Anniversary of the 1973 Polytechnic uprising
AKEL C.C. Press Office, 17th November 2014, Nicosia
This year 41 years will have elapsed since the heroic uprising of the students in Greece which went down in history as the students uprising of the Polytechnic; an uprising against the fascism imposed by the Athens junta during the dictatorship; an uprising against the foreign American-NATO interventions and subjugations. It was the climax of the struggle of the Greek people for democracy, freedom, national independence and popular sovereignty. The heroic rebellious students, the workers and people joined forces, together, showing during those days the path of resistance to all those who were oppressing the Greek People. They wrote another glorious page in Greece’s modern history, as well as in the history of the peoples struggling for democracy and freedom.
AKEL honours the heroic fallen of the Polytechnic who watered with their sacrifice the tree of freedom, Democracy and progress. The student’s uprising on 17th November 1973 was the culmination of the anti-dictatorship struggle of the Greek people. The Polytechnic, despite its bloody suppression, was the beginning of the end of the 7 year Junta regime. Unfortunately, the price of this development was very costly. The final collapse of the Junta came, given that it had managed to elaborate and later execute, together with EOKA B, the hideous crime against Cyprus and its people.
41 years afterwards, the messages the Polytechnic uprising emanate continue to be as timely as never before. The Polytechnic lives not only as a historical memory, but as a modern necessity, in the struggles for freedom, peace, democracy and social justice. The Polytechnic uprising continues to show the way for the people to believe in its own strength and organise its resistance against the policies of austerity and impoverishment; the attempts to abolish working people’s rights and the welfare state; the selling-off of the national wealth to local and foreign capital and to the revival of fascism. The Polytechnic continues to show the way against the modern interventions and subordinations of the peoples; against the modern subjugation, the attacks on the right to education and the attempts to privatise it; against the infringement of democracy through the imposition of dictates from abroad and the domestic propaganda that there is no alternative to neo-liberalism.
Certain circles and forces today are seeking to distort history. They want to wipe out from the peoples memory November 1973 and the causes that led to the Polytechnic uprising. They want to hide the truth about the role NATO and the plutocracy played in the 7 year dictatorship. They want the crime and the betrayal committed by the Junta of Athens against Cyprus, executed by the Greek Junta in cooperation with its representatives here, namely EOKA and Grivas, to be forgotten.
As AKEL, we will resist with all our strength the attempts to distort and revise the historical truth about the Junta, the heroic uprising of the Polytechnic, the anti-dictatorship struggle and the betrayal of Cyprus, so that the policy of forgetfulness and amnesia won’t allow the descendants of the Junta and fascism to return with more vengeance than ever.
We address a warm militant greeting to the Greek people who are continuing to experience the tragic results of the global capitalist crisis, neo-liberal policies and who are suffering from the policies of impoverishment the Troika is imposing. We express our solidarity and support to the struggling Greek people. Let the heroic uprising of the Polytechnic and its ideals be a source of inspiration for the Cypriot people too.
