Ratio Vincit
June 11, 2012
This note is written mainly for the benefit (if that is the appropriate term in this case) of all my friends abroad who know and care about Greece’s woes. The situation is and will be increasingly difficult, both now and after the election of June 17th. Matters are bound to come to a head the following day (uncannily ‘Waterloo Day’) when SYRIZA, the leading left-wing party, will be called to form a government in the likely case it wins. Yet even if it does not win, it will still play first fiddle in opposing the policies of reform that the new government introduces. Needless to add that such opposition will not manifest itself solely in Parliament, but mainly in the streets.
The strategy of SYRIZA has been to render the country ungovernable. It has advanced in this direction with impressive efficacy. Strikes, demonstrations, occupation of public places, violent confrontations with the police, arson and sabotage, have been the order of the day for months. To crown it all, new racist and extreme nationalist parties, the ‘Golden Dawn’ and the ‘Independent Greeks’ make their loud appearance, having snatched 17% of the vote in the last elections. The country has lost its head.
Greece has, moreover, succeeded in alienating sympathy for her, mainly by the gross incompetence, proven dishonesty and grotesque arrogance of its officials, both at high and low levels of authority. As if that were not enough, racism rears its ugly head in a country sunk in fiscal profligacy and rampant corruption, where rent-seeking and living off transfer payments are admitted as the norm, yet basking in myths of an alleged cultural superiority vis à vis its European neighbours and practically everyone else. The head of SYRIZA Alexis Tsipras has lately shown to be in line with this view by asserting that he perceives the Acropolis from his window, whereas Chancellor Merkel perceives the Reichstag.
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