Hercules slaying Augeas for non-payment of debt - the promised fee for cleaning the Augean stables. The statue, by Lorenzo Mattielli, stands outside the Hofburg Palace in Vienna.
At least Hercules had an excuse, having done some honest work, though to my eyes this particular depiction makes him seem simply a violent fat thug. What, by contrast, have the EU, international banking and the lucrative intermediation of Goldman Sachs done for Greece, aside from shoehorn the country into a club it should never have been allowed to join?
Euro MP and UKIP leader Nigel Farage has just told it straight yet again, to a parliament in which notable figures pointedly chat to each other while he berates them: the EU has driven poor Hellas to desperation and worse is to follow.
This chaos was foreseeable; my wife and I were in Corfu in May 2010 - the month in which three innocent Athenian bank employees were burned to death - and the goldsmith at Roda told us there would be a revolution within a year. Now, a whole government has been removed by outsiders and democracy is, apparently, merely an optional extra for peripheral nations.
Anyone who know the Greeks knows they have a historical memory like the Irish. This will go deep and will not be forgiven.
5 comments:
Hard to see what the Greeks can do though, apart from burning down their cities. What then?
Social breakdown, Diaspora of the young. Terrorism. The resurgence of Communism.
JHL had an interesting one on "human rights getting out of hand" claims a politician. Ah, yes - the outcry over crims claiming human rights. A grateful public welcomes all human rights being restricted.
"Hard to see what the Greeks can do though"
1. Tell the Germans to stuff it.
2. Drive the bankers into the sea.
3. Reinstate their own currency.
4. Set about rebuilding their economy.
It will be hard work and there will be unpleasantness, but the alternatives are worse.
The Greeks should default and tell the Germans to stick it where the sun doesn't shine!
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