Default, dear Alexis, is not in our stars but in ourselves, that we are underlings,” a character called, let’s say, Varoufakis might have said in a latter-day Shakespearean play.
It’s not hard to imagine another character in the same play — and here there’s plenty of choice: It could have been Christine Lagarde, Donald Tusk, Wolfgang Schauble or, perhaps ideally, Angela Merkel — whispering to an aide: “Let me have men about me that are fat, sleek-headed men and such as sleep o’ nights; yond Yanis has a lean and hungry look. He thinks too much: Such men are dangerous.”
The shenanigans of the European Union (EU) would no doubt have provided plenty of material to a latter-day Bard for tragedies as well as farces.
There are, of course, a number of modern playwrights who at least sporadically pay attention to the political dramas unfolding around them, and one of them, Italy’s Dario Fo, came up some decades ago with a theatrical tour de force whose title, as well as at least some of its content, corresponds with the current Greek predicament: Can’t Pay? Won’t Pay! It would take a formidable master of the art, though, to capture all the layers of irony in the EU’s panicked reaction to the Greek government’s decision to call a referendum on whether the bitterly beleaguered nation should accept the conditions attached by its creditors to a continued bailout, or simply proclaim: “Enough, no more…”
An estimated 11,000 Greeks have indeed committed suicide since the austerity measures were put in place. They could see no glimmer of hope, no light at the end of the tunnel other than a euro-train rushing toward them, with none other than Juncker at the controls.
The crisis has been brewing for years, and bubbling over more or less steadily ever since the Greek electorate, at the beginning of this year, voted in a government led by the anti-austerity Syriza. The dictatorship of capital — embodied in EU institutions and the IMF — routinely punishes governments inclined to disobey its commandments. Once upon a time, the rules of the game entailed “structural adjustment” — which invariably meant spending cuts, notably in terms of public sector wage restraint as well as reductions in state subsidies and welfare payments, plus privatization. That tag was dropped when it acquired negative connotations, but the rules of the game remain pretty much the same.
To its credit, Syriza put up a fight on this score, although it has been willing to relent on raising the pension age. A week or so ago, it presented proposals to Brussels that in the view of most observers provided the basis for a compromise. In fact, quite a few of the Greek government’s supporters felt it had gone much too far. But the EU refused to budge — which in turn precipitated this week’s crisis, with capital controls imposed and banks shut until after Sunday’s referendum. Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras has characterized the EU’s stance as a naked attempt to humiliate Greece and its people. He may be guilty of understatement. A spokesman for Yanis Varoufakis, arguably the most readily recognisable finance minister in the world, has referred to next weekend’s referendum as signaling the end to “five years of waterboarding.”
Varoufakis is also fond of pointing out that whereas tanks were once the weapon of choice in carrying out coups, the inclination now is to use banks.
The waterboarding image is likely to resonate with many citizens in a country where the economy has shrunk by a quarter, unemployment has soared to 26 percent (it’s more than 60 percent among youth), there is no safety net to speak of, the decline in public health services is taking a heavy toll including in respect of infant mortality, and destitution, hunger and homelessness are on the rise. These are the consequences of austerity and the prescription from Brussels essentially decrees more of the same. It doesn’t take a Nobel in economics to figure out that the neoliberal strategy has been an abysmal failure. At least two laureates, however, have taken an admirable stand, with Paul Krugman and Joseph Stiglitz both advocating a “no” vote in powerful polemics on Monday in The New York Times and The Guardian respectively. The bailout funds Greece has been receiving mostly go toward servicing a large debt incurred during previous decades, for which those who bear the brunt of the suffering can hardly be held responsible. A Greek exit from the euro zone is expected to entail chaos in the short term but holds out the prospect of a medium-term turnaround, with a currency that can be devalued and key decisions being made in Athens rather than Brussels.
Syriza’s noble stance against European bullying and blackmail appears to have earned it the respect of many Greeks who did not vote for it in January. The EU and its stalwarts are petrified by the prospect of Athens setting a precedent. However, for those who recognize the essentially anti-democratic nature of the monetarist authorities in Brussels, the July 5 referendum offers the opportunity for a historic break with an increasingly untenable status quo. It must be hoped that the majority of Greeks will decide to take it.
