Greece Today Part II
By Anna R. Cacoullos
Αναδημοσίευση από ΖΝΕΤ PART II
Perhaps the most tragic moment in the lives of Greek citizens today is their realization that the “politeia” or “kratos,” their state, to which they owe their allegiance, has been wallowing on the seas like the drunken ship of state in Plato’s famous parable in The Republic: the state has taken them off course, and even drowned some of them. The idea that they have been ruled by rotten captains is as painful as the growing pangs of hunger in their bellies, and the economic insecurity that engulfs them. Sometimes the need for dignity is as powerful as the need for money in one’s pockets or food in one’s stomach.
Public life—i.e., the care for, attention to, involvement in, fighting for, and interminable discussion of, public issues, of ordinary Greek citizens—has now shrunk, against their will to be sure, and is transformed into a beggar’s opera. Political leadership has failed them in more ways than can be clearly or objectively discerned at this point. What remains is to look open-eyed at the damage without the usual tutoring of the political party one has voted for in the past. The idea of a savior party is now being eroded, it would seem, once and for all by the enraged, despairing activism of the Greek people.
But many Greeks are also without hope as they see no solution for their economic plight, and like Diogenes the Cynic look for a man or woman of virtue and competence, someone who does not deceive, who does not excuse lies and corruption, someone who can lead them into a better life. The political horizon in Greece today is stark—as of this writing the nation expects that the arrival of a new prime minister, the appointment of a new cabinet and an interim government of national unity can begin a program of recovery even while the harangues, bitterness and false antitheses between the existing parties continue. Like Diogenes of old a Greek citizen today may choose aversion to political life and retreat into contemplation. That no Greek may give a political damn anymore can mark the death of an entire culture, which of course could be in the interests of those foreign powers and banks who view Greece’s economic mistakes and financial failures as grounds for the dismissal (burial?) of Greece, or its transformation into a lovely, peaceful, tourist haven that adds real culture to the traveler’s vacation—the Parthenon, the ancient theater of Epidavros, the Byronic “isles of Greece” and all that. But surely this is not in the interest of Greeks themselves who have always, even if mistakenly, taken their political life to be integral to the way they live and want to live. There is a continuing almost material/bodily connection of today’s Greeks to the philosopher Aristotle who wrote famously that we are all political animals.
Greeks have usually been portrayed by the media as unruly (a charitable view), anarchist (a term stupidly used to mean avoiding political and economic problems, which is far from the reality of most Greeks), or socialist (a characterization used by phony socialists like PASOK to apply to all Greeks, whereas the real socialists in Greece to whom the term actually applies are only an articulate minority). All of these cursory and largely media-inspired notions pass real Greeks by, as it were. Simply, Greeks are human beings trying to live and even hoping and struggling for a good life—neither angels nor devils but just what most of us are in the world as we know it. Greece today merits more careful analysis of the conjunction of events that slowly but steadily precipitated its own financial and economic failures, and unwittingly created threats to a European community that has been celebrated in its culture, and in the rich language that gave Europe its name.
Anna Cacoullos holds a Ph.D. in philosophy from Columbia University. She has taught at American universities and the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Greece, in the Faculty of English Studies, School of Philosophy. Her publications include a book on T.H. Green, and articles on ancient Greek social and political thought, contemporary Greek political culture and feminist theory.
