New York Times
May 24, 2012
Few Greeks have a good word to say about the European banking system these days. They believe it’s the real reason for their current crisis, having pushed easy money on their politicians and now demanding a pound of financial flesh.
It was the same story 800 years ago. The men of the Fourth Crusade, who had originally set off to fight for Christianity in the Holy Land, found themselves instead ransacking Constantinople, the capital of the Greek-speaking Byzantine Empire, because of enormous debts that had been racked up in the West.
The way Europe has behaved over the current Greek crisis is scarcely less shameful than the way those crusaders behaved all those centuries ago. If nothing else, that dark spot on the West’s historical record should be a warning to the bankers and politicians who would rather watch Greece fall apart than take responsibility for their own profligacy.
Greece may be on Europe’s periphery today, but in the 12th century Constantinople was the gateway to a lucrative trade in spices, silks and luxury goods coming from the east. This trade had made fortunes for men across Europe — as the economies of Greece, Spain, Portugal and Italy have done over the last two decades.
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