Video: graffiti on a torched mosque and a school in Kallithea where teachers have been running antifascist campaigns:

Last week, I went to Athens with a friend called Abi Ramanan. We interviewed people there about the economic crisis, service cuts and the rise of fascism. We’re publishing transcripts from the recorded interviews we made on this site over the next week.

There’s more background and the first interview (with a Golden Dawn voter called Kelly) is here.

This post is a transcript with a teacher called Pavlos Antonopoulos. He has been a teacher for 30 years – the last 12 at an Athens highschool. He describes the neighbourhood and school catchment area as working-class. His students are aged between 15 and 17. He is also a well-known activist.

In this interview, he talks about the Golden Dawn’s increasingly bold attempts (the last one just three days before we met) to make contact with his students – to get into the school and to talk to students. He also talks about drastic cuts to school resources, the government’s plans to cut funds and the number of teachers further by merging Antonopoulos’ school with another and his belief that Greece and working people will only have any sort of future if the troika is foiled, austerity is abandoned and the country returns to the drachma:

On the growing confidence of the Golden Dawn:
“A few days ago, three older former students [one-time students of the school] – they were about 20 or 21 years old – they came into the school and were speaking with students.

The person who was on the school’s security door didn’t mind [that person let them in], so they came in. They may have been sympathetic to them. They may have been afraid. When I saw them, I asked them to go out [to leave]. Two weeks earlier, [they’d tried to get into the school] but when I asked them to leave, I was successful. They went out. [This time, though], three days ago, they argued when I told them to go out. They started to say many things. I threw them out, but when they were at the gate, they told the security person “we will take care of you”, but that they would stab me.

I went to the manager – the president of the school. I told him, but I don’t think he understood what I told him, so I went to the police station. I was lucky – because the police officer had a little girl who was a student in my school [so he knew me]. That was the only way [I got a hearing].

We had a big conversation about this and I asked him to bring the three young men to the police station to have a talk. I told him that I would go to court – so yesterday, he called me and I went there and he called the three there. We had a conversation – all of us. Of course – they said “we didn’t say those things. We didn’t mean it.” Some days before, the fascists had made an announcement that they would fire all teachers in the area who speak against fascism. We decided to speak in the classrooms against fascism, against the Golden Dawn and now, they try to stop us.

On food and books
[In] the last year, we noticed that many students didn’t have enough to eat. We had a meeting with a council of parents and they told us that in our school, they had about 15 cases like this, where the children didn’t have food. We tried to form a group to help them. Where I live, we have one union like this…Kids are swooning, because they don’t eat. We paid for the food ourselves – teachers and the other parents… We [also] give free lessons for the children that can’t pay. [When] we have demonstrations and strikes, we take the children. We try to make them fight against the situation.

Last year, we didn’t have books. It was the first time since the war that we didn’t have books. We made copies from all the books and gave them to children. Of course – that was more expensive than books, but they didn’t want to give money for books, so they pressed us to give money ourselves, from our pockets, to do photocopies.

[They are merging] two schools in our area – my school and another. This means many more children in the classroom now, because the school has merged. It’s part of the cuts. They merge schools into one with the same number of kids. They try to use less [sic] teachers, so they increase the number of pupils in the class. We lost about ten teachers as part of the merger in these two schools.

That is one thing. The second is that they cut our [teacher] salaries. They changed everything. A new teacher now takes about €580 per month. If you think that three years before, the salary was about €1000 – they’ve cut about half the salary. [Meanwhile prices go up]. For petrol – in two years, the price is has about doubled. Now, it is about €1.80 per litre for gas and now, to heat houses, it’s going to something like €1.40.

Leaving the Euro
We believe that this is the solution now for the working class – we have to leave the Euro, because we can’t make our own economic policies [while we’re in Europe]. They [the troika] use the threat that we’re going to go out of the Euro every time that they want to pass more austerity measures.

We can’t control our salaries, or our prices – nothing, because the Euro is stable. If your money supply is controlled by the EU, you can’t do anything. We have to change our policy. We have to start producing what we started closing several years before – clothing, sugar, the shipyards. We don’t produce anything now. We import. If it will continue in this way, we will collapse in two or three years.

Motivating students
The young people have lost their belief in the future, so it’s very difficult for us to make them focus on their lessons and to prepare for university, because they say – “we’re going to the university and after, we will not have jobs.” Most of them will look for a way to leave Greece. We try to force them to fight to change the situation. That means that they have to fight for their schools, for their books, for money for the schools.

They can’t find jobs. I have three children – one is 37, one is 34 and the youngest is 24. None of them works now. The first one lost his job two years ago. He’s tried to find a job everywhere, but he can’t find any job. The second is my girl. She has a degree in fine arts. She can’t find job anywhere. The last – he has a degree and he can’t find a job. My daughter has a boyfriend now and she wants to get married, but I said – forget it for the next ten years. There are too many problems.

On immigration
Immigration is a big problem, because Greece is the gate to Europe. Thousands of immigrants come to Greece, because they want to go to other parts of Europe. Of course [I understand why they want to come here]. The problem starts in their countries, because they are bombing. I went to Gaza some years ago when Israel was bombing it. I couldn’t believe that people could live in that situation. They were bombing from the air and tanks. I stayed a few days. I thought I was in hell. People can’t stay there.

They are trapped here – it’s a trap in Greece for them. Like in the second world war – they used the Jews [to blame for economic problems]. Now they use immigrants. We believe that the solution is first to give them papers. We have to recognise that they exist. Second – we have to open the borders and say to them “Go where you want.” For the immigrants who want to stay here – you have to give them places to stay.. Of course – they [austerity’s supporters] use them to make as scapegoats.