A huge cycle is closing
Have you heard the news? The Greek Civil War ended 74 years ago. The 1965 events of the “July apostates” happened 58 years ago. The Polytechnic Uprising was 50 years ago. These are all historical events of great importance, fascinating for both historians as well as the casual or regular reader of history books. But whoever attempts a political confrontation today, in 2023, by citing events that happened in 1944, 1965 or 1973 is living on another planet. And they’re certainly not speaking to any voters who are under – let’s be generous – the age of 50. In the 1980s it made sense to cultivate polarization over “who was an apostate” and other historical issues. The events in question were relatively recent and passions had not subsided. Furthermore, those who were then young knew what the references were. That was then. Today, only those stuck in the past can do politics with the scarecrows and slogans of that era.
Who has remained trapped in a battle with the ghosts of history? It is mainly the Left, which was defeated in the Civil War but won the ideological battle that followed the restoration of democracy in Greece. Those exiled to isolated islands, the seven-year dictatorship, gave the Left a moral and ideological advantage. It dominated the local intelligentsia, universities, and held the monopoly of historical analysis, the way we deal with foreign policy and foreign powers. That is the wave of ideological hegemony and radicalization that late PASOK founder Andreas Papandreou rode to rise to power and it is the same one that swept him away like a rushing river. If Papandreou didn’t exist then, the tsunami might have led to an early version of SYRIZA, maybe as early as 1981.
The Left succeeded and finally came to power in 2015. To be perfectly honest, it was brought to power largely by the inadequacy, vices and rot of a bourgeois regime that made a mess while in government, was unabashedly populist and eventually went bankrupt. The popular outrage was unimaginable and, in part, justified. It was a great victory for the Left – and a huge defeat. Reality has a unique way of shattering myths built up over decades. But life moves on, society changes, and citizens want tangible solutions to their problems. The fights about yesterday or the day before that don’t concern them. Younger people don’t even know what we’re talking about.
This is how we got to 2023. With the Left losing its monopoly on public discourse. With the generation that followed the restoration of democracy standing on the side, along with its ideological obsessions and nostalgia for outdated totems. A very large cycle is closing. Society feels that it cannot move forward if its gaze is constantly fixed on the rearview mirror, on yesterday. It wants to move forward.
