As a fad word ‘scenario’ has lost its sparkle in many countries, but in Athens it is at the height of fashion. It began late last year with talk about the new election law and what representational system it would follow. So there was a scenario based on the D’Hondt system and another on the Papanastasiou system and several more of such Byzantine intricacy as need not be gone into here.
Then in January there was the Swiss Army exercise scenario which had World War III opening with a coup d’etat in Athens. This proved such a box-office hit that it was followed up last month with the NATO military school scenario. Like most sequels it was repetitious – starting with a coup in Athens – and failed to stir much interest.
Far more popular was the scenario for peace and disarmament which was outlined early last month. Following the meeting of the Six at New Delhi, Prime Minister Papandreou returned to Athens with three of them: President Nyerere of Tanzania, President Alfonsin of Argentina and Prime Minister Palme of Sweden. Although the scenario did not call for a stellar cast, it at least got onto the front pages of international newspapers, whereas in the days of George Rallis Greece went for months without getting into the papers at all. Among supporting players were Labor leader Neil Kinnock, three ex-Premiers, and a cameo role for economist John Kenneth Galbraith who loomed above them all. No one could fault them for the words said in praise of a settlement which is the obvious desire of all rational nations. Observers were simply puzzled that four small powers of little influence should just now be the starting point for an international campaign to achieve ends which have been the chief concern of mankind for the last 40 years.
More unkindly, it was said that, following his Elounda concordat, his Syrian visit for a Palestinian settlement and his bid for a nuclear-free Balkans, the Prime Minister was composing a private scenario for bagging the Nobel Prize for Peace.
Two scenarios that were running into rewriting problems last month proved what many have suspected in the past: that in Athens the world of culture is an even denser jungle than the world of politics. On February 13, composer Yiannis Xenakis’ scenario for the laser-lit, helicopter-choreographed, electronic music festival of peace, launching Athens as the cultural capital of Europe, was formally tossed into the trashbin. Although some weeks earlier Minister Mercouri, waving aside protests by archaeologists that the ‘spectacular of the century’ would imperil the Acropolis, spunkily said, “Mr Xenakis is no Lord Elgin”, it was clear that the financially involved French socialist government was getting ‘pieds froids’. Finally, the scenario was diplomatically axed with the words: “the festival of peace has been cancelled for technical reasons.”
Qertainly, there have been more scenarios written about the future of the Acropolis than the most extravagant and wasteful Hollywood blockbuster – and of all the scenarios mentioned above it is internationally the most important one which Greece can, and must, do something about. Two ostensibly sensible ones have run into re-scripting problems. Among the President’s own special interests is the restoration of the Theater of Dionysos which he again visited recently, but despite this and his assurance to the Ministry of Culture that it would receive sufficient funds, archaeologists have objected that it will interfere with future excavations. Another scenario, is a long-range plan enabling the government to appropriate large amounts of property around the Holy Rock on a carefully scheduled 50-to-75-year plan which the state can then afford to buy. Yet some have called this “impractical”.
It is the domestic scenarios which prove to be the most difficult to set. All Greece may be thought of as a scenario for a great drama whose text never quite gets written because there are roughly ten million scriptwriters who want to have their say, yet none of whom can quite agree on the story-line. It’s too bad, but in this most democratic of lands, if even one were missing the story could never be quite completely and truly told.
More years ago than one cares to count, there was a newspaper cartoon showing Prime Minister Karamanlis sitting at his desk before a pile of papers labelled “The Cyprus Problem”. A moon hangs in the darkened window and at one corner a cleaning woman, standing with her elbows crossed over her broom, speaks the caption, “Listen, Prime Minister, this is the way I see it…” Today she’d probably say, “Comrade Prime Minister, this is my scenario…”
