E104 : 2025, la dernière chance pour l'Europe ? Avec Yanis Varoufakis et Srećko Horvat

Hello, hello, hello and welcome,

I'm Mehran Khalili.

We are DiEM25 a radical political
movement for Europe.

And this is another live stream
featuring subversive ideas

you won't hear anywhere else.

Tonight, as this is our final
live stream of the year,

we're taking a
look back at 2024.

It's been a year of upheaval and
awakening, a year marked by the rise of

authoritarian politics in Europe, the
worsening tragedies of the war in Ukraine

and the genocide in Gaza, and shocks like
the fall of Assad's government in Syria,

a year of political shifts, the return of
Trump in the US, paralysis in Germany,

martial law in South Korea,
a government collapse in France

and annulled election
in Romania.

So we'll be asking, what are
the themes emerging

from this year of
transformation?

What's the big picture?

Then we'll switch gears
and we'll look ahead

to understand where do we go from
here as movements, as activists,

what will be the opportunities

and challenges that are
waiting for us in 2025

and will next year be
Europe's last chance

for relevance in the world,
for true democracy, for change.

And finally, as every time we do
this, we'll be wrapping up on a lighter

note asking what are the books, films, or
art that have left a mark on us this year

and which might give us all solace and
inspiration as we head into the next one?

So I can think of two no better people to
have this discussion with than our own

Yanis Varoufakis,
of course, Yanis.

And joining us for the first time in a
while, our co-founder at DiEM25,

the writer and philosopher
Srećko Horvat.

Welcome back to you, Srećko.

And of course, you out there, you
watching us on YouTube, our audience

we'll be taking your questions
comments, suggestions throughout,

so please keep them coming.

Let's jump right in,
let's get started with Yanis.

[Yanis] Well thank you Mehran.

It's a great pleasure in this
bleakest of times to be

sharing thoughts again with Srećko.

Because many of you probably won't know,

but since you are tuned in to DiEM25,

DiEM25 started when Srećko

and I were having coffee in Berlin in
the summer of 2015 or September of 2015,

and the idea came
primarily from him.

We didn't even know we were going to call
it DiEM25 at the moment.

So anyway, to cut a long story short

I think this is the right time for
a reunion just before 2025,

because that 25, which is attached to the
word DiEM, as in carpe diem

came up when we
were asking ourselves

when we were discussing ways
of turning Europe

into a progressive project
as opposed to a regressive one.

How long do we have as Europeans,

not as Srećko and Yanis,
but as Europeans?

How long do Europeans have to fix the EU
to turn it around to stop its

fragmentation, disintegration, and descent
into the hell in which it has become.

And you know, this was 2015
and off the cuff,

I think I answered the question.

I said: Well, maybe a
decade, ten years.

So, 15 + ten = 25.

And now 2025 is coming.

And I'm just going to preempt
my answer.

I'm going to try to review 2024 before
we move to 2025.

But let me preview my answer
to Mehran's question.

Is 2025 Europe's last chance?

No, I don't think so.

That last chance was 2019,
the European Parliament elections

that Srećko and I
contested on purpose,

symbolically, in Germany
to make a point.

And we failed.

Not us, just as DiEMers,
as Srećko and Yanis,

but as Europeans we failed
and we missed the chance.

But allow me to come back to this

when I reach the point when
Europe deserves to be discussed

because it doesn't deserve to be
topic number one

when we are reviewing 2024 because
the historian of the future is going to

look back to 2024, and there will
only be one word

that will dominate the
historic analysis of 2024.

And that word is Palestine, because there
is a genocide which is unfolding as we

speak, this very moment,
as we are here

in front of you, in YouTube,
wherever you are.

There are tens of thousands,
of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands

of starving children, many of them maimed,
many of them without parents

or with dead parents,
at least one of them

who are going hungry for
the third consecutive,

fourth consecutive night without
having eaten anything,

without water to drink or
to wash their face,

let alone their wounds.

This is the reality as we speak.

And it's been the reality every day
from the beginning and actually

before the beginning of 2024.

I think also the historian of the future
is going to look back

to the 7th of October,
which is, of course,

a pivotal moment because
it was the moment when the fence

fencing in the Palestinians in Gaza
was attacked by Hamas militants,

and then, you had the
killings of the Israelis,

and then, of course,
all hell broke loose.

ButI think the historian of the future is
going to look at the choice that

I'm not going to talk about Hamas
now, but the choice that Palestinian

resistance fighters had before
the 7th of October.

And it was a very stark choice: silent,
slow death under the conditions of the

concentration camp, the open
concentration camp that was Gaza,

remember, 60% of children
were malnourished before

the 7th of October 2023,

because Israel was effectively placing
a whole population under siege

and constantly, silently,
strangling them

through that embargo and
occasionally bombing them

of course, right, in September of 2023,
before the October 7th events

there were bombardments,
children were killed.

So please don't
let me start that

on those who begin their story
on the 7th of October,

as if the 6th of October
was a peaceful and tranquil

and a state of cohabitation between
two neighboring states.

Gaza is not a state.

It is a concentration
camp in which people

have been
incarcerated since 1948.

So the Palestinians had a choice.

Remember, before the 7th of October,

nobody talked about Palestine,
not even us, DiEM25.

We talked occasionally,
but not very often.

We talked more about Europe,
we talked about Ukraine, we talked about

a number of things, very important issues,
but not about Palestine.

And the Palestinians were effectively
abandoned by the whole world,

especially by the Arab world.

Remember, Donald Trump's great
success in his first term was to

instigate the so-called Abraham
Accords, where essentially, a whole swathe

of Arab states, including the United Arab
Emirates, Morocco and others,

along with Egypt, made
peace with Israel

without a word about
the Palestinians.

Effectively, the Palestinians
were told: We will let you perish.

Just keep quiet and
die slowly and silently.

Don't bother us.

Just die out of sight, out of mind
for the rest of the world.

So that's why I'm saying that the
Palestinians had a choice:

either allow themselves to die silently,
slowly, by not resisting, or breaking out.

Because that was what the 7th of October
was: it was a breakout.

And time and again, I have
incurred the wrath of the Zionists

and the German state in particular

by saying that the act of resistance,
the act of bringing down that fence

of the concentration camp,

was not a right of the
Palestinian resistance fighters,

but it was a duty.

At the same time any fighter,
whether they are

an Israeli soldier
or a Palestinian militant,

who touches the hair of a
civilian, who abducts people,

they are committing war crimes.

So that was our original
position as DiEM25.

Now, since then the whole
of the Palestinian people

have been placed on death row.

The West has supported Israel in taking
whole people and placing it on death row.

In Gaza, if you are not dead already,
you are on death row.

Tomorrow morning, there is a strong
probability that you will not live

or that you will not have
a leg or an arm

and then you will die six months
later, out of sight, out of mind.

I think that, looking back to 2024,

also, the historian of the future is going
to pinpoint as a very significant moment,

the South African beautifully phrased case
at the International Criminal Court.

Sorry, the International Court of Justice
against Israel, that this was

a central point, one of the
rare rays of light.

But these rays of light were not allowed
to penetrate in the European Union

or of course, in Australia or in
Canada or the United States,

because Zionism has become the
official ideology of Western imperialism.

Zionism, especially in Germany,
where they don't feel comfortable

due to the Holocaust and they are right
not to feel comfortable

about feeling nationalistic and
expressing nationalism.

So in Germany, they have replaced
German nationalism with Zionism.

It's really very simple, which, by the
way, has nothing to do with the Jews.

Zionism has nothing to do with the Jews.

There are so many anti-Semitic Zionists
and so many Jews who are anti-Zionist.

You just need to state
that to make the case.

And so remember, in April, DiEM25,
along with our friends and comrades

in the organisation,
the splendid organisation,

German Jewish organisation:

a Jewish Voice for a Just Peace
in the Middle East.

We put together a Congress to discuss a
just peace in the Middle East

and the German state
brought down upon us

the full weight of
its authoritarianism.

They banned me from
entering the country.

They banned me from
even speaking through Zoom

to anyone in Germany,
which is a joke and a half,

because you can't even do that,
even if you try.

Anyway, I'm in court.

I've taken the German
authorities to court,

but I'm not going to say
more on that.

Another pivotal moment in the
Palestinian tragedy during 2024

was the decision by the
International Court of Justice,

which ruled to its credit
that the occupation,

the continuing occupation
of East Jerusalem, of the West Bank

and of Gaza by Israel is illegal

and ordered the Israeli state to
move back to its pre 1967 borders.

And how did Israel respond?

By convening the Knesset, the Israeli
parliament, where there was a vote,

I think it was 75/5, something like that,
crushing majority,

essentially binning the verdict of
the International Court of Justice.

How did they do that?

By proclaiming there will never be
a Palestinian state anywhere

in the occupied territories, and that
these occupied territories were

the land of Israel.

Effectively the Israeli parliament,
not just the government,

but the crushing majority of members
of parliament in the Knesset,

told the international community:

We are not paying any attention
to what you have to say.

International law is
none of our business.

Since then, we have an interesting
dialectical paradox,

almost Hegelian, Srećko.

On the one hand, you have
the complete victory

of the Israeli armed forces.

They have pulverised Gaza.

They are supporting the settlers in
their ethnic cleansing of West Bank.

They are taking over the houses of
Palestinians in East Jerusalem

without, I mean, there is resistance

to the great credit
of the Palestinian people in Gaza,

in East Jerusalem, in the West Bank.

But the ironclad IDF,
the Israeli army, has complete control.

The attacks in south Lebanon,

effectively the mass killings,
the mass murder in south Lebanon

in order to defeat
Hezbollah.

Well, they won that war, too.

There has been a ceasefire.

There's been an armistice, so to speak.
But Hezbollah had to decouple its own

fight from the fight of the
Palestinians in Gaza.

And that is a major victory for Netanyahu.

So you have, let's not forget,

the recent collapse of the Assad regime,

which, while Syrians,
the majority of Syrians

have celebrated because Assad was
a bloodstained tyrant.

At the same time, it's a major victory for
Israel and the United States.

It is another defeat for the Palestinians
because whatever support they got,

they got through Iran and
Syria and Hezbollah.

There is no doubt about that.

So why am I saying that this is a
Hegelian kind of dialectical paradox?

Because on the one hand,
you have the complete control,

but at the same time, as
our friend Ilan Pappe explains,

and he explains this quite nicely:

the more successful militarily
Israel is,

the less reproducible is Israeli society,

because increasingly
Israel itself is being taken over

by the genocidal maniacs
who are in control of the government

and not the government, but
the majority of the opposition as well.

So if you are a a liberal,
civilised Israeli,

even if you support generally

the aims of Israel's annexation of
the lands of the Palestinians,

you can't really live in Israel under the
Smotrichs and the Ben-Gvirs,

those utterly fascistic individuals that
have dominated the Israeli executive.

So this is, you see, where
the dialectics come.

I spoke about Syria just briefly.

In the last few days, I've been
involved in a running debate,

let's put it politely,

with supporters of the
Palestinians

who are lambasting me for
feeling, for allowing myself

a moment of joy at the fall
of Assad, the tyrant, as I called him.

My message to them who are
accusing me

of taking the side of the imperialists,

of Israel, of the United States,

Is that to think that by
supporting tyrannical figures like Assad

or before him, Saddam Hussein, because
he's an enemy of our imperialist enemy,

that you are being an anti-imperialist,
think again.

Because to fight imperialism
and win in the long run,

we must win the hearts
and minds of minds of people.

And you cannot do that
by supporting tyrants

whom the people who
live under them loathe,

and to support them just because
they are enemies of our enemies.

And I've been accused
of being an idealistic.

Somebody recently, a few hours ago
on Twitter said,

but Yanis, this is very idealistic of you.

You have to be very pragmatic.

Do I?
Do I need to be pragmatic?

Why do you think I dedicate most
of my day on the Palestinian cause?

What do I have to be pragmatic about
there? Do I have something to gain?

Do I gain anything by
supporting a cause which

is essentially labelling anyone in
the West who supports that cause

an anti-Semite and enemy
of Western civilisation?

The only reason why I'm
supporting the Palestinians,

the only reason why I'm a Lefty,

the only reason why I didn't sign
the MoU when I was forced to do that -

I was threatened to do that
by the Troika of lenders of Greece

is because of idealism.

It's because of ideology.

If we ditch ideology as
anti-imperialist, what do we have?

It was an ideology that in the end
won for the Viet Cong

the fight against the American
imperialists in Vietnam.

It is ideology which is behind every
revolution that ever succeeds.

It is not cost benefit analysis, folks.

Anyway so just to wrap up
the Palestinian issue,

which was which is the main thing I'm
going to speak about here today, tonight.

The Palestinian people
on the 7th of October,

the fighters decided,
made a very simple decision.

They wouldn't allow themselves to go
silently into the good night.

They had the choice as I said before,
between a slow, silent extinction

and a big bang resistance, and
they chose the latter.

And now, as a result of that,

we have the International Criminal
Court indicting Netanyahu.

This is not to be scoffed at,

even though the ICC cannot
arrest Netanyahu.

The fact that Netanyahu cannot easily
travel to Paris, to London, to Berlin

without creating a major crisis,

ideological crisis, legal crisis
in those countries,

they will have to decide
whether to arrest him or

to ditch the international
rules based order,

which supposedly they wax lyrical about.

That is a major success.

We must not forget that, and the fact that
we have the internal contradictions within

Israeli society, which I am sure that at
some point will lead to a change of heart

amongst the majority of
the population in Israel.

Call me an idealist again.
I don't mind.

Turning to Europe now.

I'll be brief here.

Europe is suffering the costs and the
perils of the legacy of denial.

For 15, 20 years now, we have not been
investing in our industry, in our society,

in our health, in our education. Because
of the logic, after the crisis of 2008,

of austerity for the many and
money printing for the very few,

because when you have
austerity for the many,

the few who get the money
that the central bank prints,

get the money,

but they don't invest because they can see
that the very many have no money.

So why invest in goods and services
that many don't can't afford to buy?

So what do the rich do with the money that
the central bank prints on their behalf?

They buy assets:

houses, house prices go up,
shares, share prices go up,

but no investment.

And folks, the result of that was
after 15 years of not investing.

Guess what happened?

Europe's industries collapsing.

The whole of the German industrial model,
which was such a great success story.

You know what it resembles now?

Do the older amongst you remember

those electric typewriters
of the 1970s like Olivetti?

There were some really nice typewriters,
electric ones,

where they used to have this ball
that would rotate

and you type and it would go
click, click, click, click, click.

It was actually quite nice.

Well then the PC came.

These electric Olivetti typewriters were
dead in the water.

No reduction in the wages of the people
making those Olivetti electric typewriters.

No subsidy by the state would
have saved them.

The PC had come.

Well, similarly, folks,
the electric car has come

and CATL and BYD batteries have come.

We have new forms of turning wind
energy into green hydrogen

that was developed in China,
in the United States.

You know what? Europe has
not invested any of these things.

We are now in the situation
where Olivetti was

with its electric typewriters,
in the 1970s.

So we had as DiEM25, we had a policy

which we called
the European Green New Deal,

the Green New Deal for Europe.

We ran, Srećko and I
and others from DiEM25,

We ran in 7 or 8 countries in 2019.

It was a magnificent programme.

I have no doubt that
had it been implemented

Europe now would not be
in these dire straits.

But it wasn't implemented and we
missed a technological revolution.

And the result is: even the
powers that be that wax lyrical

about political consolidation and
common investment programs

and so on, well, they
don't even talk about it.

What do they talk about now as
the engine of growth of Europe,

the defence industry, the arms trade!

They are talking about turning the
European Union into a European war Union.

They want an iron dome, Israel style.

This, of course, that means American
missiles, right?

There will be no
development in this country.

Then recently, since we are
going through a review of 2024.

Mario Draghi, my arch enemy from 2015,
with whom I clashed mercilessly

and who shut down the Greek banks

in order to essentially
blackmail the Greek people,

to accept universal austerity
to the power of N.

This gentleman, you know what
happens with these people

when they move away from
their positions of power?

Then they become
social democrats.

So he came up with a report

which essentially copied the 2019
DiEM25 Green New Deal for Europe.

Remember, we were saying that there must
be an investment fund that must be funded

to the tune of 5% of European income?

Well, that's what he says too, now
but of course, it's dead in the water.

The Draghi report, which cost hundreds of
thousands, if not millions of euros,

was accepted by Ursula von der Leyen,
the half crazy president

of the European Commission,
the warmonger.

She thanked him, she kissed him,
she paid him for the report

and then immediately put it in the
bin, because this Europe is not capable

of doing anything of what we
were saying back in 2019.

And the result, of course, is the
political fragmentation.

Why do you think there is no
government in Germany

or France as we speak?

Because of that.

Because if the foundation, the economic
foundation of a primarily economic union

and monetary union like the
European Union collapses,

that the politics on top of it
collapse as well.

Another great development in 2024,
of course, is Donald Trump.

We've already had a program here.

So I will ask you to
go and listen to that.

I won't repeat too much,
but just briefly, epigrammatically,

Trump won for a very
simple reason, folks.

The Democrats: Biden, Kamala, that whole
motley of particularly interesting idiots.

They were telling the American
people, the American working class

that they've never had it so good.

The American people were
telling them: no, that's not true.

We can't make ends meet.

We are bankrupt.

We can't afford a house.

We can't afford to put groceries in our
basket in the supermarket.

We cannot afford to
put petrol in our car.

And in the United States if you
don't have a car, you're dead,

you can't go anywhere
with this urban sprawl

and the lack of
public transport and so on.

So, Trump looked at these people
and said, I feel your pain.

There is carnage in America.

There is a lot of discontent.

I am your man.

Who do you think they voted for?

They voted for Trump.

I think there are another two things
that I need to say about Trump.

Trump promised to end the
Ukrainian war in 24 hours.

I'm pleased that there is a
president of the United States,

even if he doesn't mean it,

even if he's a hypocrite, a fascist,
a misogynist, and all those things

that Trump is,
who wants to end a war.

Especially a war which is
a complete dead end.

It's just a meat grinder killing
young men from Russia, from Ukraine,

and also civilians for no reason.

I mean, nothing is happening.

There will be no victory either
on the one side or the other.

So it's good that he is
promising that.

But I don't think he can
deliver this peace

and he can't really deliver it because
Putin doesn't want to end the war.

He wants to keep grinding away,
taking one village after the other,

and he will set conditions for a peace
that Trump will not be able to accept

without being overthrown
by his own regime.

Even by his own Trumpist,
Republican regime.

That's my my feeling.

And then finally, his great Waterloo,
however, will be the promise he made

to the American working class
to look after them,

to bring industry back to the
United States by introducing,

slapping huge tariffs
on imports from Europe

and primarily from China,
but from Europe as well,

and therefore creating
circumstances

for industry to return
to the United States.

He will not succeed
in doing that,

because, remember, his number
one priority is the stock exchange,

the financiers
and the real estate.

He's a real estate agent.

That's what he is personally, okay.

Real estate and the stock exchange
in the United States only does well,

as long as the Chinese
and the Germans

have a trade surplus
with the United States,

because that surplus
gives them the money

that then they take to
the New York Stock Exchange

and to Miami and to California
and to New York to buy real estate.

Some comrades, some friends, some
progressives put a lot of stock

in the developments
with the BRICs.

Remember the BRICs, Brazil, Russia, India,
China, South Africa and a whole gamut

of other countries
that are now joining.

There was an interesting meeting in
Russia of the BRICs representatives

who discussed ways of creating
a system of payments

and actually have instituted it.

Now it's up and running.

Very interesting technologically,
it uses blockchain as well.

-for those of you who are interested
in blockchain technology-

that allows them to
trade with one another

in their own currencies, bypassing the
dollar system and therefore the sanctions.

Countries like Saudi Arabia and the
United Arab Emirates are also

interested in the BRICs because,
they don't want to put all their eggs

in the American dollar basket.

However, it is a mistake to think of the
BRICs as an alternative Soviet Union

or Warsaw Pact that is going to create
checks and balances for American hegemony.

It is a mistake to think of it that way.

Don't forget that India and China are

almost at war within the BRICs.

Don't forget that the United States is

pushing Apple to shift its
factories producing...

We just had a little earthquake
here in Athens,

but I think everything's okay,
right Mehran?

Yeah, well, the ground shakes when
DiEM does its live stream.

So Washington is pushing Apple to shift
its production lines from China to India.

So you can see there is a lot of
antagonism within the BRICs,

so there's no way
there's ever going to be

a kind of geostrategic alliance.

The common interest
that binds them together

is they don't want to be under the
thumb of the Federal Reserve,

every transaction to be ruled over
by the American central bank

or the American government.

This is what they
have in common.

But this is not enough.

It is not enough in particular, because
China itself is facing its own dilemma.

Does China want to replace the
American dollar with a Yuan?

Not yet.

Don't forget that Chinese capitalists who
sell, let's say, aluminium

that is produced in
Shenzhen, to California.

They rely on the American dollar and the
exorbitant privilege of the United States

to run a large trade deficit, because the
trade deficit of the United States is what

allows these Chinese capitalists to sell
aluminium to a Californian firm.

And his money comes in dollars,
and he invests in real estate in Miami

or in California, or in New York,

or in American debt
for that matter.

Does he want to see the
demise of the dollar?

No, because his savings
are in dollars.

It's not clear that the Chinese
Communist Party, Xi Jinping for instance,

wants to clash with the
Chinese capitalists.

But even if he does, then China
has to accept the challenge

of playing the role within the BRICs
that the United States played

after the Second World War
in the Bretton Woods system.

And this is not something
that China does.

China does not want to be hegemonic,
China wants to trade with everyone.

It wants, free trade routes.

It wants to be able to go invest
here, there and everywhere.

It doesn't want to run a
large part of the world.

This is not a decision that the Chinese
Communist Party has made.

And finally, to wrap up
this long soliloquy,

remember the climate catastrophe?.

We have forgotten about it

because we have wars, we have
genocide, we are sidetracked.

But the world is moving
headlong

- the world, not the world,
humanity, our species -

is moving straightforwardly,
head on towards our extinction.

The only way of stopping it would
have been a tripartite agreement on

decarbonisation between the United States,
China and the European Union.

The European Union doesn't exist.

It has rendered
itself obsolete.

The United States has Trump, who doesn't
believe in climate change.

So we are left only with China.

China is producing the
bulk of all the decarbonisation

technologies in the world,
but it can't do it alone.

In the context of everything
that I've said,

and I hope I haven't darkened
your soul too much.

But if we are going to review 2024,
honestly, we can't beat about the bush

and we can't offer false hope
and fake optimism.

But here comes the hope.

We're here.

We're a small movement,
DiEM25.

We started it in that cafeteria

Srećko and I in 2015 in Berlin.

But now, we are all together.

We have tens of thousands of people.

Our comrades are out
in the streets of Germany

as we speak, gathering signatures.

If you live in Germany, sign for MERA25
to become a registered party

for the forthcoming federal election.

We have created a Progressive
International.

We are very far away from
even dreaming of success.

But as long as we are fighting,
there is hope.

Hope without optimism.

Right, Srećko?

[Mehran] Srećko,
let's bring you in.

[Srećko] Yeah, thank you, thanks Yanis.

It's a nice finish, finale with this
hope without optimism,

which is, of course, a phrase which
comes from Terry Eagleton.

And there is nothing which
I hate more than optimism,

but on the other hand,
also pessimism.

So, I mean, Gramsci put it nicely,
I don't want to repeat it but to come

to the gist of the matter and what
you said, and I will refer to some things

you said because I think definitely if we
think about 2024 these are the most

important defining moments, not just of
our present, but for the future.

And I think we have to put it in the
context of a historical sequence

which I think started
after the financial crisis

and then with the
so-called Arab Spring

Tunisia, Egypt and other countries
and the huge hope and optimism,

if you want, what will
happen out of this?

That was also the years
of Occupy Wall Street,

and then later, of course, your
own experience with Syriza at the

referendum in Greece and so on.

What we are witnessing now,
I think is - you said it correctly -,

a total triumph of the axis between
Israel, United States and Turkey.

And it's a triumph which kind of concludes
this historical sequence, which in a way

started 2010, 2011, when there was still
hope that some progressive revolution

might take place and some sort of
revolutions took place.

But we have seen very quickly
what happened to Egypt

after Mubarak with the Muslim
Brotherhood not to mention Libya

and what happened to Libya
after the intervention and after Gaddafi,

when we got, like hundreds of Gaddafi's
and a continuous civil war in Libya.

So in this sense, yes, on the one hand,
it's a triumph of Washington and Israel

and then Erdogan and
some other players.

I think at least 20 to 30 different
geopolitical players are at the moment

involved in that region
already in various ways.

And on the other hand, it also proves the
irrelevance of the European Union.

What Macron and other
leaders were doing just at the time

when the rebels were taking
over Syria and Damascus.

Well, they gathered at Notre Dame to open
the church, which unfortunately was caught

in fire, I think, five years
ago or something

and you could have seen just
by looking at their faces,

at their gesture, at their
body language in which way

they just were proving more and more
their own irrelevance.

You already said it about
the French government.

That was just at that moment.

So Macron is definitely, definitely not
that powerful as he was

or as he wishes to be.

And at the same time, you could have
seen in which way other political leaders

from all across Europe react towards

on the one hand, Donald Trump and now a
new addition in 2024 and especially

in 2025, Elon Musk and more and more
often, Elon Musk with his son on his

shoulders which in a way it describes,
embodies perfectly the situation in which

we are, in which businessmen become
politicians and in which billionaires are

now the ones who actually
influence politics.

This is what you talk about.
Yanis, in Technofeudalism.

I mean, this is the best embodiment of it:
Trump and Elon Musk and in which way they

actually negotiate already with European
leaders from Giorgia Meloni to now,

you know, who was just yesterday,

at Trump's villa in the
United States, Viktor Orbán.

At the same time, while all of this
what we are talking about

is happening in the world,
Palestine, Syria,

Viktor Orban is in the United States
meeting Donald Trump, Elon Musk

and already working on
the fascist international,

if you want to put it like that.

So at the same time, while it was a
triumph of the transatlanticist block

and imperialism, the last year,
2024 I think was also besides

proving the irrelevance of the European
Union at the same time, also a huge

setback, a huge disruption in the
so-called Left progressive movements

thinking political parties, if you
want, at the same time.

You could have seen also, I think if we
speak about the establishment parties

you could have seen that all
the masks have fallen down

from the so-called Green parties.

Just look at the German Greens.

Just the letter to
Jill Stein, for instance

or more recently, what is happening
at the periphery of the European Union

in Serbia, that a while ago
they found the biggest reserve

of lithium anywhere in Europe

there at the periphery of the EU.

A little problem for them, as usual, is
that there is an autocrat in power,

Aleksandar Vučić.

But that didn't stop Olaf Scholz
yesterday welcoming Aleksandar Vučić

in Germany and talking further with him

in which way the German automobile
industry, auto industry would use the

lithium mines in Serbia to extract further
lithium so that the middle class

in Germany can drive green cars

and that the Green Party can
speak of a Green Deal

or of a transition towards a Green Deal.

What we have seen in 2024 last year, and
what I think we will see more and more

in the next year,
is that on the opposite,

we are nowhere near,
we are actually even

further away from solving or even
approaching the climate crisis,

which is the biggest crisis
of the planet,

and not just the future of humanity,

but also many other species
which are already going extinct.

Because what we can see now, with the
situation in Syria is that what is coming

back is, good old -I'm saying it
in a sarcastic way- minerals for instance.

If you look at the interventions
in Libya, in Iraq, in Syria,

it was always about oil,
among other things.

Of course, it was also: if you take the
case of Libya, the problem was also

unification of Africa, of course,

whatever we can think of
Gaddafi.

If you look also now at the current
situation in Syria, very quickly, you will

also, have the other hand
come to pipeline politics.

You know, one pipeline which was Russia
backed from Iran through through Iraq to

Syria and then further to Europe with gas
which would equip European households

which of course, no one among the
establishment in the EU wants.

And now there is a clearing,
there is a perfect situation.

That's why I'm calling it a triumph.

Triumph in many ways for
this transatlanticist bloc, plus Israel,

which was always part of it, is the other
pipeline which is supposed to go

and that's a long dream, at least for
a decade or even longer from Qatar

via Iraq and Syria and then Turkey.

So this space is now open.

What is temporarily blocked is something
that I think, the EU establishment is

trying to block, that's I think,
their main agenda.

One of the main fears
of the EU establishment

is definitely Eurasian integration.

So I mean, Russia and Ukraine
is part of this story, but I think what

you can see very visibly and clearly is
that Syria and Iran are definitely a part

of this story because Iran and all these
countries are, to put it bluntly,

in the middle of China and Europe.

And now a block is created, a kind of
border which prevents the further

Eurasian integration which is in a way,
unstoppable

if you look at China, of course.

So I think what the situation
in Syria now reveals

is of course, on the one hand,
imperialism which is as it

always was, coupled with capitalism.

The so-called West that
we can see these days

is more afraid, as it always was
of genuine democracy,

than it is afraid of jihadists or Islamic
fundamentalists.

And that's what's happening
now in Syria.

But that was also what
was happening in Iran.

Remember Mosaddeq the
prime minister of Iran, who was overthrown

by the British secret service
and with the help of the CIA.

Why? Because the Brits
wanted the oil,

but Mosaddeq
wanted to nationalise it.

And then in the next decade, you had the
Shah, which was supported by the US,

but actually, all these interventions

and the United States meddling
inside of Iran created Khomeini.

And if you look at Iran today,
you will not find a secular country.

If you look at Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria,

I happen to be in Syria, I think just
before the Arab Spring and I saw it

with my own eyes.

These were all secular
countries.

I mean, even during Assad and I have
also, like you, Yanis all the worst words

against Assad.

You know, I think at the same time, we
must, we can and we must be against Assad

or people like him, including Putin,
including Gaddafi.

And at the same time
against imperialism.

I think this is not either or.

I think with the situation in Syria,
what we can clearly see

is the consequences of imperialism.

Assad is also a consequence of it.

But you know, as someone who comes from
socialist Yugoslavia who was here during

a bloody war, I remember very well
in which the so-called

'international Left' supported
Slobodan Milošević.

Why did they support him?

They supported him
because they thought

Milošević is an
anti-imperialist player.

And that's far from the truth,

very far from the truth.

In the same way you can see today that,
Scholz and those people,

they would rather see Vučić
in power for the next ten years

than they would want to see
democracy in Serbia.

Because if there was true democracy in
Serbia, then the people would decide:

we don't want German companies to take all
the lithium out of our country.

And actually, what is happening now at the
periphery of the EU is the most massive

protest you can imagine
in Europe today,

exactly in Serbia, where you have not
just hundreds of protests, public protests

on the streets, but in the last week you
actually have dozens of blockades,

occupations of faculties,
universities, courts.

You even have plenums, councils.

I mean, all of this, which we also had in
Croatia 15 years ago with occupations

and faculties, what you had at Occupy Wall
Street and so on.

So at the same time, there is
resistance also within the EU.

What I expect of...

But we are still at 2024,
we will come to 2025.

To come back a bit,
just again to the EU.

What we can also see is that on the one
hand, of course, it's the further

irrelevance of the European Union.

But on the other hand, I think
it's the further slide into

not just Right wing politics,
but full blown fascism.

Which is now operating
on a level of diplomacy,

like a nice soft fascism,
if you want,

just
remember what happened

with this deal between
Giorgia Meloni and Albania.

So basically, now Italy has built a
concentration camp

for 30- 40,000 refugees
in Albania.

So basically, you have an outsourcing
of the migrants at the same time

with the Syrian crisis and the war.

I mean many, the Austrian government,

the German government, many EU
governments are now openly talking about

repatriation and deportations of Syrian
refugees, millions of them who arrived

after the war in 2011.

So basically, they're sending them back
to use your words, Yanis

to the death row in a way.

And what we will see now, is that
this situation will just progress.

So to slowly conclude, I think
what the last year but also the

last years have proven is
that we are in a state of

I would characterize it
at that of a total war,

a total war in the sense of
that production and destruction

become the same.

At the same time, to put it bluntly,

at the same time, when Israel is bombing
military facilities and weapons in Syria

at the same time, EU cargo ships
under various flags

are transporting weapons
to Israel.

So, at the same time, you have
this destruction of weapons,

at the same time, you have the production
and transmission of weapons

from the west of the Mediterranean
to the east of the Mediterranean.

Then you have Keir Starmer on Cyprus,
British troops on Cyprus,

NATO on Cyprus.

And at the same time, that's why I'm
saying it's a sort of total war

where production and destruction
become the same.

From the east to the west
of the Mediterranean,

you have another wave,

which is not the
transmission of arms,

but it's people fleeing the wars
which were produced by imperialism

and the role which EU has in it.

So I think in that sense we are talking
about a total war, which if we come back,

you mentioned, Yanis, already
to Trump.

But I think this Notre Dame and
all these kind of events

are also very interesting
from a semiotic perspective.

Because I think more and more we are not
just in a total war when it comes to the

economy, which is now more and more
focused or totally focused on war

production, but we are more and more in a
in a state of war when it comes to

the semiosphere, when it comes to
semiosphere as the sphere of signs.

When it comes to this, I see you on a
screen, you see me on a screen,

and the power of cloud capital,
if I may use your words Yanis,

the power of Silicon Valley and in
which way it captured almost everything

our communication, our emotions.

Just think of Grindr, Tinder, social
dating apps now coupled with AI.

So basically we are in a total war
also in the semiosphere.

So in that sense, it's not any more
important what Trump will do.

Now, I'm slowly coming to 2025, with the
economy in the United States.

I think what is becoming
more and more important

and by this, I don't say that
I don't recognise

and I don't fight against the
real plight of the working class.

But what is more and more becoming
important, I think, is perception,

reality, the question of reality.

I mean, Jean Baudrillard was
very quickly, in the last 20 years,

dismissed by radical
theory and Leftists.

But I think Jean Baudrillard had a good
point when he talked about simulation

and in which way there is actually
this kind of simulation

is becoming our new reality.

What Trump does, in which way he
moves the fist together with Macron

and so on, it changes
the perception of people.

If you go back to the mastermind
behind it, Steve Bannon

he clearly understood, the power of
Facebook already,

the power of Silicon Valley companies.

And what I think we will see even more and
more in 2025 is the further empowerment

of oligopolies of the billionaires,
who are mainly in the tech sector,

who are now coupled with not just Donald
Trump, but Javier Milei in Argentina,

Viktor Orbán, Giorgia Meloni, all the
people who are responsible also for the

irrelevance of the EU, and also for the
participation of the EU

in war crimes and genocide.

So that's all for me.

Also very optimistic.

[Mehran] Thank you.

[Srećko] But that was 2024,
what can I do?

[Mehran] Well I was just going to
say, it does sound very bleak,

but it was a very bleak year.

Yanis talked about Gaza
and children in Gaza,

just to put some stats
there on that.

In Gaza between October 7th and three
days ago, at least 17,492 children

have been killed in Gaza.

That equates to approximately
one in every 65 children

in the Gaza Strip.

So horrendous open wound there.

And of course, all the other
things you mentioned

do paint a very bleak picture.

A couple of quick comments from
the chat and questions.

Keith Sutton Jones notes that:
'Russia has just advised all Russian

citizens to leave the USA.'

I checked that out.

It's not exactly to leave the USA,
but it says that they

advise Russian citizens not to visit
the United States.

Balbo says 'In my view, a
reformed federal Europe

would be best, but that is
a fantasy thought anyway.

Could you see that
happening and how?'

And Lonesome Cowgirl says:
'How do we stop being run by lobbies,

especially in Europe?
We feel 100% powerless.'

So as I hand the floor back over to you,
Yanis can we look forward 2025?

Do you see any any opportunities, any
chances to avoid 2025 becoming a year

of stagnation and to ensure that
it could be a year of progress

on some of the issues you outlined
and heard from Srećko as well?

[ Yanis] Well, the resistance is whatever...

The Palestinians have
shown us the way.

When you're facing
slow degradation,

you have to accept either
the slow degradation

-which is the best gift to the fascists,

because they are radical and
they say: Give me power

and I will smash everything down
and I will upend the world.

Yeah, so a genuine progressive has no
right to accept the slow degradation.

We have to put forward a radical agenda.

Now in 2019, I'll repeat that, DiEM25
put forward a radical agenda of what

the European Central Bank should do,
what the ESM should do,

what the European
Commission should do,

what the European Investment
Bank should do, and so on.

Well, that's gone now, because none of
these institutions can be saved

or can become part of a solution.

They are part of the problem now,
which means that our

radical policies and actions must be
aimed at building up solidarity

amongst the many, for the many,
to resist the repercussions.

To mitigate the repercussions of this
permanent austerity.

And now, the industrial decline of
the heart of Europe,

of the industrial base of Europe.

So it doesn't sound very hopeful.

But you know what?

Looking after the victims of this
degradation is the first step.

Because if we don't look after them,
if we don't look after each other

on the basis of a genuine transnational
humanist agenda,

it's the fascists who will
offer to look after them

in the same way
that Donald Trump offered

to look after the working class
in America, only to betray them.

We are not going
to betray them.

We have proven that at least.

So this is our job.

It's hard work and it is thankless
work to a very large extent,

because, in 2019, when we were
running around Europe with

our Green New Deal for Europe,
we said:

Oh, look, this is what we can do!

Now, we cant do that.

If we were to do that, we
would be lying to the people.

But what we can now do is create

grassroots institutions for
supporting the many,

and that will be the foundation on
which to build a new project,

a new Green Deal for Europe.

We mustn't call it that,
because that terminology has now died.

We have to think of another way
of organising our narrative

and labeling our narrative.

But, you know, resistance is
never futile.

This is the most hopeful thing
I have to say.

[Mehran] Thanks, Yanis.
Srećko.

[Srećko] Yeah, I just got
a question in the chat

which I would love to respond,

which also kind of connects to
what Yanis has said.

Let me just find it,

by someone called Višnja Kukoč:

'In which country state do you
see real democracy, Srećko,

since you mentioned it.'

Well, I think the
word democracy,

which brings us to another
problem of the name DiEM25

first problem is next year, 25.

What to do with the name?

Because now it will be this year.

But I also have a deep
problem with democracy.

At least as it is understood today

in the liberal framework,
in the way that Athens,

for instance, is the main inspiration
even today of democracy.

And it's no surprise that it's the main
inspiration for liberal democracy today

because it was based on exclusion of
women, slaves, foreigners.

It was at the same time based on...

I see Yanis, yeah, you are in Athens.

You know more about it.

But anyhow, I just think that,

Kojin Karatani has written

beautifully about it,

in which way Ionion polititei were
more democratic than Athenian ones,

because they were not
tribal in that way, they were not relied

on imperialism and exclusion
and blah, blah, blah.

But to respond to that would
bring us in a much more,

I would say, philosophical
discussion about democracy.

But to respond the question from the chat,
where do I see democracy?

Well, I see it in Syria these days,
but do you know where?

Under the Turkish bombs supported
by the United States

it's the Kurds.

And it's no wonder, that no one among
the liberals or the EU establishment

supports the Kurds, because I think their
vision of democracy is more radical than

any liberal or contemporary European
vision of democracy.

And their vision of
democracy is, of course,

called democratic confederationalism

or the Kurdish communalism, which is
based on self-governance,

on autonomy, on political ecology,
on councils, on direct democracy.

Which brings me to what
Yanis is saying.

What do we need in 2025
and - just a moment -,

do you know who were the first who
defeated ISIS, the first defeat of ISIS?

It was the Kurds
and the Kurdish movement.

So instead of supporting them,

what the West is doing is
they're supporting ISIS.

So, so much about
Western democracy

and the cynicism of the West,
which is now

talking about prisons, which definitely
are horrific in Syria.

But they were themselves who invented
Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo.

That's also a kind of
another double standard,

cynical play of the West.

But what I wanted to say, where I see a
future unfortunately, this future is

being destroyed as we speak,

are different
concepts of democracy,

which exist, which are more radical than
the parliamentary concepts of democracy

than the liberal concept of democracy,
and it brings us back to

what you, Yanis said about
the grass roots movement.

One of the reasons among many, why the
Muslim Brotherhood came to power

after Mubarak, was that
they were actually pretty

successful in grassroots organising,

in what the Left was traditionally doing

in providing mutual aid,
cooperation, medicine, if you miss it,

help with someone, what
the Mafia is doing in Italy,

if you want another parallel,

which might sound crazy, but
what they are doing, in a way is working

on this level, which is not necessarily
part of the state.

Which also brings me
to another point that

I think what we should be doing,
I at least, will be doing it in 2025

is also try in a modest way,
as much as we can to construct

parallel institutions.

I mean, DiEM25, in a way, is already a
parallel institution of course,

we have hundreds of
thousands of members.

Not all are active and so on, but it is an
institution which functions in a way.

But what I'm saying also is different
institutions which can provide this basis

not just of resistance.

And I wouldn't, definitely wouldn't call
it resilience because I hate it.

It's a very liberal concept,
resilience you know:

'We just have to adapt to
another climate crisis,

to another heat wave,
to another genocide,

let's be a bit more resilient'.

I mean, fuck resilience.

So it's definitely not resilience.

But I think what we should
be building is, I know it might sound

pretentious, some sort of archipelagos of
autonomy or what the Kurds call

confederationism: institutions,
which are not part of the state

and not part of the market,
parallel institutions, if you want.

The reactionary movements have
been quite successful

in building these
parallel institutions.

And the left historically,
but today, not anymore.

So institutions which provide
real, concrete help

and meaning to people and at the same
time, they provide means of resistance

to the corporative sector.

I don't think it's enough to come back
to this Luigi in the United States.

I don't think it's enough to
kill a CEO of any company

in the same way, it wasn't enough
when the anarchists in Russia

were killing one side or the other.

You need a movement.

Besides a movement, you
also need infrastructure.

And that's, I think, what is really
missing in our camp, if you want.

Infrastructure, which is
in villages, not just in cities,

infrastructure, which is not just
doing a big event in a theater,

infrastructure in the way that you
don't even need social media anymore,

but you can communicate
to people directly.

Because what I'm seeing as well,
is that this phase

of let's call it the Left or whatever,
which was also organising or

promoting their ideas or mobilising
via social media,

I think it's a big question in which way
will that continue?

If our feudal lord,
for instance, is Elon Musk

and we know what he
is doing at the moment.

So these are all questions which
are open questions for 2025.

And I think the Left, not to mention
the Greens, because I think the Greens

have lost all the credibility

that they had, at least
the European Greens,

which doesn't mean that ecology,
political ecology is not important.

It's more important than ever precisely
because of the failure of the Greens.

But what we have to face,

and the Left as well, but also
the liberals, is a major defeat

of democracy, a major defeat
for the planet itself because war,

climate, refugees, rising fascism,
it all comes together

and actually it's completely intertwined.

[Mehran] Thanks, Srećko.

We seem to be talking about
a Left that needs to move

from mobilising to organising.

Am I right?

And talking about grassroots institutions
like being the change rather than

just trying to change things.

Yanis would you like to react
to anything that Srećko just said?

I think we're reaching
the end of the hour.

[Yanis] Thanks Srećko for
mentioning the Kurds

and their confederation democracy,
which is indeed a remarkable,

remarkable example of a
democracy that works,

and which of course, then supports
the choice that we made as DiEM25

to retrieve the
concept of democracy,

to take it away from the so-called
liberal Democrats

who have destroyed democracy

like the Greens have destroyed
the green movement,

they are brown, the
Democrats are oligarchic,

and they have completely, completely

rubbished democracy as a concept.

One small philosophical,
historical, if you want, reaction.

[Srećko] Yeah. Of course, just as
I expected it, so just go for it.

[Yanis] Of course you did,
you know me only too well.

But, it is true that Western
liberal capitalists like to bathe

themselves in the aura
of ancient Athenian democracy.

But it is not true that
they modeled themselves

on the ancient Athenian
democratic model.

No, their model is
the Magna Carta.

It is not ancient Athens.

Ancient Athens is used as a prop.

But the real model is Magna Carta, and
what was Magna Carta?

It was a deal between
the king and the barons

so that they would divide amongst
themselves the spoil of the land

or the spoils of the land
including the human beings.

So it was the right of barons to
exploit slaves or peasants,

that the barons forced
the king to give them.

This is what democracy is today.

It's an oligarchy with
periodic elections.

But it's not ancient Athens,

because there even though you had the
inclusion of the women

of the hermetics, of,

there was a very small, narrow
band of men who were citizens.

Nevertheless, it had something that today

no liberal capitalist regime
will ever allow.

It was ruled by the poor because the
majority of the men who had the vote

in ancient Athens were poor,
and they were the Democrats,

and they were against elections.

That's why they believed in
jury systems, in sortition.

So there's something very progressive
about ancient Athenian democracy,

which modern liberal democracy
rejects wholeheartedly.

They just want to take the Parthenon and
the concept of Pericles.

Anyway, this is irrelevant,
one final point.

I have seen democracy
in the most unlikely of places.

I've seen democracy in certain
communities in the United States

where they elect their judge or
their sheriff and they worked in,

especially poor communities.

I've seen it even in
some corporations.

A corporation that I worked for
in the United States,

which had a one share,
one person, one vote system,

which is the essence of
economic democracy,

without which you can't
have democracy.

You end up with oligarchy if you don't
have economic democracy.

But it's tiny little, what you said, the
archipelago of tiny little experiments.

I've seen democracy in
the town hall of Shanghai

a few months ago in Shanghai,
in China,

People say: Oh, how
could you mean, China?

Chinese Communist Party
autocracy.

Yes, there is autocracy,
there is totalitarianism,

there are political prisoners,
there is all that.

But if you go to, as if you
had been with me,

at the Shanghai town Hall,

and you saw one hall
after the other full of people

representing neighborhoods of Shanghai
debating the laws of their neighbourhood

and effectively together in a
participatory way, writing the legislation

that rules over their
own neighbourhoods.

You see a grassroots
democracy at the level

of the grassroots
of the municipality,

which we don't have in
Europe under liberal capitalism.

No, of course then, nobody has the right
to criticize the Communist Party, right?

So these pockets of democratic experiments
with, I think, as you say, the Kurdish

experiment being at the top of it, give us
the sense that the only thing that stops

us from having democracy is oligarchic
power, the power of big capital

and the power of cloud capital.

Where I may have a small disagreement, is
that I think we need to use social media.

There is no way of not
using social media.

It's like saying that in
the 18th century, 17th century

that because the press is
controlled by the church

we don't want the press.

Of course we want the press.

We just want to usurp it and
take it and print our own pamphlets:

radical, subversive pamphlets.

Similarly, as we speak now,
we speak through Zoom.

We speak through YouTube.

What? We shouldn't do that
because YouTube is part of

cloud capital of the
technofeudal empire?

No, of course we should.

We should do more to use
their weapons against them

in exactly the same way
that the whole point

about the Marxist Left has been to
take over the machines,

not to break them up.

[Mehran] Thank you Yanis.

And I'm aware that we've gone a
little bit over, and Srećko is soon going

to be overrun with small people
or perhaps one small person.

So can we move to
the last segment where we...

I just want to ask, starting with you,
Srećko,

what works of art left
a mark on you this year?

Books, movies, anything?

[Srećko] Well, after all this discussion,
I would also love to respond to Yanis

But next time, on social media.

Just to add, I think of course, I'm always
for subversion, as you know, and using the

weapons against those who created them.

But, I think at the same time,
we should be creating our own

infrastructure and platform, which
so far wasn't that successful.

But that's a completely
different, not different topic

But it would be a long discussion.

Regarding arts, books,
theory and to move on these

kind of more gentle topics.

Well, I've been reading a lot
in the last months.

I had this luck to do so.

I was rereading, well now
it's not that new anymore

the book by David Wengrow and
David Graeber, the Dawn of Everything

because I think it really beautifully
shows in which way until now,

at least until their book, we were not
even able to imagine or to prove

and thank God we have this
archaeologist, David Wengrow.

In which way prehistoric societies
were in many respects more radical than

our today's society when it comes to
communal living, to democracy.

And I think it's a very important book
also opposed to Harari, Pinker

and all these progressivist linear
thinking which would then end up

in Fukuyama at the end of history, as
if the whole history of humanity was

progressing from hunter gatherers
through the agricultural revolution

to finally arrive
at liberal democracy

which, as we have
discussed today,

is nothing but actually a power game
of the oligarchy today.

At the same time, I've been
reading books by Kristin Ross.

I think both books are
published by Verso.

One is Communal Luxury about the Paris
Commune, and the other one is

The Commune Form which goes
from the Paris Commune

to movements in Japan,
to the Zads in France,

which actually develops, I think, a very
interesting theoretical thought

which was left behind a century or
two centuries ago when there was

a very interesting discussion,
both from Marxists including Marx

and anarchists, Proudhon,
Kropotkin and others,

Élisée Reclus about the meaning
of the Paris Commune.

I think Kristin Ross beautifully
makes a point,

which we tried to make today,
but she puts it better

in the context of the
Paris Commune,

and in which way we have to actually
in the here and now create

a sort of communal forum which, as soon as
you hear it, you can see

the communes of Paris 68, you can see
Bertolucci, his movie The Dreamers

and how it ended up in the
commodification of capitalism.

But this is not the kind of
commune she is talking about.

Also, last days I've been reading this
nice small book.

It's called Gramsci at the Sea

which is a book about the
importance of the oceans

and it talks about deep sea
mining and in which way the oceans

have become this territory of
primitive accumulation, if you want

or the privatisation of the Commons.

It's a very interesting
and important book

I think also, if you read it parallelly,
with the geopolitical situation

which is unfolding in front of our eyes
or screens in the Mediterranean Sea,

but also in the Pacific and I think that's
if we talked about the previous historical

sequence during our conversation, I think
that's the next historical sequence

or future sequence which is very connected
to oceans and to future islands,

but also geopolitical interests in the
Mediterranean and in the Pacific.

So, yeah, these were the
books, but I've been

yeah, also reading a lot of
some other books.

I quite liked actually,
yeah Yanis,

I think he lives on the
same island as you.

James Bridle's book,
Ways of Seeing, Ways of Being

Sorry, John Berger's Ways of Seeing,

and he talks about ways of being.

And I had the opportunity to have him at
our ISSA school event on the island of Vis

two months ago.

It was a very inspiring
lecture because I think he

- especially when we are paralysed by the
current moment of atrocities all across

the world and by a total war -,

he speaks about broadening our senses of
perception and taking into account,

I mean, something what Peter Kropotkin was
doing already, a great geographer,

investigating the animal world and showing
in which way mutual aid cooperation

already exists among other species.

James Bridle is doing
this also with plants,

with machines.

And I think that's very important to get
rid of this very narcissistic,

anthropocentric position in which humanity
today is thinking that with the end of us,

it will be the end of everything,
it won't.

And that's good news.

But that doesn't mean that on a daily
level, we shouldn't be active

and mobilising
as much as we can.

But I think we should also
broaden our senses of perception

and sensibilities to things
which are not just geopolitics, wars

as much as we have
to mobilise against them.

Yeah, but I watched movies.

I went to whatever.

I talk for hours.

But Yanis, I'm very curious to see what
you have been reading or watching.

[Mehran] Go for it.

[Srećko] Except Star Trek!

[Yanis] Star Trek is not new.

[Srećko] Yeah, I know.

[Yanis] It's like I wouldn't
mention Das Kapital

in the same way I wont
use Star Trek here

but now I've got I've got a book
here for you folks, because I think

what's happening in India over the last
ten years, the demise of cosmopolitanism,

of secularism and the rise of radical
neofascist Hinduism.

This is the book here.

I'll put it for you.

The Incarcerations
by Alpa Shah.

It's a very well, beautifully written
book on the political prisoners

who are languishing in jail for opposing
the conversion of India

into an axis of the Trumpist,
nationalist international.

I recommend it thoroughly.

When it comes to movies,
it has to be Ken Loach's The Old Oak.

It's a typical masterpiece by the man who
has produced so many masterpieces

in the last 30 years, Ken Loach, our great
comrade, DiEM25 member and friend

but primarily Ken Loach.

The movie is fantastic, and I highly
recommend it because it deals with

the question of migration.

The story, which I'll just brief without
spoiling the movie for you,

is taking place in a
godforsaken Yorkshire village

that was devastated
by the miners strike.

Half the people left.

The other half are unemployed,
and they've become Brexiteers.

They've turned their
discontent into racism.

And suddenly there are
these Syrian refugees,

Syrian refugees that arrive in
the middle of a devastated place

amongst people who
hate the foreigners

simply because they
need to hate something.

And there are the divisions
between these people

between the people who supported
the miners strike or the strikebreakers.

And now you have the Syrians and
how they all come together.

And Loach is fantastic.

While he tells the progressive
story that he needs to tell,

he makes it a human story

where you understand everyone in
there, and in the end, you come out

of the movie feeling feelings of joy
that are very rare in these days.

So I've given you a book,
I've given you a movie.

I'll give you a series as well,
I'm afraid it's on Apple TV.

So, bad luck - part of
technofeudalism.

It's called Silo.

It's science fiction.

Unfortunately, very soon,
it may be science reality.

Because humans live in silos,
dug deeply into the ground,

because the earth is poisoned,
the air is poisoned.

And you can see how underground, we
are replicating structures of hierarchy,

of lies, of fake news, of oppression.

If you really want to come to terms with
the fact that we are poisoning the Earth.

And what that means for us, I think Silo,
is a pretty good series to watch.

[Mehran] Thank you, Yanis.

I have a recommendation of my own,
actually, it's from 2019,

but, I only just saw it.

It's called Years and Years,
six episodes.

Brilliant, scary, science fiction,
dystopic, but also inspiring

and so prescient, considering
it was made in 2019.

It talks about refugees, the Ukraine
crisis, China, everything.

And it's not perfect, but it's
very anxiety inducing.

Wonderful to watch.

Some recommendations
from you guys out there.

Sam Wilkinson recommends Fossil Capital by
Andreas Malm.

Libra recommends the film by
John London, Martin's Eden.

Okay to Let Go notes that:
Wengrow, who you mentioned

Srećko has a good
YouTube channel.

HD recommends Future Primitive Revisited,
a book by John Zerzan about primitivism.

He says it's the only way that we will be
able to survive as a species.

P McGee recommends Joanna Macy,
the environmental activist

and scholar of Buddhism,
anything that she has written.

And that's it for
your recommendations.

Allow me just to finish with
a couple more comments.

I should have read
these out before.

Just more generally that I've been
collecting over the last half an hour.

HD says: 'We need to return to city
states for true democracy to flourish.'

The Freak contradicts him and says:
'Localism can't tackle the large

problems of our time,
including climate change.'

Mighty Insect asks: 'What are the robust,
self-organized structures

that allow us to collaborate
across all kinds of borders?

A genuine question because you're
looking for best practices?'

Well, I can tell you that this is
something

that we're doing actively at DiEM25.

We're going to be
doing more of it.

I'm personally very
invested in this topic:

best practice, good tactics.

So please stay tuned to our
YouTube channel.

Hit the Bell icon.

We've got interviews with activists
who have done serious good work,

and we're definitely into
cataloging those

and putting forward good tactics
for everyone to emulate.

And Masshouse says: 'The Left
should worry less about coming up

with the correct ideological line and
more about building popular support,

which is capable of putting
pressure on politicians.

We take stances
towards no end.'

I would agree.

Finally, TJ says: 'My God, Srećko needs
to appear on more live streams.'

And I heartily agree with that.

Thank you so much.

[Yanis] Here, here!

[Srećko] Yeah, see you in a year.

See you in a year or something.

[Mehran] No, no.

[Yanis] You mean in
January 2025.

[Srećko] In a few days, right. No.

One last one last suggestion.

It came to my mind.

One of the best documentaries
I saw this year was

Soundtrack For a Coup.

It's a documentary by, I think,
Belgian filmmakers about

the coup d'état in Congo.

And it's amazing because it
talks about CIA, the role of jazz, resources.

I mean, at some point it was
also nuclear uranium which was used

for the bomb in Hiroshima
and so on.

It all came from Congo.

Today we know what's
happening in Congo.

And I think it's a
very good movie.

Silo I didn't watch, I will,
sounds very depressing.

Years and Years I watched
and I think, yeah, in my memory,

it was a very good series,
that's all.

[Mehran] Brilliant.

Well, thank you guys.

Thank you. Yanis, thank you, Srećko
and thank you to you out there.

If you would like to get more
involved with DiEM25,

if you like what you've heard,

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It won't be long.

Thank you, take care, stay safe
and Happy Christmas season to you.

Bye!