Alas, the parade that will never be
Now that the Independence Day parades have come and gone — in an almost war-like atmosphere — we ought to organize a different kind of parade next Sunday. The fact that we will be celebrating the arrival of April on the very same day makes sense too. No, this will not be the kind of parade where lies are served up, as is customary. It will be about revealing at least a small part of the truth before the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in front of Parliament.
The parade will be the first of its kind to have a sponsor: the company MIZENS, which has contributed so much to helping this country move forward. No, this not the Germany company whose name sounds very much the same, and from which the Greek state extracted a sizable compensation. The honorary leaders of the parade will be a delegation from Parliament: 100 MPs selected by drawing straws to carry, instead of banners, a giant copy of the declarations showing the provenance of their wealth. They don?t even need to march in step.
Behind them, in splendid solitude, will march former Public Order Minister Giorgos Voulgarakis, wearing a ranger?s uniform and carrying his own version of the Bible, which contains only one brief commandment that sums up the prevailing political culture in Greece over the past few decades: ?Whatever is legal is also moral.? Behind him will be the two politicians who admitted that money came into their hands that was neither theirs nor clean: Tassos Mandelis and Theodoros Tsoukatos. The fact that this group has two members only is a tribute to our political system and proves that it is above all else, chaste.
As you can?t have a parade without honoring victims, we will also have a section with the ?victims of political scheming:? At right we?ll have Panayiotis Psomiadis, at left Akis Tsochatzopoulos and in the middle the other Psomiadis, Makis, who also claims to be the victim of political interests. The next section of the parade will consist of the ?victims? of the bloody Battle of the Shopping Bill — all the former ministers in charge of pricing policy and competition, who fought tooth and nail to vanquish the beast of profiteering as it approached their castles. Whether they will parade holding a supermarket bill or an empty shopping basket is still open to debate.
Bringing up the rear will be the war veterans: those who fought on the cold peaks of IKA and in the minefields of OGA for a measly monthly benefit, using up all their grease on the palms of bureaucracy.
