Oh dear. Half of Greece is now protesting against the EU as the cause of budget cuts, and not, say, their own lying government(s), aversion to tax and an enormous black economy. They could even more logically protest about Goldman Sachs’ role in the affair. But no, it’s all the Germans’ fault.
Invoking the European statesman’s version of Godwin’s Law, Greece’s deputy prime minister Theodoros Pangalos says Germany never paid proper reparations following its occupation of Greece in 1941:
“They took away the Greek gold that was at the Bank of Greece, they took away the Greek money and they never gave it back. This is an issue that has to be faced sometime in the future,” Mr Pangalos told the BBC World Service.
“I don’t say they have to give back the money necessarily but they have at least to say ‘thanks’,” he added.
(reported in the EU Observer)
Here’s the thing: when you’re in the wrong, you’re in the wrong. Doesn’t matter how rude, condescending or even underhand the people you’re dealing with are. Even if you’ve been stitched up, you just have to suck it up.
Here’s a very good example of how to do this.
Irish ministers don’t resign. There are all sorts of reasons for this, but a symptom – though not the root cause – of it is most of them have no shame. British ministers resign all the time; to force the prime minister’s hand, take responsibility for failure, to protest at a war or other government policy, once, memorably, because the minister said she simply wasn’t up to the job, and more typically because they’ve been photographed in a national newspaper all got up in S&M gear.
Despite the lack of recent precedence for it in Ireland, in the past two weeks two ministers have resigned. Both erred. One did the honourable thing. One didn’t. Each went in the end.
Trevor Sargent, aka Clever Trevor, used to be the leader of the Irish Green Party. He said he would never go into coalition with Fianna Fail. When the mathematics of the last election shook out so the Greens had to join up with their gombeen overlords, Trevor Sargent stepped down from the leadership of the party. Since then, he’s worked away, mostly quietly, as a junior minister.
A week or two ago, the Greens forced the resignation of a Fianna Fail minister who’d been caught on tape slandering a political opponent, but who had sworn otherwise in an affidavit. After a thunderingly unrepentant speech to the Dail and a vote of confidence rushed through with unseemly haste, the Greens grew a pair and claimed his scalp.
In revenge, and via means so far unclear, a letter from Trevor Sargent to a member of the Gardai Siochana (the police) was published. Sargent had written asking the officer not to pursue a criminal charge against a man in his constituency. It is of course against the law for a politician to try to interfere with the course of justice. Sargent was badly stitched up, almost certainly by people in or associated with Fianna Fail. But he was still utterly in the wrong. How did he respond?
He apologised and resigned immediately. No days of recriminations, adversarial reconstructions of the chain of events, claims of victimhood, appeals to the gallery, and endless radio interviews. He just went. And donated his lump sum payout to the St. Vincent de Paul.
So Greece, take a leaf from the book of Clever Trevor. Do the honourable thing. Take your lumps and stop giving out about the smirk on the face of the executioner.
{ 32 comments }
Leo 02.25.10 at 10:32 pm
@Maria — maybe I’m just going senile but I cannot remember the names of any British ministers that have resigned after their photos have been published in national newspapers “all got up in S&M gear.” Doesn’t the whip’s office normally pay off the papers?
mollymooly 02.25.10 at 10:36 pm
I don’t see how the Greens can be held to have forced O’Dea’s resignation given that they backed him in the confidence motion in the Dáil. To me, FF forcing the Greens to eat coalition crow, and then letting O’Dea banish himself anyway, is a more plausible conspiracy theory.
And was Trevor so honourable? There’s a difference between resigning as soon as you realise you did something wrong and resigning as soon as the public finds out you did something wrong.
More generally, one very good reason why Irish ministers should seldom resign is that the depth of talent waiting to step up from the back benches is not great. It would be nice if we didn’t have to choose between corrupt and incompetent, but that’s a deeper question.
Britta 02.26.10 at 1:14 am
I say, when it comes to blaming the Germans, why start with WWII? My grandmother blames the Hanseatic League for entrenching Norway’s plight as a lowly Danish colony rather than letting it achieve its destiny as a Northern European superpower in its own right. Not quite sure what the Hanseatic League ever did to Greece, but I’m sure they could think of something.
paul 02.26.10 at 1:17 am
I think I’d agree with most of Maria’s post except for the “almost certainly” in the third last paragraph. How could any observer know enough about the case to presume this?
In response to mollymooly’s comment, corruption vs incompetence is a tough choice. However we’ve given corruption a good innings and it hasn’t worked out well. It’s time now for incompetence to take its place in the sun.
I don’t like the self-congratulatory “at least we’re not Greece” narrative that seems to have taken hold in Ireland. There’s still plenty of sharp practice: the “special purpose vehicle” shenanigans to supposedly keep NAMA liabilities outside the national debt being one example.
hix 02.26.10 at 2:38 am
I don’t like the self-congratulatory “at least we’re not Greece†narrative that seems to have taken hold in Ireland.
Oh please Gdp per capita 2008 Ireland: 41800
Greece: 21600
Germany almost exact inbetween. Time for Ireland to bailout Greece and Germany.
alex 02.26.10 at 8:42 am
@5: alas, most of that turned out to be Monopoly money. If you want it, you can have it, but it’s not good for much except lighting fires. Which, of course, is something Greeks are quite good at, for fun and profit…
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/1561542/Greek-fires-blamed-on-culture-of-arson.html
ajay 02.26.10 at 9:25 am
When the mathematics of the last election shook out so the Greens had to join up with their gombeen overlords,
Er, “gombeen”?
alex 02.26.10 at 9:43 am
Oh, for heaven’s sake, google it and read the first hit.
Ray 02.26.10 at 10:09 am
When the mathematics of the last election shook out so the Greens had to join up with their gombeen overlords
except, you know, they didn’t have to. They could have stayed out of coalition and selectively supported a minority government, for example. It almost makes you glad that the party is imploding, because clearly anyone who couldn’t see the results of coalition coming is too stupid to live and if they’d stayed out of coalition this time they might have ended up in government as more than a set of mudguards and done something even more stupid.
Just give me a while to think of something that qualifies…
Tim Worstall 02.26.10 at 11:42 am
“British ministers that have resigned after their photos have been published in national newspapers “all got up in S&M gear.—
Stephen Milligan wasn’t a minister, this is true, and I don’t think the photos hit the press but he certainly resigned.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Milligan
ajay 02.26.10 at 11:53 am
8: Oh, I see, she means ‘chanty-wrastler’. Please accept my most sincere contrafibularities.
ajay 02.26.10 at 11:55 am
10: Bloody hell, he’s done it again. Stephen Milligan, as is clear from the linked article, did not resign. He died. That is about the only thing I actually know about Stephen Milligan.
chris y 02.26.10 at 11:58 am
Why should anyone resign for being “all got up in S&M gear� Attempting to pervert the course of justice might be regarded as prima facie incompatible with continuing public service, but engaging in minority sexual pursuits is only regarded as reprehensible by tabloid journalists and religious extremists these days. The principled thing to do, obviously not an option available to Milligan, would be to tell such people to go forth and multiply.
ajay 02.26.10 at 12:45 pm
John Major frequently appeared in the national press all got up in M&S gear. He didn’t resign either.
alex 02.26.10 at 1:07 pm
That reminds me of a Jasper Carrott sketch, but it wasn’t all that funny the first time round…
ejh 02.26.10 at 1:21 pm
I wonder if it’s in order to refer to Greece as if it were a single entity with a single opinion. It’s also worth considering here that “take your lumps” means “accepting very large budget cuts that will have a very large effect on the lives of people much worse off than Maria”. It’s not just a place, with a government .- it’s millions of actual real people, most of whom don’t spend their time swanning about in the corridors of the European Union congratulating themselves on how fine they are.
ajay 02.26.10 at 1:37 pm
16: fair point, but I think the post is using “Greece” as a metamorph (or whatever the word is) for “the Greek government”. Also, what’s the alternative to the budget cuts? Probably a default… which wouldn’t be that great for the Greek people either.
rea 02.26.10 at 1:41 pm
I cannot remember the names of any British ministers that have resigned after their photos have been published in national newspapers “all got up in S&M gear.†Doesn’t the whip’s office normally pay off the papers?
Naturally, it would be the responsibility of the whip’s office to deal with such things.
ejh 02.26.10 at 1:41 pm
Up to them to choose, though, should it not be? And it might be nice to take their concerns about their futures seriously rather than, as the OP does, treating them as a bunch of naughty children. Worst post since the Chris Patten debacle.
Charrua 02.26.10 at 1:46 pm
Frankly, I don’t see the point in comparing the behavior of normal Greek citizens with the behavior of Irish politicians. I mean ¿why should the average Greek “take his lumps” for decisions that weren’t his? And why should he blame his government for the budget cuts? The Greek government may be more liberal with the factual truth than the British one (although thinking of Tony Blair and Irak, not so much) but the rules and authorities forcing the budget cuts are from the European Union.
You know, Germans should stop the whining about how people is mean to them too. If you get to control Europe’s monetary policy, you have to be prepared for some true anger at you occasionally. Comes with the territory.
If you want to do the job that the IMF used to do, prepare yourself to be as well liked as them.
alex 02.26.10 at 2:01 pm
Last time I looked Greece was a democracy; I’m sure if the Greek population at large had had a really serious objection to what was going on they could have found some responsible and honest politicians to elect – or maybe not? So whose fault would that be?
ffrancis 02.26.10 at 2:02 pm
I don’t understand why the Irish have to choose between incompetence and corruption in their politicians. Surely there must be some who are both incompetent and corrupt?
ajay 02.26.10 at 2:10 pm
22: no, they all emigrated to the US to seek their fortunes.
ajay 02.26.10 at 2:14 pm
19: it is indeed up to them to choose. But that doesn’t mean no one’s allowed to comment on what choice they should make, or on the degree of seriousness with which they seem to be facing their situation. Blaming ze Germans is not a serious response.
alex 02.26.10 at 2:28 pm
OTOH, perhaps one of the functions of a politician in the modern representative democracy is to symbolise, or perhaps indeed metaphysically to embody, the general crapness of the electorate, so that they can have someone else other than themselves to blame when it all goes wrong?
The phrase ‘whipping boy’ comes to mind, but we’ve already been there upthread.
vimothy 02.26.10 at 2:44 pm
This is pretty stupid advice. Greece needs to solve its problems, not kid itself that having a severe recession will make them all go away
Barry 02.26.10 at 5:07 pm
Alex @ 8 – the proper response is ‘let me Google that for you’ :)
http://lmgtfy.com/?q=gombeen
Barry 02.26.10 at 5:18 pm
alex 02.26.10 at 2:01 pm
“Last time I looked Greece was a democracy; I’m sure if the Greek population at large had had a really serious objection to what was going on they could have found some responsible and honest politicians to elect – or maybe not? So whose fault would that be?”
Alex, in what country do you live? In the USA, the elites do quite a bit of work to restrain the available choices, and also work quite hard and quite successfully to make sure that they get the benefits, and everybody else gets the penalties.
ajay 02.26.10 at 5:34 pm
28: no doubt they do, in the US. And in Greece?
dsquared 02.26.10 at 5:57 pm
This is the Iceland thing all over again isn’t it (with the difference that there are actually measurable numbers of poor people in Greece). Every country has people in it who didn’t vote for the government and who get it in the neck because of things the government did. But since the alternative is to all live as atomistic individuals with no community at all, and this would be weird[1], one more or less has to say hard luck[2] because that’s more or less the nature of a nation state. After all, do the British working class propose to give up their council houses, or will the people who supported the miners’ strike be buying up carbon credits to give to people who opposed it? Yes yes very sorry for Greek workers in a recession, being a worker in a bad recession is always horrible, but trying to turn “Don’t blame me, I didn’t vote for him” into anything more than a badge slogan is going to leave one more or less totally unable to comment on quite important matters that it’s important to discuss.
[1] Harry is always in the habit of absolving Adam Swift for any errors in their joint papers, so I’ll balance things out by blaming him for this argument he didn’t make if it’s wrong.
[2] Also not at home to; arguments about economics, politics or ethics which contend that the truth-value of English sentences depends on the relative income of who says them.
Ebenezer Scrooge 02.28.10 at 7:21 pm
@19: It’s not only up to the Greeks to choose. Greece (accepting dsquared’s nuances on “Greece” and more) is not autarkic. Greece is embedded in the EU, and vice-versa. If my neighbor smokes pot, it is none of my business. If my neighbor’s house is an eyesore, it starts becoming my business. And if my neighbor is hoping that I’ll show up with a few buckets of paint and a ladder while my neighbor keeps smoking spliff after spliff, it is very much my business.
Martin Wisse 03.01.10 at 3:08 pm
Pay no attention to dsquared, his profession caused the crisis after all.
The Greek people did not, yet are expected to pay for it, just like we all are or soon will be. It’s not a choice betwen doing the irhgt thing or abolishing the nation state, it’s a choice about letting the rich pay for their crisis or the common worker pay for it. Was the original post smug and callous already, Dsquared’s wannabe Internet Hard Man routine was the icing on the cake.
Comments on this entry are closed.