Greece’s tragedy: life imitating art

Re: Europe forces Greece to kneel in last-ditch talks, July 13


Trying to comprehend the complexities, trials and tribulations of modern-day Greece, as explained by politicians and pundits, brings memories of my Ancient History teacher, Joff Brown. He had a flair for the dramatic, when cramming all that fact and fiction about Greek tragedy and mythology into our eager little brains, those many decades ago at school in U.K.

Presently, the political leaders in the country that devised democracy seem to be flying too close to the sun, like Icarus with his waxen wings; they also seem doomed to be forever rolling that boulder uphill, like Sisyphus.

While certain leaders of the Eurozone may believe they are reincarnations of King Midas, and everything they touch will turn to gold, they should perhaps focus their memories not on mythological times, but on what happened about 70 years ago. Many European economies became grateful beneficiaries when the Marshall Plan was introduced by the U.S. in 1948, and they received help to rebuild the destruction caused by World War II.

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Then, following several months of negotiations in 1953, the London Debt Agreement relieved debts of the Federal Republic of Germany to several European nations as well as Canada, the U.S. and others. Surely, it’s somewhat ironic that today’s Germany, having benefited so greatly from the largesse of other nations upon which it had wreaked such havoc, presently holds the purse-strings and the whip-hand dealing with Greece’s monetary problems.

Trying to gain any understanding from pundits and politicians involved in the current negotiations reminds me of schoolboy days, when coming out of Mr. Brown’s class we used to say to each other: “It’s all Greek to me.”

Bernie Smith, Parksville, B.C.