Friday, April 6, 2012

Don't forgive them for they know what they do!

Greece's political leadership has managed over the last years to totally destroy the country's creditworthiness and to severely damage the reputation of Greeks.

After 2 years of playing games with foreign creditors, it seemed that the leadership had finally come to reason when Mr. Papademos took office. Even Mr. Samaras gave up his "njet" to everything which his political opponents proposed.

Suddenly it looked like Greece's leadership had a consensus about what had gotten the country into trouble (clientele politics, among others) as well as a consensus that those practices had to be stopped. The rest of the world started getting impressed with the changed behavior of Greek leadership.

And then this: the Ekathimerini reported that 92 amendments had been submitted by Parliamentarians, allegedly most of them seeking special benefits for clientele groups! This in the hope that they would pass unnoticed.

How on earth can any member of the Greek political leadership look into the mirror in the morning and live with the face that is staring back at them? How on earth can any member of the Greek political leadership expect to ever be trusted again? By their citizens or by foreign creditors?

Mr. Dimitris Christoulos gave his answer to that kind of political leadership by shooting a bullet into his head. He left a note stating his belief that "one day the youth without future will take the arms and hang upside down at Syntagma Square the national traitors as the Italians did with Mussolini in 1945 Piazza Poreto in Milan”.

Such kind of political leadership, formed and shaped in their value structures over decades, will never change in an evolutionary way. It needs to be replaced in toto. That does not only apply to the government but to all members of Parliament.

Greece must find a way to reinvent itself similar to how Charles de Gaulle reinvented the French Republic in 1959. Perhaps a new Greek Republic needs to be put in place. All candidates for political office should be screened by a committee of "unquestionably decent Greeks" before they can stand for election.

The present political leadership will, of course, not initiate this process and they will resist any movement to that effect. However, I doubt that they can resist when, one day, over one million Greeks are filling the streets of Athens in perfectly peaceful protest and with everyone carrying a sign stating that "You must leave office!"

I would give everything to see that day!

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