the analysis of capitalism and its parallel concepts

We want to collaborate with the widest possible number of people from any nation that moves and acts in an anti-capitalist direction.

We fight for a better and more equal society without exploitation of human by human.

5.10.2013

ANTARSYA UK