A writer in today's Die Welt finds a literary parallel to Greece's current woes in Zorba and his harebrained schemes.

But this is not apt. Zorba was a heroic visionary. He was full of natural humanity and creative energy, his projects were attempts to improve the world he was living in. Of course he was reckless and everything came crushing down around his ears. But this was a noble failure.

There is nothing noble or uplifting in this society's present predicament. Zorba was defeated by the inspiring range of his fantasizing, by the greatness of his values. The present debacle here is completely devoid of values; its salient character is rather the reduction of human striving to pure vegetative passivity. The chief value in the life of this place for a generation now -if that's the word for it- has been gratifying one's cravings by all means and at the expense of those around him and the wider society. In this environment all transcendent quests of the human spirit simply went forfeit.

Foremost in this debasement were the ideals of the left, which now became simply the cover for the most sordid bilking of the public purse for private gain. All and sundry suddenly declared themselves leftists, including those that had shamelessly served the dictatorship of the colonels. And in the process those most craven in their new found party-political zeal colonized the public sector falling with exemplary mania upon the common property of the nation in an orgy of plunder.

The signal for this charge of the insatiable brigades was given in the early 80's under the administration of Andreas Papandreou, who in a memorable pronouncement set the ceiling for ....bribe-taking and the pilfering of public property (yes, you read right!) for those in the state administration at the astronomical sum of 500 million drachmas (1467351,43 euros in today's prices). This occurred under the cover of deafening paeans to the People and "anti-imperialist" oratory. Arafat was repeatedly honored guest in the country. Brezhnev at his funeral was eulogized as one of the greatest world leaders of all times. Ghadafi was praised to the skies and the false declaration was made that he was supplying us with a billion dollar credit line. And when the Soviets shot down the Korean civilian airliner in 1983, Greece, which at the time was holding the rotating presidency of the European community, actually came out in defense of this crime outraging and disgusting the nations it was supposed to represent. You get the picture....

What was to follow was totally predictable, and the first financial collapse occurred in 1985. But the country was then saved by a hefty devaluation of the currency, by running up the sovereign debt which was still at relatively low levels, and by using up the European regional funds. After a brief period of consolidation that came to an end in 1987, the spiral of generalized stealing from the public recommenced. This time it was the turn of the pension funds to be depleted. The ruin was completed during the infamous all-party government of 1989-90, when the state was practically auctioned off to the highest private briber. It was at this time that SIEMENS virtually hired the entire political class to secure its monopoly in the domestic telecommunications market. The next binge of private profiteering at the expense of society and the average citizen took shape around the tasteless farce called the Olympic games, which has left behind the rusting hulks of various useless white elephants, with the rowing complex at Marathon for example having by now turned into a stinking swamp. This rampage continued under the pseudo-conservative administration that was voted out of office last October. They had come to power promising the cleaning up of the state administration and finances and proved themselves to be worse looters than their predecessors. When they realized that the ship was now sinking fast they abandoned it like slimy rats.

This is the story in short. And it has nothing in common with the barefoot dancing of Anthony Quinn and Alan Bates on that Cretan beach.