The short is “no, it can’t!”
Why? Because Europe is not simply an economic union of financial interests for profit. Since its inception after World War II, the project of European unification was envisaged as the political, cultural, social and economic convergence of European countries as equal member states towards a future confederation of independent countries.
Consequently the most important aspect of the project called “Europe” was to harmonise and co-ordinate all different economies and societies, both weak and strong, so that differences in development wouldn’t become again reasons for conflict and war. Even if this sounds idealistic and utopian today, we must not underestimate the political impetus afforded to the project since 1956, which continues to this day with the European Parliament and so many peripheral projects around the European Union, especially the so-called border regions.
The absence, or the expulsion of Greece from this ongoing project would mean the creation of a motherless amalgamation of cultures constantly in search of a point of legitimising reference for its political origin, civil society and secular orientation.
Since the early Renaissance of the 12th century, Greek culture, especially ancient Athenian civil tradition, functioned as the ultimate point of reference for all political and social changes that shaped both the secular orientation and the project of enlightenment that were to find their expression in the American and French revolutions.
Athens became the ideal for a new social order based on political rights, civil identity and most importantly citizenship. It was not always implemented but as a project it maintained its authority, inspired major political movements and shaped the consciousness of a number of generations. Athens was the symbol of political citizenship which ended together with its citizens; at the moment that citizens were unable to be involved in political processes, democracy collapsed and oligarchy, or finally monarchy, was imposed. The opposite pole was Rome, which despite the fact that it started as a vibrant democracy, its military triumphs transformed it into a conquering empire. The fear of sacrificing democracy in the altar of imperial grandeur can be felt today in the United States.
Without Athens, the European project will be imprisoned by Rome, by the specific form of overcentralised religious authority that dominated European culture for eighteen centuries through the Vatican and the pope. The legalistic and dogmatic culture imposed by the Papacy, or the fundamentalist Christian literalism emanating from belligerent Protestantism have only one opponent: the Athenian democracy. The principles of active political engagement, participatory citizenship and critical rationality had one origin: Athens. Without Athens, Europe will be a fragmented space void of common orientation. Athens means active citizenship and Europe without Greece means a civilisation without its foundational centre.
Wherever the Athenian democratic is diminished and its symbolic space, the birthplace of democracy, is absent, authoritarianism lurks. Today such authoritarianism might originate in financial markets as banks, stockbrokers and speculators demand to become independent of all political restraints and social control. The rise of technocrats as political leaders creates serious problems of legitimacy: who elects such individuals-the citizens or the invisible abstract entity called the market? Who governs through them? The body politic or multinational corporations?
However the burden is not simply on Europe but on Greece itself. The Greek political elites think that they exist in a vacuum and are not accountable for their actions (in a way exploiting the symbolic force of Greek tradition). Indeed they exploited the genetic relationship between Greece and Europe as an alibi for their privileges, irresponsibility and impunity. Greece in Europe also means Europe in Greece – in the sense that the political structure of the country, which is based on clientelism and nepotism, must become a civil society based on merit and qualifications, fulfilling again the project of Enlightenment as declared by the Greek revolution in 1821.
The two dynasties – the Papanderous and the Karamanles – proved to be catastrophic for the country, interested only in their personal aggrandisement, self-promotion and lust for power. Incompetent, inept and out of touch with Greek society they underestimated Greek citizens, lied consciously and repeatedly to them, deceived and fooled them persistently with one thing in mind: how to cling to power and how to reward their flatterers.
In Greece we still have a ruling elite without national consciousness; the Papadnreous thinking that they are the enlightened cosmopolitans who deigned to govern the primitives in order to saved them from themselves! The unity of the European Union is tested at the moment, but the union must be preserved, and the inextricable bond between Greece and her European future and between Europe and its Hellenic destiny will be strengthened.
* Dr Vrasidas Karalis is an Associate Professor Vrasidas Karalis of the Department of Modern Greek Studies at the University of Sydney.