A civilized man

Former socialist premier curate Costas Simitis, who died connected January 5, is seen astatine an lawsuit celebrating 50 years since the instauration of PASOK, astatine the Zappeion Hall successful Athens connected September 3, 2024.

There were mean New Democracy voters who did the unthinkable successful 1996: They voted for PASOK. In essence, they voted for Costas Simitis (and needfully PASOK) aft years of “blue” and “green” enactment division. Was this the opening of the completion of the Metapolitesi (the play since restoration of democracy)? Was it a improvement of integrating broader κοινωνικά strata with the lure of modernization?

In immoderate case, Simitis, who passed distant connected January 5, managed to “tame” the Greeks. It could person been the timing, it could person been his ain personality, it could person been the generalized fatigue from the cockfighting, the machinations, the populism, the wide impasse of a society successful a Europe that had fundamentally changed aft 1989. I retrieve the nonfiction successful France’s Le Monde titled “Bienvenue, M. Simitis!”

If 1 considers what had preceded Greece aft 1988 – the Koskotas corruption scandal, the three predetermination races required for Konstantinos Mitsotakis (then person of New Democracy and begetter of the existent Greek premier) to unafraid a bulk government, the enactment of the nationalist Political Spring enactment by erstwhile ND stalwart Antonis Samaras, the instrumentality of PASOK premier curate Andreas Papandreou and so overmuch much – the imaginable of a sober, pragmatic and European-oriented premier curate seemed astir arsenic unrealistic arsenic it was necessary.

Simitis was 1 of the fewer radical successful Greek nationalist beingness with such idiosyncratic modesty. He was present, with his wife Daphne, with simplicity and discretion, astatine concerts and performances, continuing what helium ever did: beryllium a civilized person. For a person with a solid middle-class education, linked to the center-left by conviction, with bravery and a consciousness of duty, the information that helium managed successful the mid-90s to interruption – adjacent if unintentionally – the dividing obstruction betwixt the voters of blimpish New Democracy and socialist PASOK was an achievement.

His beingness and publication reflected the underground currents that had begun to take spot successful Greek society arsenic aboriginal arsenic 1985, when helium himself, arsenic curate of nationalist system successful the then caller authorities of Andreas Papandreou, carried retired the devaluation of the drachma (Greece’s nationalist currency astatine the time) to rescue the system that was successful information owed to benefits and waste.

In retrospect, 1 tin spot that the emergence of Simitis was intertwined with a stage of maturation of Greek society. Certainly, this stage successful the 1990s and 2000s was still early, and this trend had lone spasmodically organized its basal successful bid to spread roots and get the desired organization representation. Simitis was an exception. He did not make a tradition, but helium acceptable an example.