A land where the 'gods' and 'oracles' and 'myth' are all interconnected and summoned up at the merest mention of its name.
The birthplace of civic democracy and through its many great thinkers that debating arena of life which is philosophy; a land strewn within its history of daring heroes displaying outrageous courage and gallantry; the few lead by Leonidas blocking the pathway to the greatest army of the ancient world being just one example. Is facing just as bigger danger as then, it is facing ruination and bankruptcy.
How it needs its 'gods' and heroes today! How we all do!
Think of modern day Greece and thoughts are swept away to hot sunny days of blue skies and seas, shorelines of golden sands, cliff top crystal white villages surrounded by rugged hills and green ancient olive groves. All the pictures flashing through a tourists mind cemented there by the natural warmth and friendliness of the people of Greece themselves.
How times have changed from the past glories that once were, and even now today how that idyll of a tourists snap has altered, nobody can afford to go and visit and rely heavily on the imprint of memory, it's free and a far cheaper option.
Ironically this ruination seems to have been brought about by democracy and a philosophy of thought, namely, a federation of states, the European Union, and its shiny new currency the Euro which enticed the leaders of Greece and other member states by painting grandiose pictures free of financial pain and suffering once they had signed the death warrant to their old debilitating currencies, which in the Greek case was the 'useless' Drachma, a sign here please ceremony was duly arranged and was happily carried out. Oh the joy of it all and rubbing of hands of a job well done by all concerned.
Who could resist such promises? Based on 'expert' opinion and with their help the political elite began to build and conjure up hopes and dreams, they did what they are good at and universal belief was set in motion, the greater good were about to enter paradise, or as an ancient Greek would say, enter the fields of Elysium.
Alas,(you just KNEW it had to come) not for the first time this belief and its associated dream factory proved to be false and empty of substance. It hasn't quite worked out the way they had all 'hoped' it would. Note the change of emphasis; they are good at that too!
The intricacies of the exact problems facing Greece today are too complex to examine here, may aswell leave that to another bunch of 'we told you so' experts, bearing in mind that a group of these omnipotent experts advised the political hierarchy to do away with the Greeks own currency, the Drachma, and replace it with what is proving to be a poisoned chalice that is the Euro. Yes leave it to the all knowing superior experts and the political elite and the world will be fine and dandy!
In my view, ( it's surely woth more than the Euro?) what faces Greece is the very practical antipathy that awaits us all if we continually allow ourselves to be lead by and listen to the miniscule cartel that consists of the partnership between 'expert advisers' and their willing political concubines .
I personally know a few ordinary Greek people, and like ordinary people everywhere they are warm and friendly; take time to get to know them and you soon discover how alike they really are to you. Take time to say 'kalamera' or 'yammas' and you will end up with a friend for life. They never forget a friendly smile or a kindness. They will take to you as one of their own. But be aware of one thing; do not upset them, if you do then you will see a passion flared like you have never seen it flare up before, and they do not for a moment care where they are when this angry passion rises.
The news recently from Greece shows this passion, shows it all too clearly. They are a nation of people who are upset and rightly so. They have been betrayed at the highest levels and it can be said been betrayed by a group of people who have not a shred of interest in Greece as a land of history or as a land lived on by people and worked on by those same people for generations.
But this isn't just a scenario that is affecting Greece. It's a situation that affects everyone and has been brought about solely by the actions made on 'our' behalf by the elite of 'experts' and their willing friends in the political world. They have sold the world down the tube and we are faced with buying it back. Don't even contemplate raising any kind of objection, it is their mess and they have deemed us to pay for it, so don't moan!
Well I am complaining, right here right now!
These experts and politicians have had a hand in ruining yet another country and as another ruler once did, Pontius Pilate, are now washing their hands of any involvement in its ruination.
This 'elite' set of people continually appear to tell you what's good for you, these same people who have all the policies tell you they will make our homes, homely and loving, that they will make our little planet the bestest planet in the whole universe and perversely, even though they have no track record of making anything right, in fact seemingly making matters worse we seem to go along with it without so much as administering a good old thump to the jaw, and swallow it all hook line and sinker!
Continually feeding lines of 'it's not our fault' when it does go wrong and seek to off load the blame and administer the guilt we should be feeling because it is us that keep spending beyond your means and now it's time to pay everybody back with interest we seem to just accept? Surely anybody with a thinking mind can see that what is being fed is not worth the paper the fodder is being read from or is it?
Revolution, (never mind a thump to the jaw) isn't permitted because they have ensured they will always have a bigger gun than anyone of us, and he who holds the bigger gun always wins and always carries a big fat smug smile with it too.
They know when they first dispatch their wisdom that probably we aren't interested as we should be. Afterall they invade nations and do away with those who may mount some feeble opposition pretty much under any 'rightful' excuse that they can find. If it goes wrong it isn't going to be them that pay the ultimate price on our behalf is it? And of course while we are considering the next must have item to add to the other must haves that we have faithfully acquired on the never never they pontificate how life is so great and pleasant and how grateful we all should be for taking the decisions that they do on our behalf.
The land of Greece? Will they find their modern heroes? Will we, of this modern day civilisation, create stories and myths that will capture and fascinate down through the ages like those of older ancient times? I hope so because from where I am standing the edge of the precipice that leads to Hades doesn't seem too far away.
(Oh! And we won't be being carried by the ferryman either as we have no money with which to pay him with, except the useless Euros? So that's yet another enterprise that has gone down the tube too! Ferryman duties anyone?)
Although there is one small consolation to this catastrophe that we are all heading towards; and that is the little group that has continually had its way will fall into the abyss with the rest of us and at least then justice will have been finally served on that morally starved and corrupt few. We the righteous and hard done to will occupy the fields of Elysium while they get to live on the fields of Asphodel, more commonly known as the fields of eternal punishment… now who has a smug grin?
