What this ‘something else’ is right now is difficult to pinpoint. The other day Prime Minister Mitsotakis said in a widely-quoted interview that he was having fun. And why shouldn’t a 75-year-old blest with good health who’s had a full and interesting life not enjoy himself in his golden years? But he was widely criticized for saying so by people, it seems, who aren’t having fun and aren’t as old. Maybe that has something to do with it.
Whether or not ex-King Constantine’s recent interview on Antenna I suggested any alternate road for younger people to have fun, it caused such a great flap that he was interviewed again on March 12.
“As a person,” said the ex-King, “I’d just love to go back to Greece. But, as you know, the soundness of a regime rests on such things as a referendum and the needs of the people. This is the exclusive and sovereign right of the Greek people.”
Republicans next morning were outraged. Said New Democracy spokesman Vassilis Manginas coldly. “The issue of the system of government was closed once and for all by the free referendum on 8 December 1974 which was held in an irreproachable manner.”
A socialist MP went further. By not recognizing the 1974 referendum which abolished the monarchy, said he, the former King was violating the constitution and had therefore become liable to prosecution under penal law. But what the ex-King had meant was that with the passage of years things had changed, and if government was for one reason or another no longer satisfying national goals – such as people not having enough fun anymore – then maybe there should be another referendum. The ex-King kept insisting that the people could alone decide – implying that this did not include Mr Manginas and his categorical “once and for all”. Among the people’s sovereign right is the right to change one’s mind and Greeks are very skilled at it.
What people must have started thinking about while watching their ‘Ex’ on TV was: “if we never ask him back does that necessarily mean we will have Messrs Mitsotakis and Papandreou, in Mr Manginas’ apocalyptic words, once and for all?”
Some people believe that the rivalry between Messrs Mitsotakis and Papandreou will last forever. In fact, a growing number of pundits point out that as these get longer in the tooth, they are becoming more dependent on each other as adversaries, and if one should fall (perish the thought!), the other would follow. A most unlikely story.
In Greek mythology, it will be recalled, Tithynus asked for eternal life, but forgot to say that he wanted to stay young. As a result, he ended up as a cicada. Our democratic leaders are making no such mistake.
In a recent interview Frederick Kempe of The Wall Street Journal, who seems not to have realized that a number of Greek elder statemen have been baptized in the Fountain of Youth, found the Prime Minister “incongruously boyish for a septuagenarian.”
“I have a crazy position,” confessed the PM to the journalist with adolescent candor. “I rule as if I were all-powerful. And I’m really having fun. I tell those who want to overthrow the government, ‘Go ahead! Do it!’ But they don’t. No one will topple me because nobody dares.”
This Tm King of the Mountain’ bravado stems from the belief that if he goes, his party will go with him, and his place will be taken by another Eternal Youth, Andreas Papandreou, an event, which the Prime Minister fondly believes, would drive any rational Hellene to ultimate dispair.
Andreas, it is true, has been looking stern lately and keeps shaking his finger and saying that things are falling apart, but this is just political play-acting which he is so good at. He’s having fun, too, as candid camera-shots show which catch him smiling when he thinks no one’s looking. And you can see, too, from the face and figure of his lovely young wife, that she’s having a ball.
As for the President of the Republic, Constantine Karamanlis, he is the phenomenon above all. With the longest career at the top in the world today, he is fit as a fiddle. When he first became Prime Minister in 1955 over half the Greeks who are alive today, hadn’t even been conceived.
“Thank God,” said the pious and engaging newspaper Estia the other day, “that the three old politicians seem to retain their mental powers, but,” it added with appropriate delicacy, “there are biological laws which do not follow political ambitions and hopes.”
This, alas, is all too true for the non-elect, at least, and the reason why life just below the top isn’t such fun. The dauphins of ruddy and jovial Mr Mitsotakis are growing wrinkled and wan with angst struggling over austerity measures, whilst chipper Andreas’ heirs1 mustaches, once the virile symbols of the lusty left, are turning white. They have all but given up hope on the elections next year being anything but another confrontation between the dinosaurs. Now they’re getting worried about 1998. And what about the next millennium in the Land of Eternal Youth?
The weak spot in ex-King Constantine’s position is similar. At 50-plus, as even royalists must admit, he is beginning to show those first signs of fatigue that are the lot of prince and peasant alike. Luckily, they do not hold for democrats at the top.
Mr Karamanlis celebrated his 86th birthday with a little dinner party on March 8 to which he invited his old friend, actor Dimitris Horn, a mere 75, who is recovering from a gall bladder operation. By his own statement, the president said to him over the dinner table, “Your politics are ridiculous, Takis. Why don’t you grow up?”
