Hello.
This is Yanis Varoufakis
with an end of the year message
on behalf of
everyone at DiEM25,
our pan European
Democracy in Europe Movement,
to all of you.
This year's festivities
come in the midst
of a genocide that
will stigmatise a
whole generation.
Yes.
At this time of year,
like throughout
the year, we must
look after our loved ones,
celebrate their
achievements,
take care of our nearest
and dearest who
need our attention.
But we can't celebrate
freely while thousands
of children are being
slaughtered in the
Holy Land with the
full complicity of
our European Union.
Our leaders from Von
der Leyen to Olaf Scholz
and Manuel Macron, even
the European Party of the Left,
are being
criminally complicit.
And, by the way, so are
we by associatio,
to the extent that
we let them.
Ever since the seventh
of October, when Hamas
broke out of the Gaza
prison camp, as every
Palestinian has a duty
to, but with acts of
atrocious violence that
can never be justified.
Since then, the entire
European political class
has behaved as
morally superior to
both Palestinians
and Israelis,
when in truth,
it was Europe that
has been responsible
for centuries long
antisemitism,
for the holocaust.
And since the 1920’s, the Nakba,
the steady, systematic
ethnic cleansing of
Palestinians, an ethnic
cleansing, which today
unfolds as a fully
fledged genocide.
By not intervening to stop the
slaughter in Gaza,
in the West Bank, but also
in Yemen, in Ukraine,
in Syria, in Kashmir,
Europe is proving that
human rights are to us
that which the Bible
was to the Spanish inquisition,
a cover, a veneer of ethicality
with which to cover up
our European settler
imperialist society's
utter brutality.
We, Europeans,
have lost sight of
a terrible fact.
Human rights are
precisely that which
Europe and the United
States never intended
to grant the oppressed.
To those who needed them,
in the Middle East, in Africa, in Asia,
but also in our depressed
working class areas
in Europe, in Britain,
in the United States,
in the West.
The whole Western litany
about human rights is a sham.
It is only an excuse
to bomb, to shoot,
and to violate
those who actually
need human rights.
And to do this to
them while pretending
that we're somehow
morally superior.
What is happening today
in Gaza, in Kashmir,
in Yemen, in Syria, in
Nagorno Karabakh, will
determine our capacity
as Europeans to live
freely in our own
countries in Europe.
To live without fear of
oppression or indignity
here in Greece, in
Germany, in France,
in Spain, in Portugal, in
Britain, in Ireland.
As Julian Assange
continues to rot away
in solitary in Britain's
Guantanamo for having
dared to expose to
us the crimes of our
governments committed
in our name against our
interest, our right to
know has been shattered.
While the European Union
continues to fund the
few who have more money
than they know what to do with,
while starving
the many and refusing
to fund the green
transition without which
there will be no future.
Our own societies
are being poisoned
spiritually, and our
species' survival
becomes less likely.
With the toxification
of our politics and
our planet proceeding
so swiftly, it is
easy to lose hope,
to give up, no longer
to look up, but this
is not inevitable.
DiEM25 proves,
by our very
existence, our activism
that a democratic,
compassionate, and
radically progressive
Europe is not just
possible, but that it
is here in DiEM25, in
our political parties, MERA25,
here in Greece,
in Germany, in Italy,
soon in other countries.
Next June, Europe is
going to be staging
another sham European
parliament election.
We, DiEM25 and MERA25,
our political parties,
are going to be running,
not because the European Parliament
can change
anything in itself,
but because your voice must
resonate in its chamber.
It must be amplified
in there so that it can
be heard loud and clear
out there across Europe.
So that our voices,
your voices, can expose
our rulers' lies and
hypocrisy.
To resonate in there as a first
step towards liberating
your voices so that
they can together become
a surge of reason and
humanism, a surge that
reclaims our continent,
our countries, our
cities, our villages,
our neighborhoods.
From whom?
From the oligarchy, who
feast on humanity and
nature in the interest
of profit and, of course,
from exporting
arms, weapons to
their former colonies.
In this struggle to
raise hell in the
European Parliament
on behalf of heaven
and, therefore, to
save our souls, our
species, our planet.
We need your help.
Your support has been
central, essential
in keeping DiEM25
alive in terms of our
operations, the spirit
of our democracy,
our mission, our campaign.
DiEM25 has been, for
years now, fueled
by uncommon people
like your good self,
people who demand a
different peace loving Europe.
A Europe whose
prosperity is common
and divorced from
the logic of profit.
For that, our resolve
and our commitment
must walk hand in hand.
Only so will we turn
this bogus sham of
an election for the
European Parliament
into a useful campaign.
Our political parties,
MERA25, are geared
to do exactly that.
So on this holiday
season, we ask you to
stand with us again.
Your contribution can
make all the difference.
Together, we can bring
DiEM25's message, voice,
to the floor of the
European Parliament.
That won't change Europe
by itself, but it will
give Europeans a chance,
a shot at reclaiming
the right to know and to
be heard, an important
opportunity to empower
the many, not the few.
In the process, and
since this is the
festive season, let me
add that as DiEM25
has proven in
all our get togethers,
we can do this.
We can do what is
right by Europeans
and by the world and
by the planet while
having fun as well.
So a happy holiday
season for everyone.
Carpe diem.