Right, now the election’s over, we know who’s in 10 Downing Street, I’d
like you to cast your possibly rosy, possibly drink-addled and
disillusioned political vision further afield. To where, I hear you ask? To
Greece: land of lemon trees, olive groves – and the recipient of the
biggest bailout in history.

I was entirely shocked when I heard about this, mainly because I hadn’t
been keeping up with foreign politics when I was told. Quietly enjoying a
cappuccino by myself, my perfect equilibrium was disturbed when two people
having a debate about politics suddenly turned to me as the only Greek in
the room, and asked me my opinion. Rather reflective of what the
politicians over there have had a tendency to do recently, I went in to an
enormous state of denial, panicked at my total lack of knowledge and washed
my hands of the matter. When I got home and looked the story up, my first
reaction was: how I could possibly have missed this?

Greece has been in denial for years about its looming bankruptcy. Now that
the matter’s come to light, a lot of other details about their financial
practice, mainly concerning tax evasion, have come out of the woodwork,
leading to violent protests that claimed the lives of three people. The
International Monetary Fund (IMF) is now involved, trying to solve the
worst European financial crisis since the creation of the common market.
Their current solution is to bail out Greece with Є300bn. However, this is
not the only or even the most effective way of resolving the problem, as
can be seen from the way that Greeks have been protesting vehemently about
how they will now be under foreign supervision. In the report I read, the
photo showed riot police outside a building on which, in large red letters
was written "IMF GET OUT". Got to say, that doesn’t sound too promising.

Essentially, the situation isn’t encouraging because they are pouring this
money in to an enormous financial black hole, which could exacerbate the
problem before it begins to resolve itself. Beyond the bailout, predictions
about financial recovery are not reassuring, with unemployment and pension
cuts highly likely. And worst of all, Greece’s bankruptcy cannot be
contained, but has instead sparked off a monetary maelstrom in Europe,
threatening to cause a domino effect between the most financially unstable
nations. Greece and Portugal’s credit ratings were cut recently; Spain
looks to be next.

Much as the issue is primarily an economic one, the real problem lies in
the dishonesty of the politics that allowed it to ever become so dire in
the first place. As political commentator Paschos Mandravalis put it:
"Greece is not only confronted with economic failure, but a media failure
and political failure, and that is what is so frightening." And it is
frightening, because it shows just how detrimental years of fraudulent
politics can be on the fortunes, pecuniary and otherwise, of an entire
nation, right down to what they read about it in the newspaper. There has
been much hypothesising recently about how Greek politics could have become
so lax, some suggesting that it is down to the lack of cohesion after years
of shifting political systems, particularly the rise and fall of the
military rule that gripped Greece for years. After years of political
instability, a democratic government is bound to take some time
establishing itself – but does this really permit such financial
irresponsibility?

There’s even been the suggestion that the Greeks, as a people, do not lend themselves well to politics, which I must say I find slightly
hard to believe. After all, they created democracy! One of the dictators still alive, Brigadier Stylianos Pattakos, believes it’s an inherent quality of the Greek people that "they’re not disciplined like the Germans or the British. They need
authority." Hmm. I’m not so convinced. Much as I have trouble meeting
deadlines, I wouldn’t automatically pin it down to being Greek so much as
being almost cripplingly lackadaisical when I ought to have developed a
sense of urgency earlier on in life. Though I might use that one next time
I need an extension on an essay.

So, without predicting the Ides of March or anything too melodramatic, I
would urge you to keep an eye on what is happening in Europe. The fact that our
shiny new coalition government’s just beginning to sort itself out hardly
means that we should ignore foreign politics in its favour, since the financial
problems over there are set to have repercussions here. Ultimately, I think
the best thing we can all do is simply watch this space.