THE HYSTERICAL GERMANOPHILE FRENCH

The Velvet Imperialism of Germany

 By NANOS VALAORITIS

 After the war French intellectuals and journalists

offered a hand of reconciliation to their enemies the Germans to show they had overcome the nationalistic prejudices and  stereotypes. They would not hear of any criticism of the new Germany which today very Machiavellian or Merkiavellicaly  seems to extend over Europe a velvet imperialism showing its teeth only in the case of Greece as an example to fear and to avoid.

 “The French in fact hardly resisted, in words mostly”

 After the war the French tried to adopt superior attitudes to show that they had rid themselves of nationalism and offered towards the Germans a friendly hand, but in reality in part in gratitude for having been spared the wholesale destruction of Paris ordered by Hitler, and for the forces of occupation not having devastated their country totally as they did Greece, since the French in fact hardly resisted, in words mostly, and lets us not forget that Vichy guaranteed the intactness of the country and the loyalty of colonies, had it not been for de Gaulle’s minimal participation in the resistance and much ostentation, they escaped the war fairly unharmed.

 This unanimous attitude towards Germany of both French intellectuals of the left and the right, has led to a hypocritical: “Look how we surpassed our prejudices of World War II, how great and magnanimous we are to forgive our enemies and how politicaly correct, to create a united Europe, unlike the present day Greeks who have developed according to Jean Quatremer, a hysterical antigerman rage, overlooking their own serious faults, of their present condition .

 “Flags have often been the symbols of nationalism”

 The occasion of Jean Quatremer’s article in the leftist newspaper “Liberation” was the reception Angela Merkel, (of saintly disposition), received from Leftist Greek parties. Some extremist burning nazi flags. Flags have often been the symbols of nationalism and other ills targeted by opponents, even used by pop artists as torn emblems. That’s just an outward show like a happening. But when the Germans used the beautiful statue of the Venus de Milo giving presumably the Greeks the finger, since it was accompanied by a violently libelous article, that is blaspheming against beauty, aesthetics and civilization. If they did it because they are such a perfect democracy, their standards are pretty low. Is that not so Mr Quatremer? If the Nazi flag represents the barbaric behavior of their nation only recently then it deserves to be burnt. And that is the least of desecration it could suffer. Some still more furious people as the Russians would have pissed and shitted on it. Especially as the emblems burnt were not their present flag but the swastika of horrible memory. Even enlightened Germans who have read the history of their war crimes,might have agreed.

 “Siemens tried to corrupt Greek politicians”

 As for Merkel being totally innocent of the present condition of Greece today, we must not forget how her main industry Siemens tried to corrupt Greek politicians by bribing them. She personally is not the target, but the policy of her party the Christian Democrats of Adenauer and even the Social Democrats who by denying us war reparations which would have been a just punishment are now declaring in unison that we owe them, instead of them owing us. Is that the behavior of a model democracy that Jean Quatremer cites as compared to ours? A “democracy” that used labor from our country to reconstruct their economy and that imposed the most stringent salary and pension reductions on their own people to build up a huge industry. Is that the “n’importe quoi”, for which I accused Germany, some French users of the Internet have maintained  for a previous article of mine?

 “It must be forbidden by law to hire partisans after every election or before”

 The Greeks are famous for being the first people to criticize their own policies since Themistocles, Nikias, and Aristophanes. See recent article in the New York Times European edition the International Herald Tribune.OCT. 11 2012 by John Sfakianakis a Greek economist, entitled “Greece’s bloated public sector”. In it he underestimates the number of publicly employed at 700.000. In reality it is more than double that number if we count all NGO s, the municipalities and the rest of even private government funded enterprises. Increasing the taxes is due to the need to pay this monster at the expense of the rest of the citizens. So the first remedy is to get rid of the party mentality that uses this as a means of buying votes. It must be forbidden by law to hire partisans after every election or before. Purge the party system of all existent malpractices and create new more modern cadres with younger people who think differently. Firing the existing employees only makes things worse because it allows the party afficionados to hire new ones while the exiting ones are a huge burden on the state and tax payers, having to provide pensions or unemployment pay. The second measure is to abolish the total tenure system of public employees so that all will be on their toes to do their jobs properly, having to submit to revisions of their performance by outside neutral committees, if such a thing can exist. It’s anyway worth a try.

 But it looks as if Jean Quatremer hasn’t read Aristophanes, since the Greeks were the first to criticize themselves, and he certainly hadn’t read yet the article of John Sfakianakis who analyses the reasons for the overblown bureaucracy in Greece, as a practice of the two party system and the tenure laws that protect these employed from being fired by the next party in power. Down to the last little village this system works as  governments change hands. Whom then do you fire first in Greece, the employees or the system that brought them in? By firing the employees you treat the symptom and not the cause of the malady.

 “The Germans cannot easily get rid of bureaucratic mentalities unless they run the danger of displeasing their allies in the European South”

 First great mistake of the austerity measures of the German Christian Democrats seconded by the Social Democrats, is to act as if the party system was not at fault because then they too would be obliged to unseat their allies in the European South. The system pervades all countries involved some more than others, depending how it works in each one. So where do you start? With the capitalist system itself of plutocratic democracies? By just accusing the governments and policies of their rivals as do the republicans in the USA for over staffing government positions or proposing “useless” programs such as health and education. It seems that all capitalist democracies have the same problem. They cannot easily get rid of rigid bureaucratic mentalities unless they run the danger of displeasing someone, among their supporters.

 There we see the real reason for the reluctance of those in power to trim their bureaucracies, in case they lose voters to the rival party. How far can you trim your employees before you begin to lose essential services such as police, firemen, health, army, etc and see the State wane before your eyes and crime getting the upper hand.

But that in the eyes of the Neoliberal Right is no problem. Private ownership will replace everything public but at a price. Only those with money and private insurance will profit.

” This same dilemma confronted Athens and Sparta thousands of years ago”

 As for the real power that will remain in the hands of the few, the oligarchs who will rule without a murmur from the opposition. This same dilemma confronted Athens and Sparta thousands of years ago. Temporarily the oligarchs won, only to be replaced by even harder occupiers, the monarchies of a more warlike and archaic tribe, the Macedonians. End of democracy for 2500 years., and then for a short period the Roman Republic had a veneer of democracy until the monarchies came in once again. for 2000 years.

“Germany still is far from being a real democracy”

 So now for Jean Quatremer who confuses the Roman Republic for a democracy which Germany is, ruled by a senate of powerful rich citizens and certainly not the plebeians. Germany still is far from being a real democracy, because Mr Q. confuses the terms. No real democracy would have worked their workers with the lowest of salaries for 50 years to amass enough wealth to create a strong industry, and have them lead a life of essential poverty. Only a people with oligarchic instincts can achieve such a thing as the obedience of the masses to their draconian requirements. The final rise after the war of a handful of canny business technocrats who created a new class of rulers of the Siemens type amounts to an oligarchy hiding behind republican institutions

 For a people who followed the Kaiser and Hitler in two self-destructive murderous wars the present austerity is nothing. A tea party. But we see on the German’s faces and from their comments when they come to Greece how bitter they are. And how envious for the life here in a better climate. Is it not why they try frantically to buy property cheaply by the near bankrupt Greeks,with he money they earned by depriving themselves all these years ? No other visitors of Greece behave in this way and resent the local population so much. Are these the products of a model democracy Mr Quatremer, of a people who deprived us of war reparations with various excuses until this very day? I do not expect you to answer because you are too hidden behind your own guilt for having been spared what the Greeks went through. I mean France as a country in WWII. And if things are not all perfect in our realm look to what is rotten in your state of “democracy” before you dare critize another country much smaller and poorer than your’ s, that resisted the Nazis and Fascists, forgetting the imperialist and colonial crimes of your own recent past.

 Nanos Valaoritis

Athens, 12 of Oct.2012

info@bookbar.gr

 Το άρθρο του Νάνου Βαλαωρίτη στα ελληνικά

Ο βελούδινος ιμπεριαλισμός της Γερμανίας

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