On Thursday night, there was a party at Maximos Mansion. Alexis Tsipras called all his lawmakers and cabinet for a drink, an informal get-together since, as he claimed, he has missed these people after several hectic weeks of international travel for state affairs.
There was an atmosphere of euphoria at the presidential mansion, as pictures suggest. The ministers and lawmakers looked happy, most of them were tipsy, while others sang songs, including some leftist hymns from Greece’s civil war.
These people are happy because, after all, they live the high life now. They have plenty of money and power, so why not celebrate.
It is ironic that these people were elected on a platform of doomsaying and hatred, capitalizing on the tragedies of suicides, bankruptcies, poverty and all kinds of misfortune the economic crisis brought to Greek people. They demonstrated on the streets, shouted slogans against the previous government along with “the people” and then promised a better, more fair leftist society.
Yet, less than two years later, power and money has turned the self-proclaimed leftists of SYRIZA into the complacent, rich “bourgeoisie” their dogmatic ideology so vehemently opposes.
The majority of the current administration used to belong to the communist party, wearing their shoes out in endless rallies outside the U.S Embassy, screaming anti-American slogans until their throats were raw. Today, the whole SYRIZA cabinet has made at least one leisure trip to Manhattan enjoying the goods of capitalism they proclaim to detest. With the taxpayers’ money, of course, and always with the excuse of traveling to the U.S. to “attract investors.” (That could have been a great two-word joke).
Only recently the self-professed communist minister Nikos Pappas enjoyed a lavish weekend in a chic Manhattan hotel with his friends, pretending he was there to assist Alexis Tsipras for the UN General Assembly. Courtesy of the Greek people, again. Or maybe he was there to give style tips to the prime minister to pose for Reuters as a model with the New York skyline as a background. Nevertheless, he tried to persecute the two journalists who exposed his dolce vita in New York.
Meanwhile, Greek people are buckling under the heaviest tax load any government has ever imposed on them. Pensioners cry on television as they saw their pensions butchered. Greeks pay their taxes using credit cards, piling more debts on their heads. Small, medium and big businesses shut down almost on a daily basis, more and more Greeks depend on soup kitchens for their meals and people literally die in public hospitals because of lack of doctors and medical supplies. At the same time hundreds of illegal migrants arrive in the country every week along with a few refugees and the government lacks a plan and the capability of handling them.
Yet, shamelessly, SYRIZA MPs and ministers appear on television on a daily basis claiming that the economy is recovering, “fair growth” is coming, there will be more doctors in public hospitals, schools are operating smoothly, there is order in the broadcasting field, the Constitution change deliberations are in progress, Greece deserves a Nobel Prize for accommodating refugees and the SYRIZA-ANEL coalition is a model administration that cares for the people. And, to add insult to injury, some even say, “the government has fulfilled all its promises to the Greek people”.
Shamelessly, also, the same ministers claim that everything they do is because “the people” have elected us to do so. They aim to shut down television stations and drive hundreds of people to unemployment and their excuse is “the people elected us to bring order to the broadcasting field and put an end to corruption.”
In a recent poll, on behalf of the (literally) state-run Avgi newspaper, 85 percent of Greeks said they are dissatisfied with the government. Yet, the government arrogantly tear-gases protesting pensioners, interferes with justice, shuts down television stations arbitrarily, changes religious studies and history lessons in schools, lies about the migrant flows, tries to change the Constitution to its benefit and ignores completely “the people” it claims to care about. They are safe behind their bodyguards and the walls of their luxury homes, while living the good life without the vaguest clue of what the reality of life is in Greece. And lately, they hide from “the people” too. Irodou Attikou Street, the presidential mansion address, is now closed for traffic, for the first time ever. The government of “the people” is now afraid of the people.
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