Greeks are voting today and (FWIW) the latest chatter seems to be that the ‘no’ side (a rejection of the bailout deal) is doing well. ‘Interesting’ if true…

Under the circumstances, this examination (from March) of Syriza (the far left party that is the dominant part of Greece’s governing coalition) is well worth reading. The author is Manos Matsaganis, an Associate Professor at the Athens University of Economics and Business, Fulbright Scholar, self-described ‘man of the left’ and an advocate of closer European integration.

It’s a long read, but here is an excerpt:

SYRIZA flourished because it adopted a deliberately nationalist-populist strategy: one enemy (the Troika of foreign creditors and their domestic servants), one solution (end austerity by repealing the bailout agreement with a single act of parliament on day one). This simple message has enabled the party to tap into a vast reservoir of wounded pride. To some extent, that such a reservoir was created, and became vast, is rather understandable: it really is humiliating for any sovereign country to have the details of government policy dictated by unelected middle-ranking officials in Brussels, Frankfurt or Washington D.C. But in the case of Greece wounded pride went much further. To a very great extent, it resulted from a sort of cognitive dissonance: the incongruence between (i) the painful reality of near bankruptcy, and (ii) long-held, widely-shared beliefs about Greece’s proper place in the world (“cradle of civilization”, “birthplace of democracy” and all that).
Exploiting ‘the politics of resentment’ turned out to be a resounding success for SYRIZA. But it was achieved at a price. The social coalition assembled at grassroots level blended left-wing anti-imperialists with right-wing nationalists. The two groups suddenly discovered they were fighting on the same side, against the same enemies. The visual symbol of this new brotherhood became plain for all to see in the summer of 2011, during the protracted occupation of Athens’ Syntagma Square by a multitude of ‘Indignados’: leftists waving red flags in the ‘lower square’ coexisted happily with nationalists (including neo-Nazis) waving Greek flags in the ‘upper square’, and occasionally joined forces to shout abuse at parliament (and mob the occasional MP). The political coalition emerging victorious from the recent general election mirrored that social coalition quite faithfully (minus the neo-Nazis of Golden Dawn).
Given the above, it should hardly come as a surprise that, on closer inspection, Greece’s ‘first Left government’ of young charismatic Alexis Tsipras is actually replete with reactionary/unsavoury personalities holding key cabinet portfolios. (Our new minister for defence, Panos Kammenos, is the rabidly nationalistic leader of Independent Greeks. Our new minister for foreign affairs, Nikos Kotzias, is the self-styled ideologue of the ‘patriotic Left’, whose latest book explains why Greece is a ‘debt colony’. Having emerged as the hardline instructor of the Communist Party of Greece in the 1980s, distinguishing himself as a staunch defender of martial law in Poland, he later reinvented himself as an apologist of Vladimir Putin.
… in the space of a single week [note: the author was writing in March], we have been officially informed that if Germany denies Greece a loan extension with no strings attached, Greece will retaliate by sending Third World migrants and jihadists to Germany (thus spoke minister of foreign affairs Kotzias); that if Germany fails to pay war reparations, Greece will confiscate German properties including the historic site of Goethe Institute (minister of justice Paraskevopoulos); that the ministry of defence will be involved in the history curriculum to ensure that Greek primary schools teach children a more extensive course in German WWII atrocities (minister of defence Kammenos and parliament chair Konstantopoulou); and that Poland’s sceptic attitude towards Greek demands in current bailout negotiations should not be surprising, given that the country had collaborated with Nazi Germany in WWII (coordination minister Flambouraris).
Summing up, to a great extent SYRIZA is a mutant Left: unfamiliar to western eyes (and hence poorly understood by many western observers), but all too terrifyingly familiar to those living in that unhappy corner of the world otherwise known as ‘the Balkans’. To stretch an analogy, the nationalistic left ruling Greece today is in many respects far more akin to the ethno-bolshevism of Slobodan Milošević than to Spain’s [far left] Podemos.

And it has been given its chance by the euro, badly designed, irresponsibly launched, recklessly run and profoundly destructive.

Meanwhile today’s news has included this little moment from Yanis Varoufakis, the rock star economist (or Marxist clown, take your pick) who is Greece’s finance minister.

Sky News:

When [Varoufakis] arrived at the polling station with his father, he was asked by Sky News correspondent Katie Stallard why people should believe him when he said the banks would re-open on Tuesday when they were running out of money.
He replied: “You’re spoiling a celebration with impertinent questions.”
When asked again, he was silent.

“Impertinent”? The commissar doesn’t like questions, it seems.

Who does he think he is? Hillary Clinton?