Archive note: This text comes from the old archive of Nomika Epilekta and is preserved with care for historical and informational reading.

Greek voters have always been vulnerable to demagoguery, but now they have gone one step further, rewarding those populists who touched the strings of the eastern paranoia that possesses us, since they generously point out enemies and scapegoats who are to blame for everything, convenient roosters on which to load all our sins. Only we have never been at fault for anything; the customer is always right, and how I wish we applied that principle where it should be applied, in transactions, trade or tourism, and certainly not in the field of our important national choices.

The issue now is that we again have elections in June, thanks to the small party fragments getting carried away, and many people wonder what we should vote for, because there are many kinds of logic a voter may apply.

One kind of logic is to vote purely like football fans, that is, I belong there and I vote there even if the world collapses. For this category of voters it is not worth spending our ink.

Another logic, with its variations, is which party has the best ideas, or the best personnel, or the best program for addressing the problems. Unfortunately, this logic too does not lead us to certain conclusions today. No party has a complete program, their ideas are limited to reheated phrases and vagueness, while as regards the character of their leaders, no one inspires confidence.

On the contrary, most of them, not excluding the leftists, are corrupt people who step over corpses for their careers or to impose their own way; they are power-hungry and lie shamelessly. They all put their children in the best private colleges and constantly vote to increase their own pay, and then supposedly agonize over the people. The people, of the people, to the people, oh people, whose ears we flatter because if we do not flatter you, from foolish you become punitive.

Not even political foresight seems to be possessed by the party chiefs. The saddle-maker simply managed to put the saddle on the Karamanlis party and drove out the mare so that he could enjoy the manger alone; beyond that he utters various cries every so often, permanently demanding new and early elections, in his familiar uncompromising manner, and now he has achieved it this time, so admire our decline, and his as well.

Pachomios also managed to throw GAP out the window, satisfying his childhood dream of becoming leader of the Andreas party, but after so many years in politics he does not have one specific vision for how the boulders of problems tormenting Greek society will be addressed. Eloquence is abundant, but ideas and substance are absent. Problems, however, are not solved with figures of speech.

SYRIZA is playing roulette, and dangerous roulette at that: it believes that the EU will not throw us out of the euro no matter what happens, so let us throw the memorandum in the trash. Yet if SYRIZA wins this bet, we will indeed remain in the euro, but the debt problem will be perpetuated, the fall in living standards will continue, while the Kafka system we have in our state machinery, about which no leftist speaks because they consider it natural, since such and worse systems were established by them wherever they prevailed, will probably grow even worse.

If, on the other hand, SYRIZA loses the bet and we find ourselves with the drachma, then the most indescribable misery will befall us. With SYRIZA, therefore, one way or the other, we will be the losers.

Logically, they probably will not remove us from the eurozone no matter what happens, but one never knows. There is a possibility that at some point we may force them to do it, because the behavior of we do not owe, we do not pay, you are usurers, the burning of German flags and the complex-ridden cries about national sovereignty are not exactly the best thing in a European society of partners.

Here it was heard, regardless of whether it is true or false, that auntie Angela from Berlin proposed that we hold a referendum on whether we want to remain in the euro or not, and all the political leaders burst out with their familiar cries about national sovereignty, which they remember every time they smell votes.

That a European leader recommends a referendum or anything else is not something I think we need to view with such petty cunning, nor, of course, to suffer a fit of hysteria. Either it is a good proposal and we accept it, or we disagree and reject it. What the problem is, and why we started the melodrama again, I have not understood.

If, again, they discern a danger that we may become a German protectorate, perhaps we should seriously examine whether something like that would benefit us. We tried our compatriots too and tasted the sweetness. If the thought were not utopian, perhaps the best solution for the Greek people would be for us to become a province of Germany, no matter how much the fanatics of national sovereignty rage. National sovereignty is neither an end in itself nor a sacred cow, and when we become a member of the European Union we are supposedly forgetting a large part of our sovereignty in any case.

Besides, as I have said elsewhere, if we are indeed European citizens, then the Germans are not foreigners. Nor, of course, do today's Germans have anything to do with the Third Reich, and it is shameful for us to insult them every so often with references to Hitler and swastikas. Because we may still be stuck in 1940 and in the era of the civil war, but the Germans have made major changes throughout this whole period.

In the situation we are in, to return to the point, and since no politician has worthwhile programs or visionary ideas, I think we should embrace the logic that says the lesser evil is best. From within a cesspit of filth we must choose the best filth; it cannot be otherwise.

And what, then, is this lesser evil? In my opinion, the two familiar and by no means exempt parties, the Karamanlis party and the Andreas party. For the following reasons:

  • The current situation proved that we are not ready for the abolition of bipartisanship, since we have no culture of dialogue and compromise at all.
  • Neither bipartisanship nor multipartyism is an end in itself. We try both systems and keep the one that works, by the method of trial and error, test everything and hold fast to what is good, as Apostle Paul says.
  • The minimal trial of the many small party fragments was enough to spread panic not only in Greece but internationally. They had barely been elected and, in the condition we are in, forced us to hold new elections within a month. Such is their irresponsibility. Unfortunately, we do not have the luxury of other such experiments; to err twice is not the mark of a wise man.
  • The two old parties of power at least have the infrastructure, personnel and international contacts to govern the country at an elementary level and to communicate with the outside world, especially with Brussels.
  • These two parties are indeed demagogic, but at least they address their accusations to each other and do not engage in witch-hunts and hunts for supposed enemies, whether from Germany, from Pakistan or from outer space.
  • These two parties can at least provide stability.

For the above reasons, I propose that this time voters vote realistically and choose either ND or PASOK, since no other choice remains to us. It is the wise logic of the Anglo-Saxons, better the devil that you know.

At least these two parties, if no single-party majority emerges, have shown that they can come to an understanding if necessary, whereas the others are dangerous because they cannot cooperate even with their own selves. They only know how to devalue everyone and everything from a safe distance.

Let us keep them as picturesque figures, to entertain us with their theories about conspiracies, with the supposed deposits of copronium and cesspitonium that Greece allegedly has but the wicked do not allow us to extract. A portion of the public, unfortunately, believes such things and wants to hear such things; it also has to do with our educational level. But for power, or for a share in power, there is no discussion. We do not play with fire.

Unfortunately, then, we do not have many things to choose from. Either the Fat One or the Thin One, or both together. From there on it is a matter of taste which of the two each person will vote for; after all, they do not have great differences, as long as it is one of these two. Because the golden eggs from LAOS, the shavings of SYRIZA or the deposits of copronium will sink us, and we are not fit for such things. Let us try them another time, under less pressing circumstances.

Gerasimos Fourlanos
Doctor of Law, University of Uppsala
www.fourlanos.com