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

In an editorial note in “realfood” magazine, July-August 2011, the indignant commentator asks the responsible people, among other things: Why did no one go to prison and why were the embezzlers of public money not punished? Why do we constantly see the same people, relatives, hangers-on, lovers and mistresses who have flooded high offices with party identity as their only qualification? Where is justice? This is preceded by a historical review of the Byzantines who blinded Emperor Romanos Diogenes to the joy of the Ottoman Seljuks, of Venizelos, who was characterized as a traitor with the consequence of the disaster in Asia Minor, of the unrest of the 1960s and of the loss of half of Cyprus.

Giving an optimistic answer with reference to “the invincible DNA of the Greek, who has a history of thousands of years and watered every inch with the blood of heroes who expected no rewards for their sacrifices”, the note ends with an exhortation to give children the hope of a better day and with the statement that “we must stay and fight, as our parents and our parents' parents did”.

Optimism is necessary, especially amid the so-called crisis and the widespread pessimism that ends in general depression. Historical retrospectives referring to the mistakes of the past are also useful, as are exhortations toward hopeful ways out.

For this reason, the above note should be praised, as should other similar notes that form the exception to the rule of pessimism and disaster talk that sustains the disappointment of society as a whole.

It would not be without significance, however, to make some useful observations prompted by what the magazine's commentator wrote.

Apart from what the magazine note mentions, many mistakes marked out the limited borders of the modern Greek statelet and determined the bad fate and adventures of the people, who were decimated and became insignificant through the known genocides, mass migrations and low birth rate.

The civil conflict of the 1940s and 1950s was a great mistake, depriving the new Greece of the great benefits of victory over the Nazis and fascists that other nations gained, such as the French, Norwegians, Dutch, Russians and even the opportunistic Turks. The consequences of this mistake have followed us until now, because the politicians were supported and emerged through the civil dispute and shaped their course, mainly their professional one. The political parties and factions that managed to govern and overindebt the country also owe their formation to the same fratricidal war, so that some foreigners, through their publications, can constantly stress that for Greece there is no saving exit from the economic crisis because of the monstrous state debt, which is not reversed but worsens. For example, Greece's minus 152 corresponds to Norway's plus 157, attributed to wealth produced from oil and natural gas.

Today's Greece is described by Greeks and foreigners as a bankrupt and corrupt country, with an economy whose future is hazy and black, with an observed reduction in savings, reduced profitability, decline of households and businesses, dizzying public debt, and debt-service payments greater than the revenues of the state budget. These are due to kickbacks and overruns in state expenditure over recent decades, as Professor G. Vamvoukas points out, among many others.

To attempt an exit from the crisis, income policy must be redesigned by politicians with inspiration and ability.

However, apart from this, one element is also needed that is entirely absent from contemporary figures who govern or aspire to govern with commonplace promises and statements, without proof of their abilities and worth. Above all, philotimo is needed. But does philotimo exist?

Let us look at some examples. One of the especially prominent figures of the main opposition, K. Markopoulos, stated, among other things in one of his many television appearances, on 20.08.2011, that “the banking system must become more flexible, taxes must be reduced and growth must be promoted” and proclaimed: “We are ready to govern”. Another of the prominent opposition figures, Mitarakis, pointed out on NET on 12.08.2011 that “you do not concede public rights for a piece of bread”. Someone else, G. Kasapidis, apparently a government member of parliament, stressed that “we must be honest at some point”, on 12.08.2011 on ET3.

Faced with these statements, repeated by the media always by the same recycled people, the citizen wonders: Do all these self-declared and professional political actors and party representatives not have even elementary philotimo? Are they not ashamed to declare what they declare as if they had not governed or were not governing? Have the Markopoulos and Mitarakis figures only now discovered the recipes for economic success, which they did not apply during the many years when they governed with absolute majorities, powerful and arrogant, counting nothing, increasing public debt and distributing the dizzying loan amounts to their own people and followers? Has every government Kasapidis only now understood that everyone must be honest? And what have they been doing all these years? They deceive and admit that they deceive. Yet both sides want to govern and decide on the life and fate of millions and on the course of the national economy, as they decided in recent decades without being checked and without being punished for their felonies against the country and its citizens.

These behaviors show a lack of philotimo. They show contempt for citizens and insolence.

Without philotimo, children cannot hope for better days, and those who remain to fight must fight the shameless, meaning all those who appear and declare with promises that they will fix what they themselves destroyed, in the hope that people with philotimo will be found to struggle for the correction of mistakes and for their non-repetition.

If the politicians and those holding the powers of the country, legislative, administrative and judicial, had philotimo in their majority, the economic and social situation would be different and the crisis would be manageable, mild and temporary. The permanence of the crisis, the lack of hope and the general disappointment are due to the lack of philotimo and the insolence of all those who have been recycled for decades, together with their relatives and successors, who refuse to go home and leave the people to become truly sovereign by elevating true representatives and leaders. The main demand of citizens must be the withdrawal of the failed figures who hold or again claim the exercise of state power, because the lack of philotimo makes them ruthless, insolent and provocative.