The days of Easter are days of Resurrection and hope, and are linked to the best moments of Hellenism.
Yet, the current confluence of events is not the best. This Easter, Greece seemed to be once again on the cusp.
Most people, after eight years of economic crisis, hoped for better days, expected a transcendence of the great uncertainties, and were figuring that there would be a certain improvement in the general conditions.
Unfortunately, even these low expectations of relative economic progress were not confirmed. Instead, other dangers emerged.
Despite the pervasive sense of recession, citizens are deeply concerned about national, and particularly about the worsening of Greek-Turkish relations, the threat of a military clash, and the constantly mounting tensions in the Aegean and Cyprus.
After the capture of the two Greek officers at the Evros border region, and the nervous, disorganised, and contradictory reactions from the Greek side, citizens are extremely concerned about the government’s ability to handle, in an effective and clear-minded manner, relations with our aggressive and unpredictable neighbour, as well about the country’s ability to manage effectively a long-term crisis with Turkey.
Greece in the past lost opportunities to arrange Greek-Turkish relations on a set and organised basis.
It abandoned the capabilities offered by the 1999 EU Helsinki summit, by not exploiting the Turkish leadership’s yearning at the time to incorporate Turkey in European procedures. Now that this prospect has been revised, there is a strategy vacuum.
Let us not deceive ourselves. Turkish aggressiveness and threats are here to stay. Even if there is some type of appeasement, Turkey’s claims will expand over time.
That requires a different stance from the Greek side.
Greece, its geography, the wealth of natural resources apparently hidden under its seas, and the revisionist geopolitical conditions that seem to be prevailing in the Middle East and the southeastern Mediterranean, mandate the development of deterrent capabilities.
Unreservedly, Greece must become a strong deterrent force in the region. That does not necessarily mean more armaments. Reform and modernisation of the armed forces are needed, of course, but the country mainly needs a new dogma and paradigm.
The country’s conditions mandate an economic rebirth, a re-orientation of production, its transformation into a centre of technology, into a hub of transfer commerce, into a shipping centre, into a zone of free trade and the unhindered movement of capital, into a place for the expression and representation of international interests, into a country that will be truly defended by its allies, because they will simply be defending their own interests as well.
This is a conception that can make Greece a real and essential power in the broader region, the character and viability of which can inspire and mobilise the suffering and incredulous Greek people.
The adoption of this outlook requires a different leadership, different faces, and different approaches and inspirations.
The current government lacks the necessary stabilising weight and orientation. It remains erratic, cynical, short-sighted, and deeply divisive. It is determined by base power syndromes, and is essentially unable to conceive of a national rebirth and reconstruction.
The mixture of super-patriotism and national-nihilism that keeps it together allows for nothing more than fruitless tactics and harmful choices.
The times demand different leaderships with a true understanding of the contemporary world, recognition of our position, a clear description of duties, and the fashioning of well-designed policies, with specific targets.
That is how the resurrection of the country and the nation will arrive – from forces that unite, can strike a synthesis, inspire, and create, but do not divide.
