A predicted debacle

As anticipated the ingenious "political" strategy of Greece's new minister of economics blew up in his face. That his personal standing was thus shattered is a negligible loss -nobody is going to miss the ugly mannequins running the show here for the past forty years when they are finally kicked off the stage.

The more consequential thing is that his attempted blackmail (see the previous post) precisely galvanized all those forces in Europe convinced that the country's place in the EU is plainly untenable. This conviction is now an iron-clad consensus and the only thing remaining is to work out the technicalities of Greece's ejection in such a way as to minimize the horrific consequences for all involved. This may take some time -a couple of weeks at most I reckon.

What may still save us for a little longer (i.e. a couple of months) -as a thoughtful colleague remarked this morning- "is Aristotle" and the fear of uncontrollable chain reactions in case the Rauswurf is clumsily handled. This last possibility has even roused the somnolent Obama people, who are sending their treasury secretary to Poland to participate in the meeting of the European finance ministers at the end of the week.

As for "Aristotle" what the friend meant to evoke is the immense cultural and historical significance of Hellas as a concept in the collective European mind. For those that admitted Greece into the Union back in the 80's and for a still significant segment of current opinion makers in the old continent, Europe is not just an economic arrangement but a wager in civilizational paradigm change, in which a new collective identity is to be built around the values of democracy, social and trans-national solidarity and critical historical thinking. And of course in all this one discovers Hellenic roots and foundations. Europe without Greece, thus, still seems to a lot of Europeans a truncated concept, a "body without limbs" as J. Delors recently expressed it.

For all of educated Europe Greece is a crown of spirituality that adds an eternal glow to the European institutional edifice, despite its having become an economic crown of thorns recently. Hence the last lingering hesitations concerning the (inevitable) exit of this failed state from the consort of serious, civilized countries.

When I say "all of Europe" I must, with heavy heart, exclude from this company the country named "Greece" itself -or, to be precise, its ruling elites and the greatest part of its population in its current numb and brutalized state, for whom the European cultural project as well as the Hellenic idea meaning nothing at all.

It is only the small minority of European Hellenes cowering in their hiding places that perceive the horrendous events unfolding these days as a cultural and moral catastrophe of unparalleled dimensions.

For the rest this society resembles but a ship of fools going merrily to its doom.