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HOW TO UNDERSTANG THE GREEK ISSUE

Germanys smear campaign against Greece.

This letter of the EUROPEAN LEAGUE OF GENEVA IS ADDRESSED TO THE CITIZENS OF THE EUROPEAN NATIONS
REPRESENTED IN THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT. ALL EUROPEAN NATIONS HAVE CONTRIBUTED TO THE CULTURE AND CIVILISATION OF EUROPE, ALL MUST BE PROUD FOR THEIR ACHIEVEMENTS. HOWEVER THE PRESENT CAMPAIGN CONDUCTED BY GERMANY AND DIRECTED AGAINST GREECE, THE SLOGANS OF GERMAN PROPAGANDA PRETENDING THAT THE GREEKS ARE NOT A EUROPEAN NATION, IS A SMEAR TO EUROPEAN CULTURE AND ALL EUROPEAN NATIONS MUST PROTEST. HENCE THE NEW REACTION WITH THE WIDE SPREAD MOVEMENT THAT

WE ARE ALL GREEKS


MUST BE A CALL FOR ALL THOSE WHO ARE INTERESTED IN THE SOLIDARITY AND CULTURE OF THE EUROPEAN UNION. THE EUROPEAN LEAGUE OF GENEVA REMINDS WITH THIS LETTER THAT THE ATTEMPT TO SMEAR THE DIGNITY OF THE GREEK NATION IS AN INSULT TO ALL EUROPEAN NATIONS THAT ARE PARTICIPATING IN THE SAME CULTURE AND DIGNITY.

IN FACT WHO ARE THE GREEKS? Who is Schuble, who are the Dutch, who are the Finns to insult Greece? asked Mr Papoulias, President of the Greek Republic, referring, we presume, only to a small section of the nations mentioned, as presented in some of their press and TV media. The Greek Public debt per capita ($33,300) is very small in proportional comparison with that of the USA ($42,300), UK ($189,800, Finland ($51,100), Italy ($31,300) or even of Germany itself ($54,600)! Yet a preposterous smear campaign has been first initiated in Germany among the press and government officials and spread in the Press and public opinion of countries like the Netherlands or Finland. The Greeks are called good-for-nothing idlers and voices come from the top political society of those countries requesting the ousting of Greece from the EU. According to OECD statistics the average working hours for the Greeks are 2,119 compared to 1,390 for the Germans but what the Germans do not understand is that, contrary to themselves, the Greeks at the end of their long daily labour like to spend hours at sea-side enjoying their ouzo and joking in company with their cordial and merry friends. When you distort the truth, you kill democracy. Democracy is a Greek word, together with a 25-30% of Greek words that form the vocabulary of each western European language. According to Guiness or Webster more than 45,000 words of the English vocabulary are of Greek origin. We all in Europe speak with Greek words. When people pronounce the name Europe they are ignorant that this very word is constructed by two Greek words which express the beauty of a legendary Greek maidens large shining eyes so ...beloved by Zeus! The contribution of Greeks in western thought and culture is not only that which is habitually attributed to th antiquity from the 5 cent B.C. or the post-Alexandrian Hellenistic Age when the first principles and achievements of modern science were founded. People easily forget other historical facts that followed the Golden Ages which are not included or stressed upon in the educational curriculum of some European countries. Indeed, the Greek spiritual influence is until now omnipresent in the development of the European identity. They forget that the Roman civilisation which developed to the present European civilisation was in all of its aspects founded on the Greek culture and thought. Was it not the British philosopher Whitehead who said in his book Science and the Modern World that all modern thought is but a series of footnotes to Plato? They forget that the post-Roman Greek Byzantine Empire for 1000 years, from 500 AD to 1453 AD, was the only cultural center in a Europe devastated by centuries of obscurantist Middle Ages or 35- and 100-years wars of self extermination. It is the Greek byzantine spirit that inspired the Arabs who developed a high culture in Spain and communicated it to northern Europe. They forget that when the 1000-year old Greek Byzantine Empire finally collapsed to the terror of Turkish invasion in European soil, it is the Greek scholars that fled to Florence and Milan and Rome to propagate culture and ignite the Renaissance and the Enlightenment in Europe. They forget that during the darkest days of Turkish occupation the Greek nation cultivated a demotic poetry that Goethe himself felt obliged to translate and Greece had produced artists of high quality , like Panselinos and El Greco.

They forget that when multiple nations of Europe were dominated by the German and Austrian Emperors it is the Greek revolution of 1821 against the Turkish oppression that woke up from their slumber the European Nations and started liberation movements in Europe for the establishment of the democracy of Nation-States. They forget that during the dark years of the so-called Nazi but in fact German invasion it is the Greek Army that held the ramparts of resistance during whole 6 months against the united Axes forces of Fascism and of Nazism. They forget that Winston Churchill heralded the Greek Army resistance with the words from now on we shall not say that the Greeks fight like heroes but that the heroes fight like Greeks. They forget that Hitler himself recognized that the delay of his attack to Russia, so fatal to the German cause, was due to the unique 6-month-long (October 1940 to May 1941) Greek Army resistance in mainland Greece and its Island of Crete. They forget that present-day post WWII Greece has excelled with numerous scientists in American and European Universities, with two Nobel Prize winners in literature and poetry, with philosophers introducing novel ideas, with distinguished world-renowned artists in theater, opera, music, cinema and the plastic arts as well as in the world of affairs. Coming to more recent days, they forget that the Greek owned Merchant Marine who suffered heavy losses during WWII aiding the Allies in the free seas, succeeded within a few years after the war to become and is still now the first Merchant Marine in the World. Is it a performance becoming good-for-nothing idlers as presented nowadays by the German, Dutch, Finnish government officials and Press who were so rightly addressed to by the President of the Greek Republic? In all these respects the Greek achievements throughout the centuries were not less than the great achievements of the rest of European nations. But let us see the reasons of this preposterous smear campaign. Why such hatred from the German side? Is it only because they remember the Greek Resistance against their invading forces and the occupation during the war? If we read the account of a German witness we may be able to dig deeper into the German soul. This German witness is no less than Friedrich Nietzsche himself who wrote these lines in his book The Birth of Tragedy (Chap. 15): <<Nearly every age and stage of culture has at some time or other sought with deep irritation to free itself from the Greeks, because in their presence everything self-achieved, sincerely admired and apparently quite original, seemed suddenly to lose life and color, to shrink to an abortive copy, even to caricature. And so time after time a hearty resentment breaks forth against this presumptuous little nation, which for all time dared to designate everything not native as barbaric. Who are they, one asks, though they have nothing to show but an ephemeral historical splendour...yet lay claim to the dignity and pre-eminence...for all the poison which envy, calumny and rankling resentment created within themselves have not been able to destroy that self-sufficient grandeur...Unless we acknowledge this, who will deem it sport to run such a team into an abyss which they themselves could clear with the leap of Achilles?>> THE EUROPEAN LEAGUE OF GENEVA, a multinational Think Tank of men of Letters and Scientists stationed in Geneva, wishes to herald and join the recent pan-european movement WE ARE ALL GREEKS and condemn as counterproductive for the welfare and advancement of the European Unions ideals the preposterous Germanys smear campaign against a Nation which laid the foundation of the European culture from antiquity and carried it on with its omnipresence throughout the centuries and amidst horrible vicissitudes until the present days. Those in Germany who claim to oust the Greek Nation from Europe they forget by ignorance that it is more true to say that Europe is Greek than that Greece is not European! The present-day Greek risk of default. But let us see what really happened and the Greek economy is today on the brink of default. It is not words but figures that may better clarify the present situation. Between 1945 and 1950 Greece was devastated by an

attempt of communist elements to seize power by force with the aid of the northern neighbours who, after the war, were placed behind the Soviet iron-curtain. The Greek Army resisted successfully and succeeded to keep Greece in the free world, thanks of course to the material aid of the USA. This so-called civil war completed the devastation and impoverishment of the country left from a disastrous German Occupation. However, after 1953, a rapid progress was undertaken by the Greek people that elevated Greece to the rank of second power in economic growth after Japan! These are the figures that confirm this reputation: 1953 to 1973: average annual increase of the GNP 8% 1953 to 1973: average annual increase of Private Investment, 10% of the GNP 1953 to 1973 : Public Debt inferior to 25% of GNP! At that time, we all in Europe spoke about the Greek economic miracle- a second case of the famous German Wirtschaftswunder! However the political situation, due to corrupt and impatient for power petty politicians, cultivated the climate for the imposition of a 6-year long dictatorship by a military Junta (1968 to 1974). The event did not diminish the economic growth but, on the political side, it created a popular aversion to what was coined as extreme right wing. The climate was turned to socialism following a strong similar tendency in Western Europe and especially in France where the Greek political leader Const. Karamanlis had spent his years of exile. Therefore the return of Karamanlis after the fall of the Junta, was marked by the same tendency which was also enhanced by his politically dangerous rival Andreas Papandreou who had just arrived from the USA bearing the triumphant banner of Socialism! Karamanlis, in 1975, dictated a new Constitution oriented towards the same tendency, including article 106 which in 3 reads as follows: <<With the reservation of the protection provided in article 107 in connection with the re-export of foreign capital, the law
may regulate the acquisition by purchase of enterprises or the compulsory participation therein of the State or other public agencies, in the event these enterprises are of the nature of a monopoly or are of vital importance to the development of sources of national wealth or are primarily intended to offer services to the community as a whole.>>

On the basis of this article, Karamanlis persecuted important investors (Niarchos, Andreadis etc), and immediately statistics show that foreign private investment fell, from the annually persistent 10% during 20 years, to an annual average of 0,6% which still holds until today (2012)! At the same time GNA growth fell, from 8% to 3,5%. Things became worse when Andreas Papandreou won the elections of 1981. Private enterprise was constantly persecuted, all existing important industrial establishments were either closed or nationalised, the competent entrepreneurs were ousted to be replaced by the clientele of Papandreous Socialist Party (PASOK) and industrial production became practically non-existent. The increasing rate of unemployment obliged the governments to absorb the labour power in the civil services. Lack of production coupled with the political need of votemongering obliged Andreas Papandreou to seek refuge to ever increasing borrowing. Statistical figures are consequently summed up as follows: 1981 to 1990: annual growth of GNP 1,5% annual growth of Private Investment 0,6% Public Debt increase: from 25% to 90% of the GNP in a period of 10 years! The recourse of the allegedly reputed as economist Andreas Papandreou to borrowing, had ominous consequences. The decomposition of all industrial activities and of local production, the use of the cumulative borrowing to vote-mongering non-productive expenses for public consumption created a spiral of increased imports necessitating additional borrowing. The introduction of the easy-money system for political purposes by the allegedly reputed as economist Andreas Papandreou and his political success among an applauding consumers public, obliged his successors to follow the system for political supremacy in order to fatally arrive to the present impasse! Who is really to blame? The corrupt and incapable politicians or the naivety of the people?
From the European League of Geneva (a European multinational Think Tank), Geneva, Switzerland The President Dr Nicolas Kaloy, Ph.D.(Philosophy), Geneva

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