I think the European Union promised a great deal and delivered very little. Voting rights seem to have become totally irrelevant because whoever you elected, it didn’t matter which party, they were carrying out the same elite policies. Greece has made a difference and this will inspire people. But in order for that to happen you do need to have political instruments and political parties. It can’t just happen by occupying public spaces. You know, you need politics for that. And so what we are witnessing in Greece is, in a way, the reassertion of the political and I think that will be extremely important in saying ‘yes, we are citizens; we don’t just have, you know, basic rights. We have political rights and we want to exercise these political rights and link them to social and economic rights.'
Tariq Ali is a novelist, journalist and political campaigner whose most recent books include Protocols of the Elders of Sodom and Other Essays (2009), Night of the Golden Butterfly (2010) and The Obama Syndrome (2010). In May 2012 he spoke at the Zagreb Subversive Forum, where he was interviewed by Nick Holdstock.