Bad time to be a Greek

Every day I go through my morning routine of reading the latest reports on Greece. Coffee on one hand, and the press on the other. I start with the Anglo press, I move on to the Greek newspapers and blogs and then I finish with the Dutch press.

And for the past year and half, all my mornings have started bad. With the Anglo press prophesying how small and insignificant Greece will be the demise of the euro, the Greek press reporting yet more strikes, panic and internal bickering, and the Dutch press taking its usual condescending, if not outright hostile attitude towards the lazy Greeks. “We have public opinion too” cried the Dutch minister of finance… A victory of clichés over substance! Or is it? I cannot help but think that clichés become such for good reasons and we are ultimately the sole responsible for our own fate.

And here is the bitter truth. The adult generations of the past 35 years have basically mortgaged the future of the current Greek children. Every parent and grand parent should therefore be asked to account to their under-18 year olds why we have allowed our governments to steal from them and then lie about it. It strikes me that for the country that has named economics, we have done precious little to enforce the nomo in our ecos. The answer in my view is not outside on the Parliament square. It is not even inside the building. It is inside our homes. We need to start by apologizing to our children.

Then we need to remove the current political elite (green, blue and red) that has repeatedly and indiscriminately failed us. I am a 40 plus-er. My generation of Greeks will be badly hit as it is too young to benefit from the generosity of the previous regime, and too old to have enough time to fix it. But it is the 20 year olds that will have to fix it. It is only fair then that they should be the ones to decide how best to do it. I only hope that they have enough acumen to protect their and the country’s interests and that they will actually look after their children's future slightly better than we ever did!