Greece has been in the headlines du jour -- in Europe, at any rate -- over what, on the surface, is
a complex economic matter, a re-run of what we have seen before, involving the IMF and a potential rééchelonnement of sovereign debt
tranches …..
(ZZZzzzzzzzzzz …. Oh, have I lost you?)
What deeper waters this narrative might tap into, I have
little idea, since I do not follow Greece; taceo igitur; the point here being merely to notice
the oddly canted perceptual stance of Americans in regard to Greece, victims of
distance and history.
What occasioned this reflection are the final chapters of
Robert D. Kaplan’s outstanding travelogue/history, Balkan Ghosts (1993).
In this slender book, he quite consciously follows in the
steps of Rebecca West (“Dame Rebecca”, as he gallantly denotes her), whose
massive memoir of a trip to Yugoslavia on the eve of World War II, Black
Lamb & Grey Falcon (published 1941) is among the truly great works of
the twentieth century. Knowing
that he could not hope to outdo her magisterial historical survey, he treads
more lightly but more widely, his final footsteps reaching as far as Greece,
where he resided, with his wife, for seven years, during the reign (for “reign”
it was) of a very strange figure indeed, Andreas Papandreou.
The first thing you notice is the very presence of Greece in a book about the Balkans. Granted -- once you come to think of it
-- that country is indisputably geographically a part of the Balkan
Peninsula; Kaplan’s point is that
it belongs with the other, Slavic or semi-Slavic countries of the region,
spiritually and sociologically as well.
Very few Americans think of Greece in those terms, nor
indeed in any terms at all except what we half-remember from school, limited to
the Athenian Golden Age, several centuries B.C. It is as though you were to try to conceive Germany in terms
of what had been going on in the primeval forests of that time -- or America,
as were it a continuation of its own prehistory of open plains, speckled here
and there with miscellaneous blemmyes and buffalo, and otherwise largely empty.
It’s strange how little I knew of the tale that Kaplan
tells. It’s not as though I hadn’t
yet come of age during the 1980s;
I did read newspapers.
But perhaps the reason for this ignorance had partly to do with the
Western press, which had assimilated just one new Greek stereotype since the
Age of Socrates: the Medi-hippie
world of “Never on Sunday” and “Zorba the Greek”. Indeed, the English Wikipedia entry is astonishingly
airbrushed:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andreas_Papandreou
I had to blink, to ascertain that this wasn’t an account of
his more conventional father George.
(Someone seems to be curating his memory.)
Andreas knew well how to exploit the “Never on Sunday” sort
of nonsense. He appointed its
star, Melina Mercouri (who played, one might say, a ἑταίρα both onscreen and on the political
stage) to his cabinet -- and re-appointed her again and again, while other
underlings came and went. It was a
true Société du spectacle:
In Papandreou’s name, Culture
Minister Mercouri organized “human peace chains” around the Acropolis, even as
Greek state companies were selling arms to both sides in the Iran-Iraq war, and
to the two warring African states of Rwanda and Burundi.
-- Robert D. Kaplan, Balkan Ghosts
(1993), p. 269
Likewise an eye-opener were Papandreou’s ties to a raft of
morally quite unanchored chevaliers of terror: PASOK and the November 17th Movement; Abu-Nidal; Qaddafi’s hit-men, and
on. These, like such later
ultraviolent inscrutable groups as Boko Haram and the central African Lord’s
Resistance Army, cannot be understood terms of determinate ideology or even
calculated, cynical self-interest;
it is not as though they have well-defined ends (whether good or bad)
and merely overdo the means.
It seems to be more a matter of the morbido,
and of metastatic narcissism.
None of this is part of the general American understanding
of Greece. “Cradle of Democracy”
it must be for ever and aye. For,
our brains have only so much bandwidth.
Even in cases where party or interest do not preclude comprehension, we
are apt, by acedia, to sink back into the Lay-Z-Boy of our early training and first
impressions. Cognitively, we
settle for very little.
[Footnote]
Rather random but -- by way of counterbalancing the overall “down” of Balkan
Ghosts as regards Eastern Europe:
there is a truly wonderful chamber ensemble called “Munich Artistrio”,
though they seem to be Slovene.
Brahms (truly magisterial):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N-L3UgoYvdA
(In particular the third movement, Adagio.)
Schubert (transcribed):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nqv_-ll_LpE
[Update (alas) 9 III 15] Greece threatens to flush its cisterns upon the rest of Europe:
Our notes upon this topic ici.
[Update 16 June 2015] The above was originally posted back in January. Blink; five months go by;
and the headlines around the world
are still the same: Bras de fer entre la Grèce et le FMI. And now we have two new hippogriff words to toy with, of the
sort that Europeans love to coin: Brexit and Grexit -- British exit (from the EU) and Greek exit (from the
Eurozone). Greece, insolvent, is trying to blackmail is creditors with
a curious threat: Lend us even more money or we won’t pay you back
what we owe you. Or in other
words: Throw good money after bad,
or we’ll hold our breath till we’re blue in the face. And the ultimate menace: the dreaded GREXIT.
Re-reading the original essay, a riposte suggests
itself: Fine. Tant
mieux. Rejoin your Balkan
buddies. Have a nice life.
[Update, 20 June 2015]
A pragmatic contrary view, from Lawrence Summers:
Make no mistake about the
consequences of a breakdown. With an end to European support and consequent
bank closures and credit problems, austerity will get far worse in Greece than
it is today, and Greece will likely become a failed state, to the great
detriment of all its people and their leadership. Once Greece fails as a state,
Europe will collect far less debt repayment than it would with an orderly
restructuring. And a massive northern out-migration of Greeks will strain
national budgets throughout Europe, not to mention the challenges that will
come as Russia achieves a presence in Greece. The IMF is looking at by far the
largest nonpayment by a borrower in its history. True, there are good reasons
to think enough foam has been placed on the runway to prevent financial
contagion. Yet, this was asserted with respect to Long-Term Capital Management,
subprime mortgages and the fall of Lehman Brothers.
Riposte:
Summers is an economist, and on that turf
deserves all respect. But:
(1) The introduction to his essay (not here quoted),
compares the potential post-default events to the advent of World War I, the
default being a kind of Sarajevo. But -- wait, sanity check -- though much of
post-WWII history, many nations of Europe were not using the Euro. In fact, for most of that time, the
Euro hadn’t even been invented. Were Europeans walking around clad only in barrels? Indeed, at press-time -- and this might
surprise you, if all you are going on is Summers’ piece -- certain European countries much more important than Greece are still not members of the Eurozone: Notably, Switzerland and the U.K.
Nor are those countries clamoring to join.
Indeed, Great Britain is on the brink of heading the opposite way, with
a Brexit.
(2) Has the accession
of Eastern countries to the Eurozone or the E.U. been a benefit to western Europe? According to the Eurocrats, abundantly. According to the citizens who have had to
actually suffer through it, not so much.
(3) Moral
hazard. (Bailing out Greece yet again dangles poisonous carrots before Ireland, Spain, …)
(4) Whether Summers sincerely has the best
interests of America and Wesgtern Europe at heart, we do not know; but he is certainly in tight with the
big bankers. And Summers’ argument
really reduces to “too big to fail”. We have seen, repeatedly, where that takes us. -- Sorry,
banker-guys, time for a haircut.
That was the view from the Western side. But what would be in store for Greece
-- the equivalent of the first World War, as Summers would have it? -- The closest recent historical was
Argentina’s default on debt, in December 2001, described as “the biggest debt
default in history”.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/southamerica/argentina/1366218/Argentina-makes-biggest-debt-default-in-history.html
This, in mid-depression. It was followed by … a return to roaring growth. Argentina did just fine out of it. But a minority of private lenders --
the kind of people Summers hangs out with -- still want their pound of flesh, and have launched various
lawsuits.
La Grèce au bord de la faillite, l'exemple argentin
http://www.medi1.com/infos/ch_eco/
