The city of Thessaloniki is attracting the people’s attention these days because everyone who is naïve believes that they will be informed about Greece’s economic policy.
The Prime Minister, they say, will announce his government’s policy. Hopefully, but that does not seem to be the case. Even if he wanted to, he does not have the knowledge/information that an expert needs to reach a conclusion on the conflicting social forces.
The Prime Minister appears bound by his own decisions, just like the former Ministers (Giorgos Papandreou and Antonis Samaras) have each signed their own bailout program.
With their signature, Greece has turned into want in other times would be called a protectorate.
Just like a troupe on stage, they followed the beaten path of their predecessors, possibly due to an involuntary ignorance.
A popular saying that appears to describe things is “bread and circuses”!
The military dictatorship offered circuses of this caliber. Let us remind the three categories.
The first includes well-known nonsense about the fighting spirit of the Greek people, even with the participation of popular singer Giorgos Zampetas. The cherry on top was Stylianos Pattakos sitting right up front at a mini skirt contest.
The second category was sport. Major examples include Aslanidis’ wasteful spending and the “green triumphs” of Panathinaikos in Europe.
It would be interesting to find out, even if half a century has gone buy, if the Yugoslavians received a gift for Panathinaikos’ win (which sent the team to the final at Wembley Stadium) or if the principle of the well-known former PASOK officer was applied, according to which when moving money around it is natural to loose some along the way.
As a side note, the general manager of Panathinaikos at the time left the scene after basking in the triumph. Recently and without making a fuss he has returned, not as a politician, but as a social agent. The hope is that he will not party his car (a sporty, green Mercedes) in front of main entrance of the football team’s home grounds on Alexandras Avenue.
All this many be considered long gone. The third category of circuses remains in the public life, along with the risk of it appearing that the Prime Ministers after the restoration of democracy copying the dictatorship, with Papadopoulos systematically making false claims in Thessaloniki.
These ceremonies only have meaning when the people have something new to find out. There is no room for crooks in the political scene.
Stavros P. Psycharis
Originally published in the Sunday print edition
