Communication www n°7 / June 15, 2012.
There is still a bright future for Greece - the first historical Motherland of our Europe.
Greece is not that "2%" of the European GDP. It has to be affirmed decisively : Greece is NOT that supposedly "2%" of the European GDP ! Greece is far more than that.
First of all, Greece is 3000 years of ancient Greek civilizations established over all the Mediterranean - the first "Mare Nostrum" of Europe, actually -, around the Black Sea, and, thanks to the epic of Alexander-the-Great, into both Egypt - where the ultimate Pharaonic dynasty (including Cleopatra) was Greek - and Persia, till the Indus river and well into Central Asia where an incredibly rich Greek-Buddhist culture emerged and throve during a millenium!
Thus GREECE IS NOTHING LESS THAN THE FIRST HISTORICAL MOTHERLAND OF EUROPE - not a mere "2%" of its temporarily failing economy!!!
Secondly, Greece is the one thousand year-long Byzantine empire which was an extraordinary development of our syncretic Greek-Roman Civilization.
Then Greece is centuries of Resistance against the invasions, the occupation and the oppression by the Turks/"Ottomans"...
The first historical Motherland of Europe, Greece is also the sole 5000 year-old country/civilization properly identified through ages in our continent, and, from this glorious past, so many names are still famous: Aeschylus, Archimedes, Aristotle, Aristophanes, Democritus, Demosthenes, Diodorus of Sicily, Diogenes, Empedocles, Epicurus, Euclid, Euripides, Eratosthenes, Heraclitus, Herodotus, Hesiod, Homer, Pericles, Phidias, Plato, Polybius, Ptolemy, Pythagoras, Socrates, Solon, Sophocles, Thales of Miletus, Thucydides, Xenophon, Zeno - non-exhaustively.
They were the smartest minds of their time; all of them were Greeks!
But, naturally, the most emblematic symbols of Ancient Greece are the Olympic Games. Like the three other pan-Hellenic Games - the Nemean ones and those in Delphi and in Corinth -, the Olympic Games are an intrinsic element of the history of Greece, an inalienable part of its Patrimony. And it should not be forgotten that these universally applauded days originated there 2788 years ago: in Greece!
It has been suggested that Greece should now sell some of its islands... This is nonsense. For thousands of years, the Greeks have been fighting to defend their civilization. The last time, in 1974, the invasion in Cyprus resulted in 4000 deads among the Greek population... Never a Greek territory will be abandoned again, NEVER !!!
There is no doubt that in times of dire economic crisis, some tough measures have to be taken. It does not automatically mean unfair austerity: here comes the difference between good governance and bad governance. Not so rarely in Europe, the DEBT stems from (more or less) years of bad governance, mainly when, to be elected or re-elected, irresponsible politicians promise always more "rights" and more subsidies from the State. No surprise: the DEBT keeps on growing...
Good governance first of all refers to balanced budgets, no new DEBT, and as many structural reforms as necessary - basically privatizations and deregulation -, as long as it does not have unfair consequences for the tax-payers and for the weaker populations of the country. That is good governance.
Impoverishing people is all the contrary; far, far from good governance!...
Additional structural reforms might be chosen without austerity. Directly derived from the Constitution for the United States of Europe, Dr. Victor's (2009) "Plan for the Economic Recovery in Europe" [1] has been introducing transformational structural REFORMS TO SAVE MORE THAN €400 BILLION EVERY YEAR IN EUROPE. Some of these reforms and connected ones - not described in that Plan but praised by a few analysts, too - could be implemented by a new responsible Greek government WITH NO AUSTERITY. According to the Constitution for the United States of Europe, for every European country there is indeed a kind of POSSIBLE "Magic Wand" programme, respectful to its own historical identity and to its total sovereignty among our European family.
Anyway, IT IS UP TO THE GREEKS TO DECIDE! Not to the I.M.F. or to the U.N.O., not to the Supreme Soviet of Brussels or to the Politburo of Paris!
For everything relating to Greece, of course, it is up to the Greeks to decide!!!
Therefore, it is up to the Greeks to determine how to proceed to repay the DEBT. But the DEBT must be repaid. The German Finance Minister, Dr. Wolfgang Schäuble - potentially the perfect Director of the future European Federal Reserve Bank -, is quite right: there is no alternative; DEBTS must be repaid. Always.
Nevertheless, 4 limits must be strictly observed as regards any new programme of government: no taxes for the pensioners; no taxes for the Church; no cuts to the Defense budgets; and no taxes for the shipbuilders/shipowners. Why ?
Because the pensioners have already been paying taxes during all their professional life, and because they have a new part in a weakened Society: to SUPPORT directly those among the younger generations of their FAMILY who need it.
Because the Church, beyond its religious work, has a new social duty when the State is on the brink of ruin: to organize the economic SOLIDARITY for all the Greeks who have no other support.
Because it is VITAL for the whole Europe that the Greek Armed Forces permanently remain more powerful than those of any potential invader(s).
Because when the State is not, durably or even temporarily, in the heydays of its prosperity, it is up to other major actors of the Society TO INVEST AS REQUIRED IN ORDER TO KEEP THEIR COUNTRY AMONG THE TOP-RANKED ONES. For thousands of years, the Greeks are among the very best shipbuilders and seafarers in the world. Thus they now have the unique opportunity to head a Free World SHIPBUILDING Consortium - open to any other European, U.S., Japanese, Australian, (...) private companies - that will be tasked first with designing both the future warships of Europe [2] and all the needed platforms for the industrial conquest of the oceans, while organizing, somewhere in Greece, the giant shipyard(s) where these numerous ships will be either assembled or built altogether. This programme might be named "the Super-Island XXI-Project". Similarly, it makes no sense if Greece is not given a fair share of the vast SPACE CONQUEST Plan that Europe has urgently to impulse [3], with any allied power(s) or alone, to prevent the communist dictatorship of China from dominating the Outer Space and, ineluctably, Planet Earth... This is another typical key STRATEGIC and PATRIOTIC financement that Greek Shipbuilders/Shipowners have to voluntarily launch, in place of the State or in addition to its currently too modest participation in the European Space Agency.
As beforesaid, everybody should be aware that BOTH THE REPAYMENT OF THE DEBT - while keeping the € currency - AND THE ECONOMIC RECOVERY ARE POSSIBLE FOR GREECE, WITHOUT AUSTERITY. Only traditional and transformational structural reforms are required. Immediately.
The Economic Recovery will then increasingly, exponentially, be the fruit of the growing development of THE EXTRAORDINARY POTENTIAL THAT CONTEMPORARY GREECE HAS. Basically, like Italy, thanks to both its favourable climate and the richest historical Patrimony of our European Civilization - the Greek-Roman ages -, Greece definitively owns some of the very best touristic opportunities in the world.
Additionally, Greece possesses an incomparable potential of renewable energies - solar (when "3D" panels recently developed by the (U.S.) M.I.T. capable of generating up to 20 times more power than all the previous generations of solar panels), wind and sea (at surface, sub-surface and deep-water levels) being the prominent ones - and a highly probable, though largely unexpected until the present years, double bonanza lying under the Eastern Mediterranean.
It has been proven that huge reserves of gas lie under the sea between Israel and Cyprus. The same wealth is likely to exist under the Aegean Sea and around Crete. That could turn all the Eastern Mediterranean into another North Sea or another Gulf of Mexico, as regards gas (and oil?) production.
The other energetic treasures may simply lie on the seabed: they are the immense mineral resources whose existence has been revealed in many places of the ocean-floors since the middle of the seventies, notably the so-called "poly-metallic nodules"
Therefore, today's Greeks have all the good reasons to feel proud to be Greeks. Both for the Potential and for the Patrimony of their country. Among the 8 pillars of the building-process of our Home, our overall European Civilization, 2 were theirs: Ancient Greece and the Byzantine Empire - which is substantially more, qualitatively and quantitatively, than the "2%" sometimes evoked!...
If any two (or three or more) European countries could form the nucleus of the real Europe (the future United States of Europe), NO "EUROPE" WILL EVER HAVE ANY LEGITIMACY IF IT DOES NOT INCLUDE GREECE (!!!) - plus Italy (because the Roman Empire was the first pan-European State and because the Italian Rinascimento was a key link) and plus Israel (which is the civilizational/"cultural" cradle of the Judeo-Christianity of Europe). Thus determining THE FIRST QUINTESSENTIAL ROOTS OF OUR IDENTITY : GREEK, ROMAN/LATIN, JEWISH AND CHRISTIAN !!!
Of course, the 4 other pillars of our Home - the Celtic pillar, the Germanic pillar, the Scandinavian pillar and the Slavic pillar (according to the alphabetical order) - are fundamental, too. Both intrinsically, because they brought a new strength and vitality as well as new original features and attributes, and cumulatively, because they provided our European Civilization with its natural size: the continental one. which is of paramount importance for our long-term strategic interests. But they were built on the already existing basis of the former pillars. And - like it or not - the first of these pillars (and the fourth one) was Greek!!!...
Well , - as Socrates used to teach - when it is realized that these truths are obvious, the conclusion becomes self-evident and inescapable: despite the current economic crisis, THE GREEKS REALLY HAVE TO BE PROUD TO BE GREEKS !!!
And, like President J.F. Kennedy in Berlin almost 50 years ago offered the Germans (newly isolated by the 155kilometer-long Wall and surrounded by communist dictatorships and their overwhelmingly threatening armies) the Free World's solidarity with its "Ich bin ein Berliner!", we - the millions of Europeans who know what Europe owes to historical Greece - , we wish to proclaim the same encouragement: we take pride in the words "ALL OF US, EUROPEANS, WE ARE GREEKS !!!"
Dr. Victor.
[ Notes : ]
[ 1 ] : to be seen [communications n°1 to n°6] on http://global-strategic-political.blogspot.com (to be precisely studied, not discarded at first sight)...
[ 2 ] : As a part of its new military Alliance with America - replacing the NATO -, Europe will build half the 600-ship "Dream Fleet" of the great President Ronald Reagan, unfortunately cancelled by the democrat Clinton...
[ 3 ] : partly due to the abandonment of the U.S. ambitious one (planned by the great President George Walker Bush) by the democrat Obama...
