Brief address of Andros Kyprianou, General Secretary of the C.C. of AKEL, at the Monument Dedicated to the Heroes and Martyrs of the Working Class on the occasion of International Workers Day
Sunday 1st May 2016, Nicosia
We have gathered here today even though it is Easter Sunday. We would have been here whatever the day because today we honor working people. We honor the struggles and sacrifices of workers all over the world. We honor the struggles of the Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot workers. We defend the gains that we have achieved together. We insist on defending and promoting class brotherhood as the strongest source of our strength in the struggles to come. At the same time we insist on struggling together with our Turkish Cypriot compatriots for the dawn of the day of liberation, reunification and peace, in a joint anti-imperialist, anti-occupation and anti-fascist front; a front that will tear down in words and in practice the walls of division based on ethnic origin in order to make the reunified Republic of Cyprus the common house Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots.
Today we honor the struggles and sacrifices of those who paved the way for the worker’s movement in Cyprus, back then when “working hours were by and large from sunrise to sunset”; back then when “even more oppressive was the manifestation of this inequality in the way workers were treated, so that employer’s “superiority” was to be stressed in the face of which any idea of resistance was considered abnormal and unthinkable”, as the late comrade historian Rolandos Katsiaounis aptly pointed out.
The first thing the pioneering communists offered the country was precisely that, that is to say the awakening of people’s consciousness and the belief that it is a natural right for the common people to have dignity and to stand upright. This belief founded and developed the Cypriot worker’s movement. There is not a single gain and right for workers, whether it is the eight hour working day, or social insurance or healthcare, which does not bear the stamp and the mark of our People’s Movement of the Left, that was not an assertion and demand defended until the end by the thousands of workers and peasants guided by the Party of the working class in their struggles.
Recently we had an organized gathering with some veterans of the trade union movement. One of them talking about the struggles in the past for an eight-hour working day said that the atmosphere was so polarized, anti-communist and Cold War that some employees promoted the slogan “better to work 12 ‘blue‘ working hours, than a ‘red‘ eight hour working day”. But those who demanded and won the “red eight hour working day” won it for everyone, for all workers regardless of whether they were “blue” or red.
They previously were accusing our policy on social expenditure as lavish spending way beyond its means. However all that we managed to win and safeguard institutionally was achieved for all working people. No matter the fierce attacks that were waged against Christofias, AKEL and the Left as an ideological spectrum, over the last five years no one can deny that back then a line of resistance was drawn against anti-social and unacceptable demands; a line defending working people, public assets and the protection of those most in need. Today we all understand that there was a reason why the Troika waited for a change in the government in order to demand the haircut of bank deposits, privatizations and other measures.
Since then three years have elapsed and this year’s Worker’s May Day finds thousands of our fellow compatriots suffering from unemployment, poverty and destitution. 28% of our people are on the poverty line. Recently, Eurostat noted that Cyprus has become the country bottom of the table with regards expenditure on social protection and also has worst record in terms of the percentage increase in the gap between the few privileged rich and all the others. We are called upon on today to once again wage the struggle for what should be considered as self-evident; to save our young people from unemployment and € 500 salaries; to rid our elderly people from the humiliation of those cuts the state and society owes them; to stop the downward spiral for thousands of families forced to live on 480 Euros per month as a result of the so-called “minimum guaranteed income” of humiliation.
We must resist all these policies and measures. No one by him/herself is strong enough to prevent these policies and measures. We need to mobilize all our forces together, to participate and make the difference! In three weeks we will have parliamentary elections. Abstention is not going to change anything. It will not reduce unemployment, nor will it save us from privatizations and foreclosures. Abstention will not diminish the arrogance and authoritarianism with which this Government takes decisions and issues orders.
AKEL – Left – New Forces is the only force that can resist them! On 22nd May the people must give strength to its own strength!
It must rise up and together with AKEL-Left – New Forces make the difference – to resist and give a future and a perspective to Cyprus and our people!
