So much of the rhetoric and the media coverage in and about the EU lately seems to be focused on a Greece vs. Germany narrative. The Germans are hardworking and thrifty or they are moralistic authoritarians bent on the Fourth Reich. The Greeks are oppressed and are fighting against the evil of austerity or they are lazy and corrupt and want a free handout. But this story line (intentionally) obscures the real divisions that are going on, the ones that have to do with values and ideology a lot more than they have to do with language and geography. The real struggle is not about Athens vs. Berlin and Brussels. It is about those who fight for human dignity, who want a Europe united for the best interests of everyone, not just the power elites (or just the “europeans”), and an economy that serves human needs and communities, not banks and corporations. If there is a geography to this struggle then it isn’t north or centre vs. south or periphery but it is conference rooms vs. neighborhood assemblies, corridors of power vs. the streets. If there is a language to this struggle it isn’t German vs. Greek, Anglo-Saxon vs. Latin but the language of greed vs. the language of hope, the language of power and authority vs. the language of mutual aid and solidarity. As the lines get drawn tighter and tighter let’s not lose track of what it is that we are fighting for, or forget who we are fighting with.