The Greek left is unique in European progressive politics. Shaped by its own experiences, it has developed a powerful critique of Western imperialism. Unfortunately, a significant ’campist’ tendency has reduced global struggles to a simplified binary whilst erasing the voices and movements it claims to support.
The “For a Palestine That Liberates Us” conference in Athens crystallised this contradiction. Organised by Greek left intellectuals with extensive academic networks, NGO connections, and media platforms, the event showcased activists - influencers who have become hegemonic not through mass support but through institutional amplification. They speak loudly about solidarity with Palestine, but their politics offers a caricatured “Middle East” from which real social movements—independent trade unions, women’s organisations, secular leftists—vanish as soon as they complicate the narrative of monolithic “resistance.”
The dominant left discourse correctly identifies Western imperial violence but deploys Orientalist analytical tools, offering “culture” and “identity” as explanations for authoritarian regimes elsewhere whilst demanding democracy and human rights at home.
This selective internationalism has broader consequences. The same campist logic that simplifies Palestine has led portions of the Greek left into silence or worse regarding Ukraine, viewing Russian imperialism through the lens of “anti-NATO resistance” rather than recognising it as aggression against a sovereign people.
Continue @ Europe Solidaire Sans Frontières.
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