Before a couple of days friends drew my attention to an article published in the New York Times entitled “Resolve the Greece crisis”. Reading this piece written by a US think-tank fellow and a Greek fellow of a Greek think tank I was taken aback by the fact that the writers summarily ignored, essentially dismissing as ineffective, each and every political party, schema or coalition that has been in government during these years of crisis. My initial surprise that the authors of this article presumably deem as insignificant all the effort that has gone into averting fiscal bankruptcy, Euro-exit, and the chaos this would have entailed, was countered by my amazement in realizing that the article championed the leader of Syriza, Alexis Tsipras, as the country’s only possible “savior”–even if under certain conditions.
The oped continues in didactic tone, accusing Greeks of “perpetual cynicism and lack of meritocracy”, and naming the Greek public as “not innocent victims but willing, if small-scale, participants in a corrupt system” that led the country to its current predicament. Ok. Not untrue–even this generalization does not apply for about half of the Greek public. However what is not OK is the supercilious condemnation of Greeks as a people whose “anger is focused outside the country, at Germany in particular, or disgracefully, on the most vulnerable people — poor immigrants — who have benefited least from the country’s corrupt system. Either way, the misdirected anger only distracts Greece from much-needed introspection. And even when there has been reflection, such as the momentary pause in the spring and summer of 2010, Greece has been plagued by the paralysis of collective responsibility: “So maybe I didn’t pay my taxes, but who did?”
In my opinion what is disgraceful is the tragically complicated immigration issue Athens is currently dealing with reduced to mere xenophobia and racism, while there is no mention of the fact that most crimes in Greece are committed by immigrant gangs, and the rest by anarchist-terrorist organizations, and that the few Greeks targeting non-Greeks are members of Golden Dawn–a neo-fascist party, passionately rejected by mainstream society. As to Greek anger towards Germany–not exactly an “innocent” either in this imbroglio–have the article’s writers leafed at all through the German media during the past three to four years where Greece-bashing was the staple obsession?
To sum it up: for the writers of this oped Greece’s real problem is neither criminality, the hordes of illegal immigrants entering the country daily, and the deepening depression and poverty of the overwhelming majority of Greeks today, nor the endogenous problems of the EU and the financial and political consequences of a long reluctance for political, banking and fiscal union. Oh no. The problem is that Greeks are stubbornly refusing to dwell on their sins, taking responsibility for them, and atoning for them (a punitively Catholic approach to finance!) in order to then build the country anew on a creative, uncorrupt basis, with fresh perspective. How the cash for this development will be found is evidently a superfluous matter for the authors of this acerbic article.
Whatever. When all this occurs–the article’s writers conclude–“with support from civil society and the Orthodox Church, momentum toward national renewal could reach a tipping point, where the rewards of complying with rules will outweigh flouting them. In short, Greeks do not have to “become Germans.”” Putting aside the tragically dated reference to the role of the Orthodox Church in Greek society (the idea of its playing any role is surrealist), it would be tempting to appraise the writers of how a couple of days ago the German Education Minister stayed in power despite being found guilty of plagiarizing her doctoral dissertation. Take that for perpetual cynicism, and lack of meritocracy!
Whatever the case, here in the States there is no hypocrisy or conscious oversight of reality, and personal involvement when it comes to the collective or individual pursuit of evolution, progress, security, prosperity, happiness. Yet there is another kind of neurosis (in Freud’s terminology, the product of a flight from an unsatisfactory reality was given the–ironically–Greek name "neurosis") rampant here: the status ‘laws’ of who actually gets to participate in this pursuit as top-dog. American society is indeed very friendly and open hearted. If however, as a foreign national, you try to enter the professional and social system at mid-level or higher, without being a diplomat/sent by a company from your country of origin/in any other way reliant on your country of origin than you are in for a very tough time indeed.
Yet even for American citizens, the unmentionable rule is that in most professions, and with the glowing exception of “rags to riches” business stories or geniuses bringing about world-transformative changes (like the creation of Google, the iPhone and mobile Internet, Amazon etc), the Establishment’s doors open wide only to a very select tribe: those who have graduated from the “proper” schools, and either belong to or marry into families with the proper connections; and those who lacked the former, and have devoted most of their life and energy fostering these connections themselves. Now, whether most members of this ‘tribe’, especially its younger members, are actually worth the money and status almost automatically awarded them is questioned rarely–probably only at the beginning of the financial crisis that the December 2007 near crash precipitated. This thorny issue however does not mar the beauty of the rose and the happiness and hope it inspires.
Truth is that every civil society and country has its problems–some more than others of course. What turns one situation into a calamity (Greece’s case) and another in a world less than perfect, but full of life and hope (the US in the meta-Bush years) depends on the way the country’s leaders use its institutions and underlying principles, and their attitude towards its flaws and pathologies. Some are abusers and corruptors (all Greek governments for 30 years ago) others are inspired to mend, build, transform (Obama administration). Morality, either personal or collective, just does not come into it.
