Tassos Symeonides
(RIEAS Academic Advisor)
Copyright: www.rieas.gr
I confess. I was and I remain “anti-memorandum” (antimneoniakos in Greek).
For those who may not be familiar with the term, “anti-memorandum” describes a person who opposes Greece’s “bailout” by the “troika” -- the IMF, the EU, and the ECB -- under the genocidal terms imposed by our “partners” in order to satisfy various Western European urges and evangelical moralizing, not to mention making Greece a live laboratory animal on which to practice alternative “therapies” designed to kill the animal but provide maximum satisfaction to lenders. That’s why I shuddered yet again (but I was not surprised) when I read this article in today’s New York Times.
“Greece must do more,” urge all of our “saviors” yet again. I have lost count of how many times this order has been blurted out by various European high and mighty (and I won’t of course exclude the luminous “experts” of the IMF led currently by Madame Lagarde) over the past two years.“Greece must do more.”
Apparently, the devastation wrought on the country so far is not enough.
It is not enough that one million workers have lost their jobs already (out of a total working population of four million). It is not enough that pensioners -- hundreds of thousands who have worked a lifetime -- see their pensions cut down to famine levels. It is not enough that health care, social services, and schools have collapsed.
It is not enough that those police still nominally deployed against exploding crime have no petrol for their vehicles, no sound equipment to do the job with, and salaries that compete with those pensions cut down to the bone. It is not enough that increasing numbers of people who, until yesterday, had a home and decent expectations of security have been reduced to rummaging through trash for food.
It is not enough that Greece has practically dismantled whatever “democracy” it possessed, has transformed her parliament into a one-stop rubber-stamp kiosk passing unconstitutional and illegal legislation dictated from the outside, has accepted resident foreign “technical experts” providing “assistance” to Greek authorities and may soon be required to also accept “inspectors” tasked to “help” with the collection of taxes.
And it is not enough that her criminally liable political class sees no harm done in countersigning with gusto the demolition of Greek national sovereignty and binding the country to acceptance of the jurisdiction of foreign courts when lenders decide to litigate against Greece in seeking to absorb her national wealth at bargain basement prices.
All this is not enough.
More and more foreign observers stand surprised at the seemingly endless perseverance of the proverbial “average Greek,” which has been pauperized, demonized, insulted, slapped in the face, robbed, and driven into the gutter by his European “partners” with the obvious ready assistance of his own politicians without the slightest exception.
“Greece must do more.”
I agree with the Simon Legrees: Greece must do more -- but in the direction of working out ways and means for liberation not approved by our “partners.”