Occasioned by what was said by Mr. Mitsotakis during the Thessaloniki International Fair (TIF) festivities, I wish to state the following:
“As Dimitris Ioannou and I wrote four months ago in the newspaper To Vima of Sunday https://www.gatsiosblog.gr/en/%ce%bf-%ce%b4%cf%81%cf%8c%ce%bc%ce%bf%cf%82-%cf%80%cf%81%ce%bf%cf%82-%cf%84%ce%bf%ce%bd-%ce%b5%ce%be%ce%b1%ce%bd%ce%b4%cf%81%ce%b1%cf%80%ce%bf%ce%b4%ce%b9%cf%83%ce%bc%cf%8c-%cf%83%cf%84%cf%81%cf%8e/
the immediate necessity for the main opposition party today is not to suggest some painless, short-range solutions that would work as partial embellishments of the morbid reality that we live in. On the contrary, the immediate necessity is to speak clearly, in order to help society realize the radical, difficult and painful changes required so that the country walks towards the exit from the bankruptcy crisis.
But for this to happen, namely for the society to start becoming conscious of the actual aspects and dimensions of the problems we face as a country and as a nation, what is also necessary is that they explain in full sincerity what the collective errors were that had been occurring for many years and led us where we are now.
Unfortunately, this is something that Mr. Mitsotakis did not dare do in his speech in TIF. Standing in front of the key leaders and perpetrators of the definitive derailment of the economy and of the economic and social collapse of Greece -that is, the leaders and members of his party to whom he even handed the necessary pardon, the indulgentia, by saying that they are not responsible for the disaster- he merely whispered a bogus ‘Truth Pact’.
The claim of his fans and followers that in this way he avoided being a demagogue is, certainly, incorrect. In any case, nowadays no one can any longer be a demagogue in the way Mr. Papandreou was in 2009, Mr. Samaras in 2012 or Mr. Tsipras in January 2015, because the Greek society, through its own experience, it has acquired immunity, if anything, against this kind of political speech.
The new kind of demagogy, which Mr. Tsipras also followed in his speech last Saturday, is the supposed “moderation” and “honesty”, i.e., the hypocritical silencing of the magnitude of the required reforms, in order for them to avoid to accept, even indirectly, the size of their parties’ liability for the creation of the problems, which these difficult and painful reforms will have to resolve.
I do not know where this attitude will lead them. Neither is it particularly important. What matters is that this attitude leads the country to a complete collapse. “
