Paradise Lost in Athens
Revolutions always seem to start when elites become corrupt. At least this was the case of the French Revolution (in fact a coup d’etat of the bourgeoisie led by lawyers) of 1789 and of the Russian Revolution (jn fact also a coup d’etat of the bourgeoisie, also led by lawyers) of 1917. Once the elite loses its moral values and therefore its sense of justice, because it has previously lost its spiritual values, it becomes corrupt. As it is corrupt, it exploits the people. In turn, without any example from on high, the people also lose their spiritual and moral values and so revolt. Such revolts are always to the profit of another cunning section of the elite and to the loss of the people.
A similar thing happens with waves of violent demonstrations. It is what happened in 1968 in France when the De Gaulle government was toppled by French students and workers. They were outraged by the injustices of a hopelessly outdated and underfinanced educational system. And then a working class, exploited by an exclusive class-ridden French elite, which operated as a socially immobile mafia, reinforced the student revolt.
Forty years on, in 2008, it is this situation which Greece appears to be living through. Its inefficient educational system, based on rote-learning (a system copied from France), has to be supplemented by expensive private schools, is under challenge. So too is the welfare system with its many injustices, which is facing cutbacks as a result of the world economic crisis.
Perhaps the most outrageous aspect in Greece is the mafia rule of a political elite, caviar left or caviar right, which is controlled by corrupt family dynasties, once propped up by the USA, now by the EU. It is these Establishment political dynasties, which have promised so much to Greek people and given so little, which are the most detested. With the collapse of the US-backed military junta of the colonels nearly thirty-five years ago, Greece was handed over by Washington to the EEC (now the EU). It was thought that the materialistic consumerism of Western Europe would keep Greece from Communism. It did, but at what price?
Nearly thirty years ago, in 1981, Greece was promised virtual paradise by Western Materialists and their Greek political puppets, just as some ninety years ago, in 1917, Russia was promised virtual paradise by Western Marxists and their Bolshevik political puppets. Neither Russia, nor Greece received that paradise. When in 2001 Greece, with its huge public deficits, gave up the drachma and took on the Frankfurt euro, it was certain that sooner or later social unrest would result. Straitjacketed into the obligatory Markzone of the EUSSR, its economy would not be able to cope with someone else’s currency. Following the recent bankruptcy of another EU country, Hungary, Greece is the first to experience civil disorder. Other economies, especially in the rigid systems of Southern Europe and possibly in Eastern Europe, will follow.
Although the heavily westernised Greek elites and large sections of the Greek people have given up on the Greek Orthodox Church, seeing only its Establishment face and financial scandals (just as in Russia before the Revolution), now is the time, as never before, when Greeks should be looking to the Church for a way out of the present crisis. Not to the all too human Establishment face of the Church with its property and moral compromises, but to the real Church underneath. The Orthodox Church is not merely the bearer of Greek identity, but above all it is the bearer of the spiritual and moral solutions to the crisis imposed on modern Greece by the EU and its US backers.
