“The Greek economy may be in an advanced stage of disintegration, but so too is the Hellenic gift to Western civilisation, democracy, in its birthplace”. So begins Vrasidas Karalis’ article in last week’s Australian Literary Review.
Karalis is Professor of Modern Greek Studies at The University of Sydney. His diagnosis of the patient’s ailment, its cause and effect, is stark indeed: “If Greece as an idea is the spiritual heart of Europe, then that heart is a dark place indeed,” says Karalis before recommending some radical and invasive surgery, to treat a patient whose prospects look bleak, if not terminal.
The themes developed in Karalis’ essay are pinned to a time line that begun in 1974; the fall of the junta. From that point on Karalis proposes, the Greek state and its model of governance were disastrously compromised; that those who claimed to have led the resistance to the military dictatorship, who then became the power brokers in the 1980s, “proved to be worse than their predecessors, creating a political system without opposition, accountability or self-critical discourse… the anti-dictatorship generation became a closed club of opportunists and fortune-seekers…”
Karalis’ unfolding argument is that what followed in the 1980s and ’90s left Greece without an effective political infrastructure to meet the extreme challenges it faced: the need to step out of Balkan isolation and into a dynamic European political and economic dimension. A lack of vision, endemic state-sponsored corruption, and a political establishment that relied on hereditary regimes for its leaders, all played a part in the inexorable downward spiral. Less than six years ago it all appeared so different, says Karalis. “After the success of the 2004 Olympics it was accepted that an affluent economy had been established… with great prospects for funnelling European investments into eastern Europe and the Balkans.”
By 2008, Karalis points out, the illusion was seen for what it was; a mirage – created by a combination of book-cooking and governmental incompetence. The touchstone that was the 2008 global financial crisis stripped the dressing away, to reveal something very different from the “affluent society” to which Greeks believed they belonged.
In 2002 Greece joined the eurozone. “It was ‘the fulfilment of a project of Westernisation… the final achievement of its infra structural modernisation, as envisaged by Socialist prime minister Costas Simitis’.” But this was yet another illusion argues Karalis, “deep structural changes were needed to kick-start a sluggish economy and to acclimatise it to contemporary globalised realities”. Speaking to Neos Kosmos, Karalis shared his perspectives further: “The eurozone demanded advanced capitalist economies. Simitis was thinking that in the following years ‘we will do the necessary adjustments to become a developed capitalist economy’, but it didn’t happen, they simply postponed and postponed. Greece was thrown into the lions’ den by its politicians, without any improvements in the way the system was working, as if nothing had changed.”
The shortcomings of two generations of Greek politicians lie at the centre of Karalis’ indictment: the anger and humiliation felt by Greeks today is the result of their realisation “that the political establishment led the country to bankruptcy, because its members themselves were bankrupt”.
With more than a hint of residual disbelief in his voice Karalis adds: “The previous Prime Minister, Karamanlis, the so-called “Constantine the Small”, in contrast to his uncle, disappeared without saying anything; he doesn’t want to get involved in politics! Four previous finance ministers from the last 20 years appeared on Greek TV recently. They all said that the responsibility didn’t lie with them, but with the structural problems of the system. They didn’t even dare to take responsibility for what happened. So how can you have high credibility in the world markets when no one takes responsibility? The buck stops somewhere.”
Karalis believes the current bailout program using only intensive borrowing coupled with increased taxation will make the situation worse. Only one intervention, he believes, has the chance of remedying the crisis long term: the imposition by the EU of democratic standards of accountability and transparency on the Greek government.
“At stake is the future of democracy in Greece… not simply the crisis of the economy.”