The crisis here in Greece is not just financial, but also social and moral. People suffer, while the political elite and the establishment survive, untouched, although they are responsible for the current state bankruptcy. Given the history of the recent past, after the bloody civil war (1947-1949), during the police state (1949-1967) and the military dictatorship (1967-1974), and especially after the dictatorship up to the present, the crisis is not surprising. Greek tragedy has returned.

After the end of the dictatorship, democracy was restored and Greece joined the European Union (EU) and eventually the Euro-zone for political reasons, not based on economic fiscal criteria. As a consequence, the Greek people enjoyed thirty five years of stable democratic life and relative prosperity, albeit a false one. The state apparatus, dominated by the two political parties, the conservative “New Democracy” and the socialist “PASOK,” was thoroughly corrupt and mismanaged with a highly elaborate system of patronage. There was little real economic development. The economy was based on tourism, EU agricultural subsidies and other EU funds. Many Greek citizens, based on their political connections, were employed in the inflated public sector, and avoided their tax obligations, violated building regulations, and received permits and easy loans from the state controlled banks.

Through loans or from EU funding, these were good years for Greeks and their European partners, especially the Germans who took advantage of the great Greek party, i.e., Athens 2004 Olympics. Their outrageous cost and the ensuing corruption seriously contributed to the present debt crisis and the actual bankruptcy of the whole post dictatorial state and society. Beyond the Olympics, European and other multinational corporations have fully exploited Greece’s corrupt and disorganized system so as to multiply their profits in relation to other countries. The real party was in arms deals in the billions, which involved huge kickbacks. The Greek Parliament covered up the Siemens’ kickback scandal and several others. No one has been sentenced to jail. No one has been punished.

With the international fiscal crisis and aggressive international markets, the good times are now over for Greece and its European partners. Greek citizens, especially the lower middle class, who were unable to have money exported to Switzerland and other off shore safe havens, are getting poorer and poorer with drastic salary and pensions cuts. We are very angry with politicians, with the Greek establishment, with German chancellor Angela Merkel, with the IMF, and the banks. We do not accept the international shame and the unjust generalization, the slander of Greeks as lazy and cheats, and the German demand for what amounts to a permanent tutelage. I find the populist German front pages that present the Parthenon as being for sale particularly ridiculous.

The highly educated who speak foreign languages, having no future in a bankrupted country, are choosing emigration. The challenge to rebuild the Greek state from the ground up and reinforce Greek democracy and the Greek economy is both urgent and next to impossible. Social cohesion may be destroyed. There is a real danger of spreading violence. While in the ancient Greek tragedies people suffered due to the gods’ will, in the end there was catharsis, i.e., a just end by a Deus ex machina who gave justice and cleansed away all blame. In the current Greek drama, people indeed do suffer, but there is no apparent prospect for catharsis.