It’s only been 11 years since that dramatic summer of 2015 and in less than a month we will have the anniversary of the referendum.
A referendum that was the a culmination of the drama, with the country literally on the brink of collapse and exit from the hard core of Europe, and ultimately the colotoumba of Alexis Tsipras and the painful third memorandum that plunged Greece even further into crisis.
Written by Ersi Papadaki
And yet: the distance that has been travelled and the situation in which the economy and society itself is now in seems as if many more years have passed since the period of the (allegedly) “proud negotiation” of Syrrizanel.
But this in no way means that we should forget what we went through and how we stumbled to the hand of the cliff back then. All the more so since the negative protagonists of that period are now returning as… messiahs in the political life of the country, distorting the vote of the citizens and brazenly demanding that they forget everything. Unfortunately for them, Greece is not and cannot become a land of Lotophagians. But for this to happen, there are some people who remind us in a coherent way what we have been through all these years and that we cannot afford to experience it again.
The SKAI television documentary “In the Chiliostos” and the journalistic research of Eleni Varvitsioti and Victoria Dendrinou did not just remind us of these dramatic moments. What passed through our television screens in the last few weeks awakened our worst nightmares, but at the same time revealed the extent of hypocrisy and the adventurism of the people who held the fate of the country in their hands at the time and preferred to play it on the games.
The protagonists are of course Alexis Tsipras –who is the one who is now again the first to claim our vote as a lotus eater -, the so-called asset,Giannis Varoufakis, or even the Zoe Konstantopoulou. In fact, both have one thing in common with the former prime minister: that they too are claiming our vote as party leaders. Having disowned Mr Tsipras, whom they have demythologised and even targeted, but this in no way absolves them of their own responsibilities.
It is worth noting that in his political speech, Mr. Tsipras attempts to justify the creation of his new party, ELAS, with the need to return to normality. But what is normality really? Is normality the empty coffers, the queues at ATMs and capital controls, the closed banks and the selling off of the country’s “silverware” to the Ypertafond?
Or is the normalcy the fiscal stability, the high performance of the Greek economy with surpluses and investments, the projects from the Recovery Fund and the transformation of the Yperthank you into a development fund that manages public property for the benefit of citizens?
The answer seems obvious, but it is not. What is clear, however, is that normality has been gradually restored since 2019, with the change of government. And only a few days ago, the European Commission officially removed Greece from the list of countries under surveillance after almost 16 years, giving practical recognition to the economic progress and fiscal stability that has been established.
A progress and stability that Greece’s partners certainly recognize, with Kyriakos Mitsotakis and his government ministers having worked over the years to restore the country’s image abroad and, most importantly, its reliability. And, of course, with a sincere attitude towards its citizens at home, as despite any problems, at least the citizens themselves are not experiencing the deception and humiliation that was the norm during the Syrrizanel administration; especially in that inglorious first half of 2015.
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