Tonight it looks like the Oxi’s have it, and Greece’s fraught relationship with the Franks has reached a new phase, with possible Grexit coming; that’s assuming the exit polls are correct and that this whole torturous episode doesn’t continue. Whether Grexit takes place or not, though, the whole episode has fundamentally damaged the European Union by undermining the very idea it was built on – solidarity.
If you ever get Irish people on the subject of the Great Famine, the essential point they always make is that had the potato blight hit Yorkshire, no one would have starved because London would have come to its aid. Yorkshire is the example used, because it’s far away enough from London but the people are regarded as being the same. The people of Ireland were not, clearly.
Likewise when you look at the hardships facing the Greeks, and wherever blame is portioned, do you think the moneymen in Frankfurt would stand for that if it was happening in Brandenburg or Saxony? Would Parisians allow such misery to afflict Provence?
This is not to compare the Greek tragedy with the Irish famine in terms of size or blame – it’s nothing like it, and the Greek ruling class was complicit in this disaster.
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