The International Relations Committee of the Communist Youth of Greece (KNE) details the ongoing fight by students in the country for proper and effective protection from COVID-19.
The new school year for the school-students in Secondary Education, has begun in a militant way all over the country with the school-students taking over more than 700 schools, daily protests outside the premises of Municipalities and Regional Headquarters, as well as the great mobilisations of thousands of school-students in the centre of Athens, Thessaloniki and other cities all over Greece.
The New Democracy (ND) government, instead of utilising the extra time that was gained, thanks to the responsible stance of the people and the youth during the previous period, extra time that could be used to fortify the public healthcare system and to prepare the opening of schools and universities with all the necessary health protection measures for the school-students and students, it implemented everything the big businessmen of the tourism and transport sectors demanded, exposing our people to a second wave of COVID-19 cases, while at the same time it provocatively increases the military expenses for aircrafts that will serve the NATO plans.
Today’s difficult situation with the pandemic in Greece, neither has been a one-way street nor was caused by the lack of discipline the youth showed towards the health protection measures, as it is falsely claimed by the government. It is the result of the policy that adapts the health protocols to the profitability needs of the capital, the policy that considers the health protection measures for the people a “cost”, the policy that promotes the commercialisation of health. This policy has been followed by all bourgeois governments in Greece and in other countries.
Today, the situation in our schools, especially the ones located in the large urban centres, is the following:
- More than 25 school-students are packed in small classrooms, while there are unused buildings that can be arranged properly to serve as classrooms.
- The necessary personnel for cleaning and disinfecting the school premises have not been contracted.
- No professors have been contracted, thus reducing the number of school-students per classroom.
The government’s irresponsible policy combined with the general explosive situation in hospitals, led the schools-students to occupy their schools and organise various kinds of mobilisations from the very first day of the school year.
We, KNE members, are decisively waging a very fierce struggle inside and outside schools. We are at the forefront of organising the demands, through General Assemblies in all schools, with an open and collective discussion amongst school-students, while trying for initiatives to be taken for the better promotion of claims and demands.
We are waging the struggle for the coordination of the school-student struggles at Municipal, Regional and even National level, so that the dynamics of every activity increases. School-students that are members of KNE and other vanguard militants are at the forefront of creating local School-Student Coordination Committees. Thus, they upgrade the level of the organisation of the struggle and ensure the coordination amongst schools; the struggle is acquiring endurance, determination, duration and escalation.
We are waging the struggle on the content of struggle, because the system when it is unable to repress, it is attempting to lead the struggle to less painful ways for itself. We show the real cause of this situation, we foster demands and goals that inflict blows to the root of the problem and can truly become the breath and springboard for stronger struggles.
This struggle goes hand in hand with the struggle to inform. From the very first moment, the government and the bourgeois Media slandered the school-student struggles. Initially, they attempted to identify the struggles for protection measures with various conspiracy theories. They utterly failed, thus they began accusing the school-students of fighting to avoid taking classes or not fighting by their own will but because others are manipulating them in doing so, openly implying that KNE is behind everything. They continued the attack against the school-students’ struggle, stating that they must stop because the State cannot satisfy their demands due to lack of money.
With such slandering, intimidation and provocations, they only managed to make the slogans “The masks aren’t our only protection. Give money for Education”, “Underneath the masks we have a voice. Education and Health for every school-student” and“They don’t give money for Health and Education, they only give for the NATO and the bosses” sound even louder. Their fury against the struggles showed once again their fear before the organised questioning of the anti-people policy.
The struggle of the school-students in Greece is just and hopeful. KNE supports with all its forces the just demands of the school-students. The international solidarity and the promotion of the truth about the school-students’ struggles in Greece by our sister Youth Organizations abroad, gives strength in this struggle.
International Relations Committee of the Central Committee
Communist Youth of Greece (KNE)
