High life
Banana republic
Taki
Athens Zahos Hadzifotiou is an old friend of mine, a reformed playboy, and a man who began writing late in life, but who has of late become the numero uno humorist in the birthplace of Aristophanes. Zahos rails against official corruption, the vulgarity of the rich, the pomposity of politicians and nepotism in high places, all of which are the norm, rather than the exception, in this Golden Age of Andreas and Melina.
Needless to say, left-wingers and social- ists have on more than one occasion tried to silence him, with threatening telephone calls, as well as the de rigueur bomb underneath his automobile. Zahos, howev- er, is no yellow-belly. He continues to speak out against corruption, and last week in one of his columns he proposed that the city of Athens declare a national holiday in honour of, and award the highest civilian decoration to, those public officials of state-owned corporations who are not mixed up in fraudulent scandals.
Alas, the medals have remained un- claimed, as Zahos knew they would be all along. What Zahos, who once upon a time believed in Papandreou, did not realise in time, was the fact that the socialists of Papandreou are by far the most corrupt regime the olive republic has ever had the bad luck to be run by, in itself no small accomplishment. I say not in time, because at the start of the plunder back in 1981, Zahos was willing to give the crooks the benefit of the doubt, something wiser heads warned him against. Such is the depth of corruption that our socialist saviours have plunged us in that there is even a fraud trial going on right this minute in London, not to mention those scandals that have been hushed up by the EEC regarding Greek cheating. I guess it's all Greek to you, dear reader, but it's starting to be Greek to me, too, as words have begun to lose their meaning while a different set of values has been introduced.
For example: official pronouncements stress that the government is encouraging small and medium-sized businesses, while, at the same time, the bank rate is raised because funds are needed to finance de- ficits incurred by state-owned corporations and public institutions. The nation is told through the state-controlled mass media that the country is at last being run by 'the people', but the only people who have any say are the Green Guards, Papandreou's henchmen, who monitor and report on the activities of private enterprises. Official slogans bang on about Greece's proud national policy and rejection of foreign interference, but when the Soviet Union's big cheese openly warns Papandreou that the American bases will not be tolerated by the Ruskies, the proud Greek government turns into the mouse that roared.
What all this really means is that words have lost their meaning, and that the people are kept less informed than ever before. It is, alas, no longer an olive republic, but a true blue banana one. And, as befits such a republic, Ms Staller, a member of the Italian Parliament, chose it for her first visit since her recent election. Now, if any of you are not familiar with Ms Staller, she is better known as Ciocciolena, the striptease artist who is living proof of the Italian people's contempt for their crooked poll. No sooner had the stripper arrived than she pronounced that Premier Papandreou was her kind of man, a fact that was kept from the masses by the state- owned media. Personally, I agreed with the stripper. Both she and Andreas are one of a kind.
One who is not is the president of the country, Christos Sartzetakis. When Papandreou picked him, he thought he was installing a straw man he could handle with ease. This has not turned out to be the case, Sartzetakis has insisted on being his own man, a fact that has Andreas seeing red. The result has been that a subtle vilification campaign has begun against the head of state, one that is bound to under- mine him as well as his position.
Shades of 1967? Not yet, but it was only a matter of time before Andreas would put his personal interests ahead of those of the nation. When I spoke to an old hand among the few Greek hacks not on the take from the government or others, he told me that even Ms Staller is bound to show more dignity than Papandreou, something I have known all along. Strip- pers, after all, perform a public service of sorts. Socialist Greek politicians do not.
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