Washington Post
November 4, 2011
Greece is the cradle of democracy, but, as the world saw this past week, a financial crisis is no time to put important questions to the people. Prime Minister George Papandreou’s proposed referendum on the country’s loan deal with the European Union, called off quickly after intense international opposition, illustrated that perfectly. Plato and Aristotle would have approved of dropping the referendum. They didn’t like democracy of the direct kind. Neither trusted the people that much.
Sinking deeper into the gravest economic crisis in its postwar history, Greece is no nearer to finding an exit from its woes, despite the vote of confidence that Papandreou narrowly managed to win Friday night. A toxic mix of anxiety and fear hangs in the air in Athens. The ordeal shows that living up to lofty idealism is never easy. Modern Greeks know that well, for we are, in many ways, the imperfect reflection of an ideal that the West imagined for itself.
When the Greek crisis began two years ago, a popular German magazine printed an image of Aphrodite of Milo on its cover. She was depicted gesturing crudely to German readers, with the headline: “The fraudster in the euro family.” The story led to protests in the streets of Athens. In the article, modern Greeks were described as indolent sloths, cheats and liars, masters of corruption, unworthy descendents of their glorious Hellenic past. The irony of the article, and of the angry Greek protests against it, was that modern Greece has little in common with Pericles or Plato. If anything, it is a failed German project.
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