Thursday, October 06, 2011

Open letter to the Jarrow Marchers

Dear Comrades,
My most sincere congratulations on your heroic march. Taking the trip from Jarrow to London, under weather conditions that are deemed unthinkably hard in my country, is an achievement itself.
I come from a country where youth unemployment is reaching a soaring 45% on the population. Furthermore, a recent statistic showed that about one out of four greeks lives under the official poverty line. And, on top of all these, the government is imposing a new series of taxes on the back of the greek working class, taxes that can be compared only to Margaret Thatcher’s poll tax. For these reasons, can understand the reasoning behind your effort to recreate the Jarrow march.
In my eyes, and in the eyes of all greek comrades, you are the true successors of the strikers of 1926, the hunger marchers of the thirties, the Jarrow crusaders, the striking miners of the seventies and the eighties, the people who fought against the poll tax and managed to topple Thatcher.
Unfortunately, due to my own unemployment, and the struggles peaking again back home, I cannot join you in this marvellous job that you are doing up there. I can only urge you to keep up the good fight and show the world what the magnificent Worker’s Movement of the UK can achieve when it enters a struggle.
Keep up the good fight. The whole world is following you. Don’t let it down.
Yours truly,
A proud member of the cwi from Greece

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