2012 now!
Anyone who has seen the movie «2012» – or even its trailer – has probably been shaken by the terrible consequences of violent movement in the Earth’s crust, ostensibly the cataclysmic result of a shift in the planet’s poles. This pseudoscience is great entertainment, especially when a dash of ancient Mayan doomsaying is thrown in to spice things up. It’s far-fetched but still terrifying. The only comfort in the face of such possible disaster is our belief that «this cannot happen here.» And yet, it can. Just consider Greece’s political world, which seems to be collapsing like Atlantis under a surging sea. For decades, the country’s politics appeared to be frozen between two mostly centrist parties – the more right-wing New Democracy and the leftish PASOK. ND ruled from the restoration of democracy in 1974 until PASOK first came to power in 1981, after which the two kept alternating in government. Whenever the one would exhaust itself – and the people’s patience – it would be defeated by the other. This comforting state of affairs continued right up to the most recent elections, less than two months ago, on October 4. Then a confederacy of cosmic catastrophes came into play, threatening to change our little world as we know it. The economic crisis, caused by years of borrowing without doing anything to make our economy more efficient and our society more productive, has created a firestorm of debt, which is compounded by our country’s credibility deficit in the European Union and international markets. We are racing toward the point where we may not be able to borrow enough to stay afloat. When that day arrives, Greece will be unrecognizable. Today, only the elderly remember the time when there was no free universal healthcare nor pensions for all or relative job security, and so on. (Of course, the fact that citizens have been short-changed, paying for a welfare state while being provided with poor services, has partly hidden the benefits of the good years.) When there is not enough money for the bloated state’s salaries and pensions, we will get an unwelcome, shocking look at this country’s past. While this tectonic shift is taking place, the two major parties are in a state of major reorganization (or decomposition – time will tell). New Democracy, after its trouncing in the elections, is tearing itself apart as Dora Bakoyannis and Antonis Samaras slug it out for the party leadership. This is a clash of personalities and ambitions but it will also determine the direction that the party will take and whether it will be able to unseat PASOK. The gloves are off: Samaras, who wants to move the party to the right, accuses Bakoyannis of being one of the strategists of ND’s defeat and of being prepared to sell out Greece’s «national issues»; Bakoyannis, a centrist, charges that he ran for shelter during the election campaign and is a former defector who now wants the party for himself. It is unlikely that they will be able to coexist in the same party after one of them is elected leader. But even as ND careers out of control, the most surprising and dangerous implosion appears to be taking place within PASOK. George Papandreou led his party to a landslide victory, thanks mainly to ND’s short slide into total inertia. With his first actions, though, he inspired hopes that a new spirit of youth and inquiry would help Greece get moving. Instead, the government’s members are incapable of singing from the same hymn sheet: Ministers make decisions that are later rescinded or watered down; no one seems to understand the finance minister’s anxiety to give Brussels and the markets the message that Greece is trying to get its house in order to stave off the deluge. With the opposition in disarray, the government is functioning as its own opposition – and not for the good of the country. From a bipolar world, we have gone into a spin. And until the poles settle in their new positions, we are in for a very rough ride – a deluge.
