The Greek crisis: manicheism in politics

‘Before there were tanks, now there are banks’. This is how one of the young Greeks interviewed by BBC Today Programme this morning summarised the feelings of the new generations in the Hellenic democracy. The moral certainty with which this supporter of the Oxi (no) vote compares the uprising against the dictatorship of the Colonels in the 1970s with the No-vote in the referendum is indicative of the main problem of the ongoing negotiations between Greece and its European partners.

Greek debtors think they are right and the creditors are wrong, and creditors think they are right. This black and white view of the world translates in, for instance, both parties using similar metaphors. The German officials talk of ‘the terrorist-like’ negotiating techniques of the outgoing Greek Finance Minister Yannis Varoufakis, and dissatisfied Greeks declare themselves fed up with the terrorism of international financial institutions.

The paradox is that, despite opposing views, and despite the outcome of the referendum which creates more problem than it solves, both debtors and creditors realise that a solution needs to be found. That is, independently of who is right – morally or financially. The first statements of the Greek Prime Minister Tsipras after the vote and those of other European leaders show this clearly. While this might be good for the future of the European project, such moral feeling of unjustness and impunity will persist in both debtors and creditors, whatever the solution. And these kinds of deep-running moral ‘memories’ leave scars that not even full financial recovery for Greece, admitting it will ever happen, will be able to erase.

Giulia Pastorella, Ph.D. candidate at the London School of Economics