Home

Greece riots on every TV screen.
3 dead.
And I have no words.
Only silent despair.
And tears.

Election special: vote to change how you vote

Election-time in the UK is fast approaching so get your party hats on and sing a happy song, for it is election time and we have all fallen into the trap of watching the leaders' debate and reading the rankings as if they mattered.
Don't they? You ask.
Of course they don't, I reply – and not, for once, just to be controversial.

The leaders' debate is interesting. It shows you how photogenic your new prime minister will be. How good a debater. How good at repeating or creating sound-bites. It may even give you a tiny little glimpse of what his politics will be like once elected, but let's not get over-excited. These guys are trying to get elected, not give you an insight on how realism and constraints on the ground influence policy-making in real life.

The numbers that we all pore over the morning after each debate are also interesting. But ultimately completely misleading.
So we know who the country, overall, would vote for if choosing a prime minister across the nation was how we voted over here. But it ain't so the figures we look at are no use at all in understanding what will happen with the election. They would and could be useful in another place, one with oh I don't know a proportional representation electoral system, perhaps? But this is not that place and looking at those figures is not simply a waste of time, it is a deeply misleading political proposition.

First past the post, folks.
That means you vote for your MP, not your PM.
Yes, yes I know you often actually just choose a party; often not even knowing what your local MP stands for – although you really should not be doing that because that is not how electoral responsibility works in this country but that's another conversation for another time. And yes you vote 'Labour' but you voting Labour doesn't necessarily help Labour get elected. Or the Lib Dems, more to the point.

Diffuse support all over the country is no good whatsoever for making it into government in this United Kingdom of ours. You need concentrated support in a winning number of constituencies. That doesn't even mean a majority in said constituencies. It just means more than the other guys.
An excellent system for choosing your MPs who will then go on to form a government. A pretty poor system for choosing a presidential-style Prime Minister or which party you want in government.

So cut back to the debates.
You look at the three of them and make your choice. 'I'll have Clegg. I like his politics, I like his wife, I like that he doesn't do God, he's my sort of guy'.
And now what?
In a PR system if you vote Lib Dem, you've voted Lib Dem. Your votes towards both your local MP and the government swing the same way. But what about here? You vote Lib Dem and maybe your candidate gets the seat and you are home free. But if not? You may actually be helping the bad guys (whoever you deem them to be) get into government.
Does that matter?
It depends. If you think you are choosing a government on polling day, it matters a great deal.
And our parties seem to want us to choose a government, to select a premier and only as an afterthought also choose our MPs on polling day.
Which is fine, it is how many countries successfully run their democracies after all. But their electoral system fits the way their election is being fought so at least the numbers add up. Most of the time. All things being equal.

So now what?
We are in the land in-between, where the way we are encouraged to vote by party political broadcasts, manifestos, debates and advertising has absolutely no connection to the way we actually vote, the way our vote counts or is counted. Voters in Wonderland and through the looking glass nothing is as it seems so you don't get what you bargained for.

Electoral reform is needed, my friends. Or a return to fighting a pre-election campaign that is suitable to our electoral system.
Eliminating the disconnect between the choice we are given and the way we can make it is the only way to help democracy remain vibrant and relevant in this country. So. If you want to give me presidential-style debates, if you want me to think of politics at party-level and in terms of sweeping national mandates, give me a voting system that allows me to make those choices without unwittingly helping re-elect the people I wanted out in the first place.

Democracy needs informed, responsible voters or it perishes.
So here we are .
Traditionally the main defense of the current system has been its empowering simplicity.
But the simplicity is outdated and its guardians are making the most of the disconnect between the way we vote and the way those votes are counted. Apart from Clegg. He's honest about the need for electoral reform – especially as he stands to gain from it most of all.
Actually, that's not true.
He stands to gain more than any other party.
But the real victor, that would be us. You. The voters. The people.
So power to us, damn it. It is a democracy after all.
And although we tend to forget all about participation between elections, let's at least remember on polling day.
And make it count.
If not in the grand scheme of things then let's at least make the numbers add up.

Eyjafjallajökull is a bit of a mouthful. So is globalisation.

Can't pronounce Eyjafjallajökull?
Fret not my friend for you are not alone. None of us can. But you don't need to be able to pronounce it. Everyone is talking about 'it'. Any mention of 'ash' or your auntie being stranded and you are immediately and perfectly intelligible without twisting your tongue. The effects of the volcano are so pervasive that you don't need to be able to name the culprit to get your point across.

Airplanes have been grounded for days.
People are stranded for an ever-lengthening string of days in places they had visited for a long weekend or for a couple of meetings. Because that's how we have come to expect things to be. Hopping from place to place is not a miracle of science. It's a mundane fact of life for the globalised era. Only now, thanks to Eyjafjallajökull, people, mail and goods are going nowhere fast.

Goods are taking the scenic route, by ship, while the 'Armada' is setting sail to rescue stranded Brittons on the continent.
'Operation Volcano' is, according to the Daily Mail, 'a rerun of the 1940 Dunkirk evacuation'.
Easy on the drama guys.
Or, come to think of it, pile it on because this is as dramatic as drama gets.
Yes it's a bummer that holidays were missed, return dates pushed back, shipments of this and that and the odd parcel have been delayed. But it would not be excessive to suggest that this incident, these last few days have been an alarm bell for the fragility of our entire civilisation model.

Maybe Eyjafjallajökull is Icelanding for 'how could you not have seen this coming?'.
First with global banking. Now with globalisation.
First cash and now ash. Thanks lads. Much obliged.

Can't pronounce Eyjafjallajökull? How about 'globalisation', can you manage that?
We have long lived with the assumption that the world is getting smaller. That you could pop over to New York for a weekend, take a day trip to Paris, nip over to Dublin for a meeting.
And now we are grounded. Literally.
63,000 flights canceled since Thursday – and counting.
1 million people stranded.
Not to mention the millions of trips that did not take place at all and flights that never got booked.
The cost to the airlines is astronomical.
The overall cost of the crisis is even higher.

And the real crisis is yet to be thought through.
Because while we are waiting for the ash to clear and trying to figure out how to pronounce Eyjafjallajökull, our entire civilisation model is on hold and none of us have voiced what we should all be thinking.

Everything from international sporting events to business, from leisure to high-value goods deliveries and mail, relies on thousands of airplanes criss-crossing the ether every day. It's not simply a matter of convenience. Our entire civilisation is based on the assumption that people and goods can move freely and speedily. That is the premise of globalisation. Without that, the entire system hollows out.

Don't celebrate the end of the global era quite yet. For now, no systemic change is thought about For now, we just wait. But we don't know how long this will last or how long we can physically be kept waiting for. Or when we may need to start waiting again.
When the volcano last erupted in 1821 it remained active for 13 months. There's a sobering thought.
You may not be able to pronounce Eyjafjallajökull but you can surely say 'oh dear'.

So what does this mean in real terms?
It means you may have to go without mangetout and mangoes for a while. Forgive me if I don't weep for you.
You may have to go without supplies for engineering and IT hardware needs. Or wait until a boat or lorry brings them over. Delays will cost money. But they will be absorbed in the end.
Arms supplies may be affected. As may, possibly, the drugs trade. Not so sad now.
But it will also mean shortages in pharmaceutical supplies. Unless a plan for road and sea supply routes is implemented soon, before the shortages come near.

Carbon emissions will go down. Although there is talk of severe melt-down (no pun intended) around Eyjafjallajökull which is not good news. But then again it's part of the bad news we already know. And then there is the sister volcano that may still erupt and if that goes, we have no way of knowing what that will mean, for us, in real terms.

But what about the bad news that we haven't yet thought about?
For now we are all waiting for the volcano to stop and life to resume.
We expect this disruption to last however long it lasts – although we hope it won't last as long as last time – and then things will go back to normal. Mail, goods, drugs and people will cross continents with speed and reliability.
Amen.

But until then?
Until then we are left staring at the face of a civilisation that was kicked in the gut and is panting on the floor. For all our triumph over nature, our commercial giants and the leaps of science, there was no real plan B in place. And there isn't one still.
Our over-reliance on planes is mental as well as practical. Our planes are grounded and we wait. Because we cannot fathom that other ways of doing things are as valid. Or essential.

The newsflash is simple: you can't say Eyjafjallajökull but surely you can say 'nature' and remind yourself we don't actually run it. Even though we often pretend we do.
Our entire civilisational paradigm is based on a massive assumption: that we can fly. Freely. Frequently. At a moment's notice.
And while we can't, maybe we could have a think about what our over-reliance on the airline industry means. What our over-reliance on shipping goods and people across oceans and continents super-fast actually means and how we can live and live well when, for whatever reason, that can't go ahead as planned.

Now, while we wait, we are just waiting. We are not doing any thinking.
We never do any thinking.

But what if Eyjafjallajökull is Icelandic for 'suckers, the system has a massive weakness, how did you fail to spot it this time?'
Oh hold on. It wasn't just this time. It was also last time.

So maybe Eyjafjallajökull is icelandic for 'our arrogance is our worst enemy'.
The money markets. The global nexus. Our 'small world'.
Maybe Eyjafjallajökull actually stands for 'we will never learn'.
Even when we are forced to wait and all we can do is think, we still don't.
Meanwhile nature is doing its thing, despite our plans.
Inconsiderate thing that it is.

The future is what you dream of it

'No future' sang my beloved sex pistols. Maybe they had Greece in mind. Maybe they had the world in mind. Maybe they were talking of us all. This country is also going to the dogs, say my English friends. Seriously guys, get in line.

Yes our economy (let's not forget, I am a UK tax payer after all) is still not showing signs of recovery. Yes the budget was a bit of a joke. Yes the upcoming election is scaring me (Brown or Cameron? It's a voter's Sophie's choice). Yes I am slightly bemused by the eviction of an Israeli diplomat and the nursery school language used to describe it: 'the Israeli government promised never to do this again' ('this' being the forgery of UK passports) but the UK government stomped its feet because 'they told us the same thing the last time' (they forged passports) and this is a major blow to our 'friendship' so no kissing and making up.
One diplomat gets kicked out, Milliband doesn't go to the Israeli Embassy party (I kid you not) and we are all very stressed about 'what it all means' about the future of British-Israeli relations, about whether forging traveling documents is common practice among spies and international men of mystery and about whether sending the diplomat away was excessive, appropriate or inadequate.

And the Greek in me goes 'seriously folks, you call these problems?'.
And the rest of me (the adult, the political scientist, the voter, the tax payer) thinks 'these are serious problems. They are serious enough without being systemic. They are serious without marking the demise of the entire socio-economic edifice of the state'. That's the sort of thing that should be worrying the media and citizens in a civilised, stable, European democracy.
Not whether there is a future, but how to make the future better than the present.

Not 'how do you deal with your select troops (see SEAL equivalent) who decided that a national holiday parade was a good locus to shout out racist abuse of the worst kind?'
Not 'why did a 15-year-old Afghan refugee die of what sounds scarily like an IED hidden in a rubbish pile in downtown Athens?'
Not 'how do you stop gunmen from robbing diners at point blank in fashionable Athenian restaurants?'

With shouts and screams of 'we will spill your Albanian blood' and 'we will sew ourselves suits made of your skin' Greece's select troops have waltzed into a massive inquiry at the end of which, I trust, heads will roll. But will the damage be undone?
Will the people who watched these soldiers perform hate chants in unison, chants that had evidently been practiced, sporting weapons and the insignia of the state: flag, badge, uniform, will these people ever forget the fear? The shame? The anger? The horror?
Is the damage to the future to be undone by a committee?

And only days later a young boy, running away from the random death meted out on the streets of his native Afghanistan, dies of an unclaimed bomb/IED on the streets of Athens. Was he rummaging through the rubbish to find food? That in itself is heart-breaking. That in itself deserves a million posts. But that in itself is not the full story. Was he simply curious to see what lay in an abandoned bag? He had fled to safety, after all, to a place where curiosity doesn't kill the cat. Only it does and it did.

And it's not an isolated incident.
Random violence has been on the news and on our minds since the day Alexandros Grigoropoulos died. It's not all connected. It's not continuous. It's not all part of one story. But it is now constantly there. Be it police or anti-police violence, random gunmen, random explosions, stray bullets.
Be it armed men relieving people of wallets and jewelery in Athens restaurants.

What are we dealing with here?
It sounds like law and order is suspended, expectations of mutuality and social self-healing are irreparably breached and fear reigns supreme. Add to that a thick lather of financial insecurity, shame and fear at what the future holds, poverty and grim fiscal prospects and what have you got?
A country that has long since gone to the dogs and sees no way out.
Which is what many Britons think is happening to their country at the moment.

'Don't compare Greece to England' is the rejoinder I get from everyone. And I understand why they say that but, by the same token, it's the fact that we can't compare these two EU-member states, these two European democracies, that holds all the answers to our current predicament.
Why can't we compare them?
Because despite the crises, the problems, the corruption (don't forget Britain is currently in the midst of a new scandal whereby key Labour figures were busted trying to 'sell' their influence to the highest bidder and, on the back of the expenses fiasco, British politics is beginning to look distinctly continental all of a sudden) there is an expectation that the institutions will hold. Disintegration is not on the cards. Over here, the 'country going to the dogs' does not entail a genuine fear of complete lawlessness.
Going to the dogs does not entail the fear of 'shutting up shop' that underlies Greek political discourse over the past few months.

But why not? Are things really that different?
Corruption, poverty, unemployment are plaguing both countries.
Violence too.

A boy was stabbed to death in Victoria station a few days ago. In plain daylight.
A boy died of a rogue bomb in central Athens a few days ago. In the middle of the night.

Bad news all round.
Maybe we are all going to the dogs.

Yet in Greece we are rolling our eyes and shrugging our shoulders and saying 'what can you do' and 'oh it's bad, isn't it' whereas over here people have an unshakeable faith that they deserve more. Where the Greeks expect worse to follow, the Brits demand that their representatives pull their socks up. 'We are going to the dogs' they say 'and we won't be having with that'.
Where the Greeks sing along with the Sex Pistols, the Brits demand Annie.
'The sun will come out tomorrow' to our 'no future for me'.

Maybe that is the main difference after all.
Maybe we have forgotten how to believe in better, how to hope for more.
Maybe we are going to the dogs because we don't know how to think up a different future. Maybe we should start by hoping again. And believing.
For now, the Greeks proudly think that hope is for wimps and small children.
And we despair with our heads held high.

What change should look like

This is what change looks like. Said Obama.
Yes we can. Said the Democrats.
And lo and behold, the healthcare bill passed.
Was it simple? No.
Was it fast? No.
Was it everything we had hoped for? No.
No. No. No. But it was something. Both a practical solution to America's oldest social responsibility deficit and a symbolic move that change is not always for the worst. And many had said it can't be done.

That made me smile.
I haven't smiled at the news in a while.
But the smile didn't last long.
A text message flashed up on my phone a few minutes ago 'factions fighting on the streets, tourist organisations declaring Greece unsafe'. Thanks for shattering my zen. You know who you are.

'It is unthinkable that Europe won't support us' said the Greek prime minister.
No 'this is what change looks like' grandeur in our neck of the woods.
'We consider it unthinkable for the European Union not to give us the assistance and political support we are asking for' said our Premier.
And that is the extent of his policy.
And although it is most probably true – joining the euro didn't come with a withdrawal clause as such, you didn't keep your old currency in the attic 'just in case things didn't work out'. Failure was not an option. That was not the general idea. We were in this together from now on and whatnot.
So of course Europe will help. But Europe will be bitter and difficult about it every step of the way. In the middle of the current crisis, on the back of Germany's strop, the last thing Europe wants to do is help the destitute relative. The last thing they are prepared to do is be gallant about it.
And if the extent of our policy is 'sit back, have another mushroom vol-au-vent, they'll help us, what else can they do' then we need to be prepared for quite a bit more abuse from Germany.

Not that I think that the German press's puerile hate campaign is ok. But then again I don't think the way we've been running our affairs is ok either. And as two wrongs don't make a right, I wish the global press paused long enough to realise that the people mopping up the mess, picking the tab, suffering the cut backs, shouldering the extra tax and suffering the shame of this prolonged press campaign actually have no way of changing their fate. Never did.
And spare me the crap about democracies and the responsibility of the electorate. Procedural democracies with entrenched party systems tend to be stable Polyarchies with limited choice for the electorate whose participation only occurs every five years and in-between civil society is dormant, transparency wanting and accountability faint. Add to that Greece's deep-seated paternalistic venality, favouritism and clan mentality and what you have is a system of extremely qualified access and representation by numbers. Short of a revolution, there is very little 'the people' can do and the Commission wouldn't want a revolution within the eurozone now would they?

So go easy on us because we don't like our leaders any more than you do but we are the ones who have to pay the bills and live with the corruption and the shame.

And before you quote myself back at me, I know that I always bang on about public responsibility and I do not intend to go back on that now or ever. We are responsible writ large for our own society. And we are responsible for our lack of collective action, for the lack of civil society mobilisation. And for the lack of revolution damn it.
But one thing we cannot be held responsible for is our inability to get ourselves out of this bind right now. Social change does not occur fast enough. And global fiscal systems are interlinked with corporate power structures and government, not civil society actors and citizen associations.

Pointing out the obvious? Perhaps.
But as I keep telling my students at the university, the one thing that most political theories forget is real people. As I keep telling my colleagues in the City, the one thing most fiscal systems forget is real people.
But it's real people who die in wars and real people who represent that strange and wonderful animal that is 'consumer confidence'. And it is real people that are living in fear, insecurity and shame in Greece now. And none of them are in government or in a position to do anything right now other than suffer.
And what good is that doing anyone?

If the Commission went straight to the culprits I'd scream off with their heads and accept any stringent regulations that were thereafter imposed on our society. Do we need to up our game? Absolutely. Us the people need to do more. Need to be more.
But to do that we need to be able to stand up. If our backs are broken we are no good for growth and future prosperity.

News coming out of Greece at the moment is the exact opposite to the wonderful feel-good victory feel of news out of the USA. Yes they can and they did. And we cannot and did not. But we could.

Bear with us, is what the Greek government is telling the EU.
We will tax the Church (at last). What else will we do? We don't know. But bear with us.
The EU need to see more.
Damn it. We need to see more. Because we are tired of paying and being mocked by everyone, our government included. And there is little we, the citizens, can do right now. So.

That's what change looks like said Obama.
And why did that matter?
Because he made things happen. Because not only did he remember the real people. He actually made policy for them.

Mr Papandreou, it's your turn to show us what change looks like or face the consequences. Real people are watching.

Selling off the family silver

My mother was right.

'Are we even a country any more' she asked me, after the EU Financial Salvation Army made clear what the price of salvage was actually going to be.

At the time I made some vague noises around conceptual issues and the idea of statehood but as it turns out, she knew what she was talking about and I can just stuff my statehood notions. After explaining to my mother that countries are not businesses for whom bankruptcy can well mean selling off assets and shutting up shop and that borrowing and lending at the state level carries a different set of caveats than corporate lending does, I may just have to eat my words.

You must have heard of the two Germans, an MP and a finance expert, who suggested during an interview that Greece should sell off a few islands and maybe the Parthenon to pay off its debts?
Crazy? Possibly.
But yesterday the article was reprinted in the Guardian. In the Business section. Not the funny pages. Not in the spirit of 'comment is free'. And although it was treated as preposterous, it was still printed. In the Guardian. In the Business section.

So get in line guys.
Crete and Mykonos are already spoken for and me and a couple of mates are clubbing together for Santorini but the rest is available so have a look at the map and take your pick.

Now Josef Schlarmann and Frank Schaeffler didn't actually suggest we sell off the good islands, they are economists after all and this is a practical solution for them: Greece keeps the islands that bring in tourist revenue and the ones that are inhabited at a push – the logistical nightmare of relocation is just not worth it – and uninhabited islets that currently generate no revenue go up for sale.
Oh and the odd antiquity goes up for sale too.

"Those in insolvency have to sell everything they have to pay their creditors. Greece owns buildings, companies and uninhabited islands, which could all be used for debt redemption" Schlarmann told the Bild.

Buildings? If the country's debt would be settled by selling the odd building we wouldn't be where we are now. As for Greece's state-run businesses, again, if they were appealing prospects for private investors we wouldn't be in such dire straits. So. Islands and nuggets of history it shall be, decree our German friends.
Great.
Gotta love economists. A problem demands a solution and all assets are ultimately for sale. Ergo.

Now granted, I know that these statements are made against the backdrop of a German populace that is against a Berlin-funded bailout for Greece and I can't blame them. But not helping may not be an option within the confines of the euro-zone and although they EU and its powerful members retain the power – and on some level the right – to demand austerity measures, cut-backs and tightened belts, surely there is a limit to what can be asked of us.

Or is there?

Because, let's face it, this is no joke.

Of course the Bild headline Sell your islands, you bankrupt Greeks! And sell the Acropolis too! was, one would hope, tongue in cheek, the idea is out there. Granted, in the UK at least it has been printed and reprinted as a preposterous idea that is now on the table.
Preposterous. And on the table.
And Merkel is meeting Papandreou, in Berlin today. And she is not going to suggest that we sell off the Acropolis. Or antiquities. Because I am hoping her advisors have filled her in on the EU's legal and moral stand on matters pertaining to the trading in civilisation and cultural artifacts.
But uninhabited islands are real-estate and the idea is out there.

So could future maps show a bit of Austria in the Aegean? A bit of Malaysia in the Ionian sea? Could school-kids in future generations learn that Greece shares borders with Turkey, Bulgaria, Albania and Unilever since their purchase of the island of Evoia?

Of course Evoia is populated – not to mention massive – so it wouldn't be an obvious candidate for sale but the underlying concern is the same: when a distinct and contiguous piece of land – however small – is sold to an individual, company or foreign government what jurisdiction is there on that island? Logically the pre-existing national jurisdiction remains because what you sell is a plot of land, not sovereignty.

So what's the big deal? Land is bought and sold in Greece all the time.
And what the Germans don't know is that there is a law in Greece that protects public access to all beaches. So if Mr Schlarmann buys himself an island, I can always paddle out there and sun myself on his beach whether he likes it or not.
So what difference does it make, if the plot of land sold to an individual, company or government is on the beach or in the middle of the sea in the shape of a tiny little island?

Is it just that we resent being told what to do?
Is it that we resent the symbolic power of selling off islands rather than the odd field? Chunks of homeland, rather than plots of land?
Is it that we resent the implication of what was said: you are finished anyway so you might as well sell the family heirlooms and the house because you'll be out on the street whether you like it or not.
Or do we resent being told by the Germans who, after all, were the guys who most recently tried to take those islands away by force, and are now seemingly trying a different route? The echoes are deeply unpleasant. That, of course, is a facile criticism but that doesn't make it any less true.

Not that the Greeks would have enjoyed being told to sell by anyone else. The implication of selling distinct chunks of land and antiquities is too stark: you are finished, you are through, the vultures are circling your body and the heirs are already squabbling over the silver. Not a pleasant image and of course we are upset. But let's be honest with ourselves.

We are not upset just because two very practical teutonic economists found very practical teutonic solutions to a practical hellenic problem without consideration for our feelings.
We are not upset just because two lone voices in Germany told us we are finished.
We are not upset just because the world press is discussing that we are finished, as if we couldn't hear, as if it didn't matter we can hear.
None of this would matter as much, if we weren't all actually convinced we are finished. And if every solution didn't ultimately feel like selling off the family silver because there's nothing else left to do.

So onto the auction block. And don't forget. I've got first dibs on Santorini. You lot squabble over the rest.

The problem with Greece

If I had a penny for each time someone asked me 'so what on earth happened in Greece' I could be retiring to an exotic destination round about now, with funds enough to sustain a life of leisure and several pina colladas a day. I don't even like pina colladas. But anything would be better than having to explain to people that the only viable answer to 'what on earth happened in Greece' is nothing.

Nothing.

Nothing happened in Greece.
And that means two things.
It means, nothing happened in Greece – from a fiscal and economic perspective. Nothing was done to fix any of the pre-existing fiscal and economic problems and that is the problem.
It also means nothing new has happened in Greece. Things have been bad for a very long time. But now you noticed. The global markets noticed. And the moment they noticed, confidence – what little there was of it – died and with it died Greece's obscurity. You are no longer an embarrassing relative that can't keep their house in order. You are the problem child that needs to be chastised, disciplined and brought to order.
Well.

We should have seen it coming.
We always knew we were a problem child. Did we think we'd never get grounded?
That's what people had in mind when they were saying 'join the Eurozone, then Europe will be responsible for saving us. We won't be able to hurt ourselves too badly any more'. True words. But I am not sure what type of rescue they had in mind. Galloping stallions, gallant princes and pats on the back? Not a stern warning and instructions to cut spending and pull our socks up.

The Greeks are shamed. Why us and not the Irish?
The Greeks are angry. Demonstrations protesting salary cuts, demanding investment.
And the moon on a stick.

The Greeks are afraid. Are we still our own country, after we've been bullied, made to buy military equipment we neither need nor can afford only to be given money to buy it with? Are we still a real independent state, after the big boys have stepped in, settled in, changed the wallpaper?
We are to be kept under observation, now, of course. Of course.
There is no such thing as a free lunch.

If this was a lecture, this is where I would introduce the idea of a 'failed state'. But it's not a lecture. And it's not an account of a far away land. This is my homeland we are talking of and objectivity goes out the window as my heart breaks every time I hear Greece mentioned on the news.
The news.
Some times sympathetic. Some times outrageous. Always bad.

The Observer wondered out loud a few days ago whether Greece is up for a coup. Seriously. Sack the idiot who wrote that and the idiot who hired them because if you don't know Greece's military is emasculated and largely rudderless – and therefore incapable of political action, at last – then you should not be allowed to publish your drivel. One thing we learned over the last century is to keep the generals out of politics. With hindsight, we should have kept the politicians out too.

Because let's face it, this is several decades' worth of financial mismanagement catching up with us. And yet we've learned nothing. And the Greek government is still acting as if tricks will fix this.
Encourage consumer spending, say the economics textbooks, I know what I'll do, says the Greek government: I will make things like eating out tax deductible, then I will both tax and fine people who don't hit a certain level of spending. That should do it.

That's so perverse I can't even laugh about it.
Or maybe I can't laugh because after years of teaching development policy to keen-eyed students, I know how the mechanics of international debt work. I know what good governance standards entail and I know what happens next. Which is invariably nothing.
Nothing happens. Things don't get worse. Things don't get better. Things don't slide but they don't improve either. Purgatory for the fiscally irresponsible.

And this will be soon the problem with Greece.
For now, the problem with Greece is Greece.
The problem with Greece is that to the world Greece is the problem.
The problem with Greece is that to some of us it's home. And our home is on fire.