Not so progressive

Submitted by AWL on 30 September, 2020 - 8:16
Yanis Varoufakis

Progressive International (PI), the latest project of Yanis Varoufakis, who was the negotiator with the EU for Greece’s Syriza government in 2015, held its “inaugural summit” on 18-20 September, drawing many “big names” of the left.

Varoufakis was an opponent of Brexit. Then he became an advocate of it. He created DIEM25, an as a movement for reform of the EU, then moved on to PI.

At the opening session Varoufakis made a “by the way” comment that there are serious human rights issues in China.

Vijay Prashad, a PI Council member responded that the left would tear itself apart if it attempted to address such issues. Nick Estes, another PI Council member, agreed. Such criticisms of China (or Iran) “might as well happen on the moon”. In other words: say nothing about the repression of Chinese, Iranian and other peoples!

Varoufakis texted his agreement with those comments to the chair, who read them to the meeting. Some internationalism! Some International!

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