“I don’t know why,” she said, “but I’m worried.”
“Ah,” exclaimed one man, “You think that the elections may be ‘postponed’ at the last minute?”
“Yes,” the lady hesitated, “but that’s not quite it.”
“Ah,” said a second man, “You think that there will be some sort of hanky-panky – like vote-rigging or duplicate ballots?”
“Yes,” the lady repeated, “but that’s not quite it, either.”
“Well,” asked a third man, “what are you worried about?”
“Well,” she blurted out, “I’m worried that even if the elections do take place, and they are as clean as a hound’s tooth, that perfectly dreadful man will win anyway.”
On the eve of every election – it’s one of the few constants in this volatile business – an existential doubt, a kind of metaphysical nefos, descends over the country, a fear that the whole land may run afoul of the African continental plate, keel over and slide in toto into the sea, like Atlantis, in a geyser of mud and bubbles, leaving a huge slick of plastic political flags and photos of a topless former airline hostess on the surface of the deep.
Anxiety in some quarters may not be without foundation, for the country seems to be going through a crisis of identity. There is a climate of uncertainty. Less than a month before the elections set for 18 June, polls came up with figures showing a quarter of the population undecided, especially young people. When one hears that Greeks have become politically cynical or indifferent, it is a sign that things are not at all normal, or more likely, the pollsters aren’t doing their homework.
On national issues there is confusion. As regards EC relations, for example, from the President of the Republic on down, doubts have been expressed that Greece may lose its special identity as the bonds of European union grow stronger. One wonders how justified these fears are. It seems farfetched that the member country with the longest heritage should be devoured and digested in a gulp by a vague political entity barely 30 years old. More likely, Greece will still be stubbornly itself long after the EC has changed beyond recognition. For years Mr Karamanlis pounded the podium declaring, “We are Europeans!” and always there has been the small echo from the back of the hall, “Are we, really?”
This sense of uncertainty affects other national issues: Aegean control, the Cyprus question, relations with NATO and with Warsaw Pact countries. In this variable weather, conspiracy theories flourish, purporting to find dark forces emanating from Brussels or Washington or Bogota or Palermo or Moscow or Salem, Massachusetts, when both shadow and substance are right here in Athens.
The solution is simple. Greece has urgent need of good government. Right or left or center or up or down or blue or green or white, it must be representative, effective and respected.
Whether Greeks are ungovernable, or just not very adept at choosing leaders, is a classical question first posed by Homer. He couldn’t answer it and neither, it seems, can we. It’s one of the intriguing contradictions about this country that a people who are so enthusaistic about, and so sensitive to, politics don’t have better governments. All Greeks know very well how every other country should be run; why can’t they run their own? It’s said to be ‘the system’. And why not? Greeks abroad do unusually well.
They work closely with others, they are filled with community spirit, they show administrative skills, they win elections (sometimes). But all these things are extraordinary around here. Maybe a country which is buffeted by sensational financial scandals, whose public agencies appear to be run by colorful Mafia types, whose economy is in a shambles, whose educational structure is chaotic, whose health service is minimal and many of whose leaders believe that the only purpose for holding an elected office is to get re-elected again, is in need of a bit of a change.
In this less than perfect world, governments can set examples. If they are suspect of syphoning off bushels of public money in boxes of nappies, it is difficult to condemn tax evasion. When women interviewed on private radio chat shows say they have been abandoned by spouses for younger women, it is due to public example.
Turning national issues into vote-begging whimsies and focusing the nation’s attention on one person’s psychodrama is fitting, and even fun, for soap operas, but not for countries that take themselves, and are taken by others, seriously.
The best government for Greece, today and tomorrow, will be the one that gets the country back on course, reevaluates its assets and declares clearly and bravely what it stands for. There is a lot that is good that needs to be brought out, brushed off and polished up. There is a wonderful opportunity for expressing something new. A healthy political body, no less than a physical one, has no difficulty in evacuating its waste products and being rid of their effluvia which have become pungent lately.
When the country, then, wins back its self-confidence, regains its sense of dignity, redefines its splendid heritage in the light of today, then many challenges before it – and they have been staring it in the face for some time – will be met and overcome.
