| By Evaggelos Vallianatos – |
About 200 years ago, Lord Byron dreamt that Greece might still be free. His dream remains unfulfilled. Greece won its political independence in 1828, but it is still struggling to be free. The third “bailout” of Greece is a proof of that.
The despised powers of occupation, known as Troika, include the European Union, the European Central Bank and America’s International Monetary Fund. The conditions they imposed on Greece on July 2015 reveal two truths.
First, the “leftist” or “socialist” or “communist” Greek Prime Minister, Alexis Tsipras, is another irresponsible leader who, like his “right wing” predecessors, promised one thing – freedom from the Troika’s austerity — but delivered the exact opposite – more severe austerity. Second, the lenders of Greece are killing Greek freedom. Should Troika policies continue for a few more years, Greece could end up being made into a country fleeced to death by unscrupulous moneylenders.
President Obama and the IMF have been saying the Greek debt is unsustainable. I would say the debt is worse than unsustainable. It destroys life and civilization. It’s war against Greece.
The “bailout” money goes straight to the banks, not Greece.
These banks are so strong they are destroying the very idea of a European Union. The Troika is doing the bankers’ bidding with vengeance. Led by Germany, the Troika forced unprecedented and illegal humiliations on Greece. Troika agents are now in charge of selling to the highest bidder all state property in Greece. No legislation can be enacted by the Greek parliament without the approval of the Troika.
These colonial humiliations rarely take place outside of being defeated in war. The victorious allies demanded so much from the defeated Germany in WWI that the result was Hitler, Nazi Germany, and WWII.
Do the lenders and their EU and American cronies want to foster hatred among the Greeks against them?
The Greeks, of course, still have the option of embracing Russia as their temporary “savior.” Medieval Greece gave Russia an alphabet and Christianity, acts of civilization that made Russia a permanent admirer of Greece. Should angry Greeks bring Russia in the Aegean Sea, American strategic plans for Mediterranean security may be useless.
Whatever happens, Greece is not returning to debt peonage. The shock and awe of austerity have outlived their cruelty. Despite the widespread propaganda of economic recovery through homelessness, misery, and starvation, people recognize the hostile intent of austerity. Greeks know that the lenders, not different than invading enemies, want to steal their wealth and, even more than that, lenders and their government supporters are scheming the taking away of Greece from the Greeks.
Greeks already suffers enormously. They are now a living tragedy. They see foreigners armed with the verbiage of legality tie them down, taking away their dignity and humanity for money their past rulers borrowed and probably misspent. They see these fellow Europeans plunder whatever is beautiful and valuable in the country. This causes pity and fear and revives the historical memories of similar plunders by crusaders, Turks, and Germans.
Aristotle recognized that the catharsis or purging of these emotions might be beneficial because it allows for larger truths to emerge.
If the Greeks had any doubt about their European colleagues, the “bailout” experience corrects past illusions of what the Europeans and Americans think of them.
The Greeks also connect that foreign reality with its domestic underpinnings. They realize their dependence on others for their freedom has been a mistake. To this day, Greece has put her security in the hands of the latest foreign protector named NATO, a military alliance of Western Europe and North America headed by the United States. The fatal flow of NATO is that it includes a non-Western civilization country that tortured Greece for too long. That country is Moslem Turkey. But imperial America, thousands of miles away from Europe, looks at the Turks as canon fodder in a potential war against Russia; so Greek history is written off.
But Greeks are living their history. They are rethinking more than their humiliating debt to the bankers. They realize Aristotle was correct on more than the cathartic effects of a tragedy. He was also right that one should almost never go to debt. Self-reliance or autarkeia, he said, was the highest virtue of a state wishing to be free.
Greek patriots need to put their energies behind a free state based on these principles: (1) Greece has a millennial history that made enormous contributions to Western civilization, including the invention of science; (2) Considering that the EU has been hostile to Greek recovery and independence, Greeks have no option but becoming independent from their own work and power; (3) Greece must restructure itself, fill its villages with young farmers to produce food; (4) Greek scientists and engineers must work together to build the infrastructure for a solar and green country. This ecological industrialization would also become the mechanism for job creation and economic independence. Solar electricity can become the new currency with northern Europe; and (4) strong defense and closing of the borders to illegal migrants. Refugees in Greece must be repatriated as soon as possible or sent to other European countries.
Some Greeks are already returning to their villages: a first step in rebuilding Greece. A strong and healthy countryside is a dosage of good food, democracy, and security for the entire country.
Master-slave relations between Western Europe and Greece are certain to lead to a break and to Greece returning to her currency. With ISIS and other monsters coming out of Islamic Middle East and Turkey, some Greeks still see Europe as a potential fence against that spreading disaster. That is problematic. Europeans know that most Moslem refugees end up in Greece through the hostile offices of Turkey.
EU is broken.
Greece needs to stand on its own Hellenic feet to be free.
