THE GREEK TRAGICOMEDY OF HOW IDEOLOGIES CAN BE TRANSFORMED TO OBSESSIONS

THE GREEK TRAGICOMEDY OF HOW IDEOLOGIES CAN BE TRANSFORMED TO OBSESSIONS

The time has come for Greece to experience the effects of some chronic pathogens that torment this country almost from its creation as a contemporary Greek state.

There is not a single “show”, more popular, that attracts more attention, these days,  than the ongoing “serial” of Greece’s negotiations with its European partners and lenders?

For most of us, this interest has turned into a meaningless tragicomedy with a boring ‘rehashing’ of the same arguments, rehearsed over and over again from both political sides, government and opposition, arguments that inevitably have lost not only their interest  but also their substance that lack any objectivity.

Even the most thorough ideology may lose its value if it fails to adapt to the actual environment it needs to operate. This is exactly how an ideology invariably can be turned to an obsession.

Unfortunately, we are experiencing a period of transformation of ideologies to obsessions, across the spectrum of political and economic theories.

The current government of the “left” is trying to justify its failures as lack of will to adopt an even more extreme revolutionary approach. Similarly, on the other side, the previous “coalition government” refuses to recognize the “ugly” role played by parties with conflicting interests, in their negotiating process.

That is why both sides sound like having permanent conflicting obsessions neither of which bears a solid argument capable to convince an individual who can exhibit a degree of pragmatic thinking, free of such obsessions.

Approaching, from the above perspective, our current National inheritance of dramatic and problematic situations, free from obsessions and prejudices, should help us perceive the real size of the problem and most of all the causes for its creation.

In many ways, the ruling party of the “left” has made correct assessments as to the level that the negotiations with our European partners, should rise up to.

The elevation of the negotiation process to a high political level was necessary to help us escape from the purely technocratic thinking of the “troika” ‘, but in doing so, the government intentionally overlooked the existing institutional issues which were much more fundamental than the technocratic and economical ones.

The institutional problem, that the present government overlooked, was the adherence to fundamental principles governing inter-state relations within Europe.

These principles consist of compliance rules that respect all signed interstate agreements, regardless of alternations in governments.

The prefix of the popular mandate as impervious democratic principle does not provide adequate excuse; neither solves the political problem, especially if a government, intentionally, fosters popular will in a direction that might prove unrealistic and unachievable.

To be consistent and objective, I cannot avoid to confront with the hypocritical behavior of the previous government that pretended that had always acted in the national interest while, under the pressure of events, passed the problem, like a ‘hot potato’ to the next government of the “left’ avoiding to get all required unpopular decisions that would have ensured the continuation of a program that, «de facto», would shield the country, at least for period, to allow the upcoming government to negotiate.

But even more, I disapprove some deeds of the previous government, mainly because it failed to expose some of the real conflicting interests existing within Europe and beyond.

Such interests seriously effect and influence political decisions, so they owed to beware of and take more into considerations   interstate agreements, supplier-customer relationships, intertwining, internal rivalries, interstate competition in tourism and other sectors, supplies for defense, energy policy, prospects for political union in Europe and many other issues including geopolitical balances that have not been adequately exploited during their negotiations.

So we are tired of the nonconstructive ideological war with conflicting views and full of hypocrisy about issues on economy and development plans where the “left”, in the name of reducing austerity, imposes taxes to accommodate the return to state controlled investments  and on the other side the “right’ prides itself for the reduction of unemployment in the private sector, hiring for the public sector, (see period of Kostas Karamanlis), and what has happened more recently, advocating a totally anti austerity strategy but shifting to what is an  ardent support of implementing memorandum of austerity, after the elections, (see Antonis Samaras).

No one, effectively, speaks or lays realistic plans about the single  prevailing issue, which is to devise a development program for Greece.

It is really astonishing that, neither the current government displays specific views and a plan, nor the previous government dared to implement such, nor the latest European proposals, which are totally focused on debt collection, include any development incentives. They all look like trying to hide a common secret, much more serious and troublesome than the  350 billion €  Greek debt.

Could anyone reveal to me this very special secret?

Enough is enough!!!

ΝΚ