The language the Guardian and all other corporate media have been using about Syriza’s victory at the weekend against draconian EU-imposed austerity is revealing. Here are some examples of the subtle but effective framing from the paper’s front page today:
* The referendum is described in the standfirst and text as “polarising” rather than what it is: an exercise in direct, participatory democracy. If a 61% win is an illustration of a polarised society, what does that make David Cameron’s recent absolute victory in British parliamentary elections with 24% of the total vote? In the face of massive threats and intimidation from the EU establishment, echoed by European media, Greeks have shown there is a wide consensus against endless austerity. Nothing “polarised” about that at all.
* Syriza is repeatedly characterised as a “radical leftist” party, while its cool-under-pressure leader, Alexis Tsipras, is described as “fiery” (will the Guardian show some balance by labelling the German chancellor Angela Merkel “bullying”?). The truth, of course, is that Syriza is a broad alliance of parties representing an array of political views from the centre to the left united only in their opposition to a continuing EU-imposed austerity programme designed chiefly to benefit European financial institutions rather than the Greek people. Syriza only looks like it’s on the radical left because media like the Guardian are positioned in the soft neoliberal centre.
* The article concludes by stating that the “no” vote won because it was “supported by the hard left and the neo-fascist right in Greece, while the mainstream centre-left and centre-right campaigned for a yes vote.” The Guardian’s clear implication is that the lunatics have taken over the Greek asylum. But is that really the case? Or is that just the way EU elites want us to interpret the result? Germany has been pushing hardest for…