July 4,
2015
When
the Greek economy started going downhill George Papandreou who was the prime
minister at the time tried to strong-arm the European Union into backing down
from enforcing painful reforms by announcing a referendum. Instead, this
promptly led to his demise and his government was replaced by one that European
leaders ‘approved of’ and that conveniently tied up Greece’s loose ends with...
Europe
by enforcing strict austerity measures which Greeks gratefully accepted in
order to be saved. They had, after all, gotten themselves into this big
financial mess and needed the European Union to get them out. The result was
for Greece to spiral deeper into recession and Greek citizens to spiral deeper
into submission. The new government that
was elected with the New Democracy leader Antonis Samaras as Prime Minister
also buckled under the pressure and accepted painful reforms - some necessary for
the economy and some simply enforced by Greece’s creditors so that the numbers
would add up. Greece needed to be saved financially at any cost. Europe had
come to the rescue. People silently bowed their heads even further. Life became
harder but everyone persevered in hopes of better days to come.
SYRIZA
leader Alexis Tsipras came to power by promising to reinstate Greece’s dignity.
By rising up as a modern-day David, he believed he could fight against the
financial Goliath of Europe. He wielded numbers and reports that stated that
the Greek debt needed restructuring. But time and money were running out for
Greece, leaving Tsipras to play his last hand by issuing a referendum in which
the Greek people have been called upon to vote on whether they want the deal
the European Institutions and the IMF are offering them. They, in turn, have retorted
that the real question of the referendum is whether Greeks want to stay in the
Eurozone or not.
But
the referendum is more than a decision on whether Greeks want a deal that will
save their economy. It is no longer a question of whether Greeks want to live
dishonorably. With Greece on its knees, and unlike the myth where David won out
over Goliath, the real deal that is at stake here is Greece’s survival. Greece
is fighting for its life…
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