From Crisis to War: One Year Later

Admission is free | Simultaneous interpretation will be provided.
Information: 210 8848270

Serafio of the Municipality of Athens (19 Echelidon & 144 Pireos St.)

Wednesday 22 February 2023, at 7 p.m.

mέta | Centre for Post-Capitalist Civilisation is organizing a public event on Wednesday, February 22, 2023 (7 p.m.) at the Serafio of the Municipality of Athens (19 Echelidon & 144 Piraeus St.) on the topic “From Crisis to War: A Year Later” with speakers Yanis Varoufakis (Professor at the University of Athens, Secretary of Mera25, co-founder of DiEM25), Angela Dimitrakakis (Senior Lecturer at the University of Edinburgh), Amineh Kakabaveh (former member of the Swedish Parliament) and Stathis Kouvelakis (former Reader in political theory at King’s College London).
Also, Danae Stratou (visual artist, president of mέta’s Board of Directors) will present material from the international online participatory project “Open the Black Boxes”.

One year after the beginning of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the reality of war is becoming entrenched on the international stage. And it is a war that is not only taking place locally but in fact globally. A war whose origins go back a long way and whose conduct is based not only on military but also on political, informational and, above all, economic means.

It is not difficult to discern in this war the ‘metastasis’ of the capitalist crisis, in which we have been immersed for a decade and a half, the attempt to ‘escape’ violently from this crisis and to change, just as violently, the power
balance within and between states.

The cost is of course being paid primarily by the peoples who have been experiencing the military conflict but not only by them. The energy and inflation crisis, the new ‘sacrifices’ required of the unprivileged classes the deterioration of democracy and public debate are the imprint of war on our own societies. War is in a way the reality we are already living in. And that is without even taking into account the real possibility of the opening of ‘side fronts’ or the nightmare of a generalised confrontation, possibly nuclear, which is threatened as never since 1962.

While the conflict takes on a self-fuelled escalation dynamic, while statesmen and the vast majority of journalists indulge in bellicose discourse, with no obvious ‘exit strategy’, the virtual non-existence (at least compared to what existed up to the beginning of the century), of an international pacifist movement, the dominance of conformist discourse, and the embarrassment, if not the division, of the Left of all versions.

It is urgent that the debate be brought back into its full context. There is an urgent need to distance ourselves from the role of NATO or the Kremlin applauder. There is an urgent need to revitalise the pacifist movement. There is an urgent need to bring the aspirations of the peoples back to the fore. There is an urgent need to create a new Non-Aligned Movement and a more just international order. It is urgent to end the perpetuation of the war in Ukraine. At a time when such issues of principle are at stake, getting bogged down in petty politics does not suit us.