By Emmanuel Bouhalakis
As soon as the Greek Parliament failed to elect the President of the Republic and elections were promptly announced, the usual hysteria started emerging from the German media, followed by other ones which were full of "thoughtful" analyses and predictions about the future of Greece in the euro. The same old and stale titles such as "Greek drama" miraculously reappeared and dubious statistics started coming out of old closets.
This time, unlike 2012 when indeed Greece was on the verge of bankruptcy, the general consensus of the Greek people towards those prophets of doom can be summarized in two words: Shut up.
The total and plain meaning of this phrase cannot become more clear. The Greeks have endured three horrendous years full of austerity, high unemployment and rampant poverty. Though poverty in Greece may not be compared with the poverty in Sierra Leone, the vast majority of the population has debts which came from an erroneous sense of prosperity. That obviously is not the responsibility of the German or French taxpayer. However, the average German of French taxpayer would welcome the import of their products from other contries as this would mean their own survival as well. Thus, austerity hurts both imports and exports.
The religious type adherence to austerity as ordered by Angela Merkel, had led to the absolute rigidity of the "troika" or the representatives of the IMF and the EU. The more the exhausted Greek government tried to please them, the harder their rules became. It soon became evident that the principle behind the Greek bailout program was not to correct the country but rather punish it beyond its limits.
The expected winner of the elections, Alexis Tsipras, is not a threat to the various establishments of the EU, since he only has rhetoric but no real answers and he is expected to lose the elections after the ones of Jan. 25. In which case, a center-right coalition will carry on the work of A. Samaras.
The message however will remain the same: Don't push too much as you risk a widespread rejection of your policies not only in Greece but elsewhere as well. And that may be considered an utterly strong likelihood. One really can't lend money and take away freedom or dignity. This is called slavery.
In the meantime and until the coming elections take place, the Greeks get slowly fed up with all those analysts and PowerPoint users who publish charts with the plagues that will hit the country soon.
So, the general feeling is encompassed in the phrase we mentioned above : Mind your business or plainly said, shut up.
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