As
Greeks look inward, they see a country that produces nothing of value
and is inferior to the rest of the world - despite evidence to the
contrary. The country has been mentally colonized, with outside
powers convincing the Greeks that they can do no better.
by
Michael Nevradakis
Part
6 - Divide and conquer in action
Divide and
conquer is a technique that historically has been utilized by
colonizers to weaken colonized peoples, turning native populations
against each other instead of against their conquerors. However, this
is a technique which is equally effective in countries which are
nominally independent, as in the case of Greece.
Employed to
perfection by Greece’s “guardians,” such as the British and the
Bavarians, in the early years following independence from the Ottoman
Empire, divide and conquer has been employed repeatedly since then,
such as in the aftermath of World War II, when the main Greek
resistance movement, accused of supporting communism, was pitted
against far-right collaborationist forces, resulting in a two-year
civil war. The collaborators, with the help of “allies” such as
the British, emerged victorious and asserted their control over the
country.
Divide and
conquer is still used in a number of clever and carefully cultivated
ways in Greece today. One of the main dividing lines that has been
developed over a series of decades is that between the public and
private sectors. Fueling this division has been decades of public
sector ineptitude and inefficiency. Public sector employees have been
viewed as privileged, coddled, and corrupt; public services and
utilities have themselves been considered spendthrift, mismanaged,
and havens of corruption and nepotism.
Employees in
the private sector are resentful of these public sector privileges
and advantages, real or imagined, and the media and politicians have
gladly taken advantage of the divide. When, for instance, wages in
the private sector are slashed, at the insistence of the troika,
private sector employees, instead of questioning why their salaries
should be cut, openly question why the public sector is not subjected
to similar reductions (even if, in reality, public sector wages have
also been repeatedly cut).
What nobody
seems to ask or understand is exactly why the Greek public sector
operates in the manner in which it does. Instead, it’s assumed that
it’s the result of some sort of general deficiency of the Greek
populace – the “lazy Greeks” meme that is also often repeated
in the foreign press. The true answer, however, may be hinted at in
an intriguing document, openly featured by the CIA on its website,
titled “Timeless Tips for Simple Sabotage.”
In this
manual, strategies to destabilize adversaries from within via their
public sector and bureaucracy are outlined. Some of these strategies
may seem familiar to anyone who has dealt with Greek bureaucracy:
lowering morale by issuing undeserved promotions while discriminating
against efficient employees, making simple tasks and processes as
complicated as possible, and putting off more pressing priorities for
endless meetings of “committees.” While this document supposedly
is no longer in use, there is no reason to believe that its
strategies were not, and are not, still utilized – or that such
methods were only used against “enemy” states.
Still, the
damage has been done, and the hatred and disgust which many in the
Greek private sector and the populace at large feel towards the
public sector and its employees has helped pave the way for the tacit
acceptance of privatizations of key public assets, utilities, and
services, such as airports, harbors, and telecommunications
infrastructure.
A simple
example suffices to illustrate just how deeply ingrained this divide
is. While 90 percent of OTE, the former state telecommunications
monopoly, is now owned by Deutsche Telekom and other private
investors, and while the privatization of OTE began in 1996, it is
still largely considered state-owned (the state actually owns only 10
percent of OTE) and its employees “public servants.” In a recent
visit to an isolated Greek island where OTE was the only broadband
provider, Internet access was consistently “down” for at least 16
hours per day. Locals I spoke with blamed “lazy public servants”
for the problem – but were unaware that OTE has, for over 20 years,
been privatized.
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