Diaspora and Greek Politics: Sentiment Instead of Scrutiny

Parts of the Greek diaspora attack Greek politicians with deference. Credit: Greek Reporter

Parts of the diaspora inactive attack Greek authorities with the aforesaid tolerance that erstwhile enabled dysfunction astatine home. Many attack politicians from Greece with sentiment alternatively of scrutiny.

By Steve Bakalis

As caller governmental tensions successful France show, the nationalist statement implicit taxation, societal benefits, and fiscal subject is erstwhile again reigniting the precise questions Frédéric Bastiat posed 2 centuries agone — astir however overmuch the authorities tin give, and who yet pays for it.

Everyone wants much enactment from the authorities — cheaper services, much benefits, less taxes. But arsenic the French economist warned astir 2 centuries ago, “Everyone wants to unrecorded astatine the disbursal of the state. They hide that the authorities lives astatine the disbursal of everyone.”

That elemental information cuts done the sound of modern politics. From Paris to Athens, the illusion of “free” nationalist goods remains 1 of the large governmental fictions of our time. Governments committedness generosity, citizens expect protection, but the measure ever lands determination — usually connected the aforesaid taxpayers who believed they were being spared.

The philosopher Bertrand Russell made a related point: “Power lies with those who power finance, not with those who recognize however to usage it.” The danger, helium warned, is that those successful complaint of spending often deficiency some knowing and restraint. Between Bastiat’s realism and Russell’s cynicism lies a communal information — governmental power, erstwhile detached from economical responsibility, breeds ignorance and motivation fatigue.

Greece’s acquisition with the diaspora

Greece’s acquisition is simply a vivid example. For years, governmental elites spent recklessly, turning the authorities into a strategy of communal dependency. When the reckoning came successful 2010, the effect was not conscionable fiscal illness but a deeper nonaccomplishment of civic trust. As Bastiat besides wrote, “The surest mode to marque laws respected is to marque them respectable.” In Greece, laws excessively often became tools of convenience alternatively than pillars of fairness.

Against this background, the caller sojourn of Ioannis Loverdos to Australia offered a revealing snapshot of however this dynamic extends beyond Greece’s borders — adjacent into its diaspora. Loverdos, serving arsenic Deputy Minister for Greeks Abroad, arrived with the connection that “the ballot is power,” urging expatriates to enactment much actively successful Greek elections. He framed voting arsenic some a civic close and a mode of reinforcing their value to the Greek state: “If you vote, you go much important to Greece — the authorities needs you more.”

The statement, though politically polished, carried a quiescent irony. Within the archetypal pillar of the Greek-Australian diaspora — the web of authoritative assemblage bodies and ecclesiastical hierarchies that often talk for the diaspora but seldom from wrong it — the effect was courteous but uncritical. It was a acquainted script: polite receptions, ceremonial speeches, and nationalist expressions of unity. Yet beneath the surface, determination was small statement astir what the sojourn genuinely meant for representation, accountability, oregon the broader wellness of Greek ideology abroad.

Sentiment replaces scrutiny

This quiescent deference to officialdom contrasts sharply with the governmental civilization that galore Greek-Australians embody successful their regular lives. In Australia, nationalist spot is sustained by scrutiny; leaders are respected lone erstwhile they are accountable. Yet erstwhile the aforesaid citizens prosecute with Greek institutions, the standards often shift. Sentiment replaces scrutiny, nostalgia tempers criticism, and deference to authorization persists — a paradox that Bastiat would person recognized arsenic the brushed signifier of dependency that sustains the illusion of the benevolent state.

The Loverdos visit, then, was not conscionable a diplomatic workout but a mirror. It reflected however parts of the diaspora — contempt their civic maturity wrong Australia — inactive attack Greek authorities with the aforesaid tolerance that erstwhile enabled dysfunction astatine home. It besides exposed the constricted representativeness of those “official pillars” of diaspora beingness that assertion to talk for each Greek-Australians, yet excessively often service arsenic extensions of Athens’ governmental theatre.

This opposition — betwixt civic vigilance successful 1 state and deference successful different — exposes a deeper taste paradox. In societies similar Australia, nationalist spot depends connected transparency and the investigating of ideas; successful Greek governmental life, it excessively often depends connected ceremony, symbols, and sentiment.

Bastiat’s connection is not an statement against the authorities but a telephone for honesty — to retrieve that each close entails a duty, each payment a cost. The authorities doesn’t beryllium supra society; it lives done it, and disconnected it. When citizens hide that, authorities becomes theatre, and fiscal irresponsibility a shared delusion.

As Russell observed, powerfulness that acts without reflection oregon accountability endangers not lone those who wield it but the nine that tolerates it.

Dr. Steve Bakalis is an economist and has worked with La Trobe University, The University of Melbourne, Victoria University, and universities crossed the Asia-Pacific and Gulf Region.

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