Nikos Konstandaras: The Kindness of Strangers
[Nikos Konstandaras is managing editor of the Greek daily Kathimerini, where this commentary first appeared.]
It will take us a long time to come to terms with our new place in the world.
This is the first time that Greece has suffered such a defeat without any heroic excuses, without a war, without a natural disaster, without foreigners meddling in our affairs or some great national vision leading us astray.
We arrived at a dead end because of our own weaknesses, our own inability to handle our independence and fulfill our international obligations. Like Blanche DuBois, the disoriented former beauty in Tennessee Williams’s “A Streetcar Named Desire,” we muddled on with our weaknesses, relying on the memory of a bright past that only we remembered, until the moment of absolute surrender. Then, like Blanche, we had to bow our head and accept the charity of others, the “kindness of strangers.”
After the first shock of these historic days, we can expect anger. Not the everyday shouting of the professional demonstrators but the silent, brooding fury of a nation that will blame itself and those who governed it. The true cost of what we will pay is not so much in the wages lost and expectations dashed but rather in the fact that the name of Greece and every Greek is tainted. This is the heavy burden that we must bear....
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It will take us a long time to come to terms with our new place in the world.
This is the first time that Greece has suffered such a defeat without any heroic excuses, without a war, without a natural disaster, without foreigners meddling in our affairs or some great national vision leading us astray.
We arrived at a dead end because of our own weaknesses, our own inability to handle our independence and fulfill our international obligations. Like Blanche DuBois, the disoriented former beauty in Tennessee Williams’s “A Streetcar Named Desire,” we muddled on with our weaknesses, relying on the memory of a bright past that only we remembered, until the moment of absolute surrender. Then, like Blanche, we had to bow our head and accept the charity of others, the “kindness of strangers.”
After the first shock of these historic days, we can expect anger. Not the everyday shouting of the professional demonstrators but the silent, brooding fury of a nation that will blame itself and those who governed it. The true cost of what we will pay is not so much in the wages lost and expectations dashed but rather in the fact that the name of Greece and every Greek is tainted. This is the heavy burden that we must bear....