An excited crowd of 400 came to see Yanis Varoufakis in discussion with Dr. Helen Vatsikopoulos last Friday at the NSW Teacher’s Federation Conference Centre.
The much-admired figure of leftist politics invariably draws large audiences, who want to witness his proclivity for explaining the origins and future directions of the political and economic forces that define our world.
The most hope in Varoufakis and Vatsikopoulos’ discussion was found at the beginning of the evening, as Varoufakis discussed his recent book ‘Raise Your Soul’. The book is a deeply personal and political story of five women in his family who changed his life, spanning 100 years.
These women found hope for themselves and their families through political resistance during some of the most transformative events in Greek history, including WWII, the Greek civil war, and the Greek military Junta.
Both within the book and in his conversation with Dr. Vatsikopoulos, Varoufakis described the profound struggles faced by his family during these periods, including his father’s internment at Makronisos concentration camp during the Greek Civil War and his mother in law’s suffering of political and domestic violence.
However, he continually took care to emphasise the hope and joy that himself and his family have found through political engagement through these dark times.
This joy was most pronounced in his relationship with his mother, Eleni, who Varoufakis described as his “political mentor”. When Varoufakis was studying at the University of Essex in the UK, he would call his mother “every day”.
“But there was none of that Greek mother thing of, ‘did you eat’…’are you staying warm’…it was all politics. Sometimes we would forget to even say hello”, Varoufakis said, eliciting knowing laughs from the predominantly Greek Australian audience.
Later, Varoufakis’ voice began to break as he retold the experience of reading his paternal grandmother Anna’s diaries, and discovering she was a member of the Egyptian Feminist Union alongside their leader, Hoda Sha’arawi.
It was these stories, as touching as they were heartbreaking, that allowed Varoufakis to indirectly encourage the audience to raise their own souls, and to not turn away from politics in the face of despair. And when asked by Dr. Vatsikopoulos what could be done about the rise of technocrats and AI, Varoufakis emphatically told the audience: “politics sucks, but there is no alternative”.
Varoufakis’ focus later turned to the rise of authoritarianism and fascism in the West, and his theory of Technofeudalism was inevitably discussed.
“We are running a very serious risk of losing the capacity for nuanced thinking”, Varoufakis told Dr. Vatsikopoulos when asked about the interaction between authoritarianism and Technofeudalism.
It became increasingly difficult to argue with this point of view as Varoufakis and Vatsikopoulos unpacked how algorithmic bias, populism and AI have played a crucial role in allowing authoritarian and fascistic politics to thrive in Western countries.
Varoufakis was consistently critical of US President Donald Trump, the Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis, and several Australian politicians, especially Pauline Hanson and One Nation.
The discussion also turned to Varoufakis’ upcoming drug trial, taken out by the Greek government after Varoufakis admitted to taking ecstasy at Sydney Mardi Gras 37 years ago on a podcast. Varoufakis called the case “ridiculous”, and a tactic by the Mitsotakis government to, “signal to the fascists [within government]: ‘you don’t need another party, we’ll get them for you’”.
When asked how he believes the trial will progress, Varoufakis responded, “I am going to be convicted, they will give me a fine which I will not pay so I may end up behind bars, and then I will be acquitted on appeal”.
“That is my timeline, I am preparing for that. I hope it doesn’t happen, but I won’t be surprised if that happens. In the meantime, I will run for elections and hopefully be elected,” he said.
If you want to hear Varoufakis and Dr. Vatsikopoulos’ discussion in full, keep an eye on ABC Radio National’s Big Ideas program, which will be posting the discussion as a podcast soon.
The Greek Festival also caught up with Varoufakis before he went on stage on Friday night. Listen here for his thoughts on the melding of the personal and political in ‘Raise Your Soul’, and what advice he would give to young people to face the current political moment.
*All photos by Vasilis Vasilas