“Hypocrisy, Anti-Hypocrisy and International Order” project addresses the problem of the West’s policy of double standards and the criticism of the West’s own hypocrisy as an ideological basis for attacking the liberal order created by the West. It aims to formulate policy proposals for how Western governments should act and speak in a situation where the relative decline of Western powers will make it increasingly difficult for governments to practice idealistic politics; while, at the same time, non-Western policy actors work to delegitimize the current liberal order and to justify their own revisionism by escalating accusations about the hypocrisy of the West.
Civic european cities in the age of national populismCity of Gdansk
In recent years Europe has been experiencing the wave of national populism and a clash between antagonistic forms of national identities within its societies. Currently, we can observe a clash between antagonistic forms of national identities (ethnic nationalism versus civic nationalism). All these issues are studied in a detail in the report titled “Civic European Cities in the Age of National Populism” written by Adam Balcer under the patronage of Gdańsk.
Civic european cities in the age of national populismCity of Gdansk
In recent years Europe has been experiencing the wave of national populism and a clash between antagonistic forms of national identities within its societies. Currently, we can observe a clash between antagonistic forms of national identities (ethnic nationalism versus civic nationalism). All these issues are studied in a detail in the report titled “Civic European Cities in the Age of National Populism” written by Adam Balcer under the patronage of Gdańsk.
A Call to Realism: How the ukrainian Crisis Exposed the Weak EUBright Mhango
Despite being all that a state should be and more, the EU is still unable to effectively move past some foreign policy hurdles. The Ukrainian Crisis, which was sparked by the EU is an example of the weak EU foreign policy. This paper argues that the EU, due primarily to its structure, makes it vulnerable in times of crisis such as the Ukrainian Crisis. The paper suggests that the EU can become a better player, and a stronger one by becoming more like the United States, with member states’ maintaining sovereignty over many issues but with a united and centralized foreign policy and security front.
Geert Driessen & Frederik Smit (2008). Does Ethnic Minority Parents’ Integrat...Frederik Smit
Integration of ethnic minorities into society often is operationalized as participation in societal institutions. Examples are cultural, political and labor participation. On the basis of the theoretical concepts of social and cultural capital, it is hypothesized that greater parental participation in society will lead to a better educational position for the children. To test this hypothesis, descriptive and multilevel analyses were conducted using data from the Dutch cohort study Primary Education. The sample included 11,000 students from 600 primary schools. In the analyses, ethnic minority parents and their children were compared to native Dutch parents and their children. After controlling for parental socioeconomic and ethnic background, the results showed only an effect of cultural participation on language and math skills. No effects on such non-cognitive outcomes as social position, individual well-being, or self-confidence were found.
Geert Driessen & Frederik Smit (2008). Does Ethnic Minority Parents’ Integr...Frederik Smit
Integration of ethnic minorities into society often is operationalized as participation in societal institutions. Examples are cultural, political and labor participation. On the basis of the theoretical concepts of social and cultural capital, it is hypothesized that greater parental participation in society will lead to a better educational position for the children. To test this hypothesis, descriptive and multilevel analyses were conducted using data from the Dutch cohort study Primary Education. The sample included 11,000 students from 600 primary schools. In the analyses, ethnic minority parents and their children were compared to native Dutch parents and their children. After controlling for parental socioeconomic and ethnic background, the results showed only an effect of cultural participation on language and math skills. No effects on such non-cognitive outcomes as social position, individual well-being, or self-confidence were found.
Η συμφωνία NAFTA υπό το πρίσμα του νεοφιλελευθερισμού (θεωρία διεθνών σχέσεων)akargas
Η συμφωνία NAFTA υπό το πρίσμα του νεοφιλελευθερισμού (θεωρία διεθνών σχέσεων), Πρόγραμμα Μεταπτυχιακών στις Διεθνείς σχέσεις και πολιτικές, Σχολή Κοινωνικών και Πολιτικών Επιστημών, Τμήμα Πολιτικής Επιστήμης και Διεθνών Σχέσεων, Πανεπιστήμιο Πελοποννήσου, Ιανουάριος 2015
A Call to Realism: How the ukrainian Crisis Exposed the Weak EUBright Mhango
Despite being all that a state should be and more, the EU is still unable to effectively move past some foreign policy hurdles. The Ukrainian Crisis, which was sparked by the EU is an example of the weak EU foreign policy. This paper argues that the EU, due primarily to its structure, makes it vulnerable in times of crisis such as the Ukrainian Crisis. The paper suggests that the EU can become a better player, and a stronger one by becoming more like the United States, with member states’ maintaining sovereignty over many issues but with a united and centralized foreign policy and security front.
Geert Driessen & Frederik Smit (2008). Does Ethnic Minority Parents’ Integrat...Frederik Smit
Integration of ethnic minorities into society often is operationalized as participation in societal institutions. Examples are cultural, political and labor participation. On the basis of the theoretical concepts of social and cultural capital, it is hypothesized that greater parental participation in society will lead to a better educational position for the children. To test this hypothesis, descriptive and multilevel analyses were conducted using data from the Dutch cohort study Primary Education. The sample included 11,000 students from 600 primary schools. In the analyses, ethnic minority parents and their children were compared to native Dutch parents and their children. After controlling for parental socioeconomic and ethnic background, the results showed only an effect of cultural participation on language and math skills. No effects on such non-cognitive outcomes as social position, individual well-being, or self-confidence were found.
Geert Driessen & Frederik Smit (2008). Does Ethnic Minority Parents’ Integr...Frederik Smit
Integration of ethnic minorities into society often is operationalized as participation in societal institutions. Examples are cultural, political and labor participation. On the basis of the theoretical concepts of social and cultural capital, it is hypothesized that greater parental participation in society will lead to a better educational position for the children. To test this hypothesis, descriptive and multilevel analyses were conducted using data from the Dutch cohort study Primary Education. The sample included 11,000 students from 600 primary schools. In the analyses, ethnic minority parents and their children were compared to native Dutch parents and their children. After controlling for parental socioeconomic and ethnic background, the results showed only an effect of cultural participation on language and math skills. No effects on such non-cognitive outcomes as social position, individual well-being, or self-confidence were found.
Η συμφωνία NAFTA υπό το πρίσμα του νεοφιλελευθερισμού (θεωρία διεθνών σχέσεων)akargas
Η συμφωνία NAFTA υπό το πρίσμα του νεοφιλελευθερισμού (θεωρία διεθνών σχέσεων), Πρόγραμμα Μεταπτυχιακών στις Διεθνείς σχέσεις και πολιτικές, Σχολή Κοινωνικών και Πολιτικών Επιστημών, Τμήμα Πολιτικής Επιστήμης και Διεθνών Σχέσεων, Πανεπιστήμιο Πελοποννήσου, Ιανουάριος 2015
It can be said that the capitulation of the Greek government is a gigantic wear to the far left in Europe and in the world and that only uncompromising believers will get serious again any party of the extreme left which has the campaign platform to face the international financial capital. Syriza repeat failure of the leftist parties in the world, including Brazil with Lula and Dilma Rousseff governments which submitted to the dictates of finance capital. This was a victory of great importance for the European Union because sagged Tsipras who was elected on the promise to oppose the austerity programs imposed by the Troika to the Greek government.
Tsipras and Syriza: Betrayal does not kill the "hopeful"rubèn ramos
1. A first question to make clear is that this decadent and delirious mixture of 17 factions, from Trotskyists to environmentalists, calling itself the "Coalition of the Radical Left" (identified as Syriza), there is nothing left, least of revolutionary.
It is old leaders of the Nazi-fascist factions, conservatives, socialists, Maoists, Marxist-Leninists, Trotskyists, communists, social democrats, socialliberales, environmentalists, "golden", and other species that, over time, thrived in the power of the "Colonels "and the Third Republic, until today. Factions strictly electoral ends and sharing the spoils corruption and rigging being a member of the Greek parliament and the executive.
One of the ways that Europe became more united in the last decade ofmeghanivkwserie
One of the ways that Europe became more united in the last decade of the 20th century was by The Maastricht Treaty. This conference was held in the Netherlands in 1991 and one of the things that were agreed on was a single currency called a “Euro” (Shubert, Goldstein, 2012). The countries in the European Union felt that this single currency would be beneficial for travelers and financial transactions. Although the idea of the “Euro” was great and it was beneficial to many of the countries in the union, it wasn’t all peaches and cream as it relates to economic status in Europe. A few years after the financial housing crisis in the U.S. (2008) Europe found itself in a crisis of their own. “Soaring deficits in Greece, Ireland, and Portugal led to sovereign debt crises in 2010 and 2011, as creditors feared that these countries would be unable to repay their loans” (Shubert, Goldstein, 2012). The economic crisis in Europe was likened only to the Great Depression in the United States. Additionally, this treaty set guidelines for the health and safety of workers, and immigration and crime prevention policies. Some of the political issues that the newfound unity encountered was trying to live with new forms of government, often unproven government. The fall of communism was rapid for the most part, but trying to find a political party to successfully fill its place was a different story. Political parties were popping up everywhere, and most didn’t know how to choose between them. Social issues that arose included the migration of millions of people into different countries in the European Union. Many of the immigrants were not initially welcomed, as there was still a sense of different classes within the people, including being better than the immigrants. Although the influx of immigrants was not large during the end of the 20th century it was beginning and grew to extraordinary numbers in the first decade of the 21st century. Although nations in Europe were on a new track there was still a learning curve and there was a great deal of transformation that needed to occur. One of the major ways that the Cold War contributed to the division in Europe was that so many of the nations basically needed to pick a side to be on, either the Soviet Union in eastern Europe, or with the United States in western Europe. Many of these nations were not especially interested in having to choose because of all of the devastation they had already encountered. The role of nationalism was a great thing in general in European countries except for the realism that they had to share the country with immigrants with which they did not necessarily see eye to eye with, and possibly felt that they were on a different social class. Genocide was a common thing because there was still the same thoughts that many other people were not capable of the same intellect or prosperity, and that having them in the same country was actually bringing the country down. So ...
The advancement of the extreme right and of the extreme left in the european ...Fernando Alcoforado
The economic crisis of the world capitalist system that broke out in 2008 in the United States led the European Union to economic stagnation with serious political and social consequences. This crisis led to the strengthening of political parties of the extreme right and extreme left in several countries. The rise of extreme right parties happens in much countries of Europe. The outcome of the elections to the European Parliament in 2014, which took place in May and whose new term began in July, confirmed this trend and issued a warning: the significant growth of the extreme right and eurosceptics (which are against the existence of the European Union) on the continent.
In addition to the rise of extreme right parties, there are also the extreme left parties. An early parliamentary election coming up in Greece, and the party of the radical left Syriza, which promises to cancel the austerity program and to cancel the public debt, is very close to power. In Spain, the extreme left party Podemos (We can) are preparing for the 2015 parliamentary elections, with a chance of winning. In Portugal, Cyprus and Ireland, the extreme leftist movements have also attracted voters tired of economic rigor imposed "from above" by the European Union and nostalgic of a generous welfare state.
Why is there no anti capitalist strategyGRAZIA TANTA
Summary
1 - The end of History or the eternal return?
2 - The market's victory was based on barbarism
3 - The common objective between political and capitalist classes
4 - About the so-called socialism
5 - For a strategy of survival and change
‘वोटर्स विल मस्ट प्रीवेल’ (मतदाताओं को जीतना होगा) अभियान द्वारा जारी हेल्पलाइन नंबर, 4 जून को सुबह 7 बजे से दोपहर 12 बजे तक मतगणना प्रक्रिया में कहीं भी किसी भी तरह के उल्लंघन की रिपोर्ट करने के लिए खुला रहेगा।
Future Of Fintech In India | Evolution Of Fintech In IndiaTheUnitedIndian
Navigating the Future of Fintech in India: Insights into how AI, blockchain, and digital payments are driving unprecedented growth in India's fintech industry, redefining financial services and accessibility.
31052024_First India Newspaper Jaipur.pdfFIRST INDIA
Find Latest India News and Breaking News these days from India on Politics, Business, Entertainment, Technology, Sports, Lifestyle and Coronavirus News in India and the world over that you can't miss. For real time update Visit our social media handle. Read First India NewsPaper in your morning replace. Visit First India.
CLICK:- https://firstindia.co.in/
#First_India_NewsPaper
In a May 9, 2024 paper, Juri Opitz from the University of Zurich, along with Shira Wein and Nathan Schneider form Georgetown University, discussed the importance of linguistic expertise in natural language processing (NLP) in an era dominated by large language models (LLMs).
The authors explained that while machine translation (MT) previously relied heavily on linguists, the landscape has shifted. “Linguistics is no longer front and center in the way we build NLP systems,” they said. With the emergence of LLMs, which can generate fluent text without the need for specialized modules to handle grammar or semantic coherence, the need for linguistic expertise in NLP is being questioned.
03062024_First India Newspaper Jaipur.pdfFIRST INDIA
Find Latest India News and Breaking News these days from India on Politics, Business, Entertainment, Technology, Sports, Lifestyle and Coronavirus News in India and the world over that you can't miss. For real time update Visit our social media handle. Read First India NewsPaper in your morning replace. Visit First India.
CLICK:- https://firstindia.co.in/
#First_India_NewsPaper
Welcome to the new Mizzima Weekly !
Mizzima Media Group is pleased to announce the relaunch of Mizzima Weekly. Mizzima is dedicated to helping our readers and viewers keep up to date on the latest developments in Myanmar and related to Myanmar by offering analysis and insight into the subjects that matter. Our websites and our social media channels provide readers and viewers with up-to-the-minute and up-to-date news, which we don’t necessarily need to replicate in our Mizzima Weekly magazine. But where we see a gap is in providing more analysis, insight and in-depth coverage of Myanmar, that is of particular interest to a range of readers.
ys jagan mohan reddy political career, Biography.pdfVoterMood
Yeduguri Sandinti Jagan Mohan Reddy, often referred to as Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy, is an Indian politician who currently serves as the Chief Minister of the state of Andhra Pradesh. He was born on December 21, 1972, in Pulivendula, Andhra Pradesh, to Yeduguri Sandinti Rajasekhara Reddy (popularly known as YSR), a former Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh, and Y.S. Vijayamma.
01062024_First India Newspaper Jaipur.pdfFIRST INDIA
Find Latest India News and Breaking News these days from India on Politics, Business, Entertainment, Technology, Sports, Lifestyle and Coronavirus News in India and the world over that you can't miss. For real time update Visit our social media handle. Read First India NewsPaper in your morning replace. Visit First India.
CLICK:- https://firstindia.co.in/
#First_India_NewsPaper
27052024_First India Newspaper Jaipur.pdfFIRST INDIA
Find Latest India News and Breaking News these days from India on Politics, Business, Entertainment, Technology, Sports, Lifestyle and Coronavirus News in India and the world over that you can't miss. For real time update Visit our social media handle. Read First India NewsPaper in your morning replace. Visit First India.
CLICK:- https://firstindia.co.in/
#First_India_NewsPaper
हम आग्रह करते हैं कि जो भी सत्ता में आए, वह संविधान का पालन करे, उसकी रक्षा करे और उसे बनाए रखे।" प्रस्ताव में कुल तीन प्रमुख हस्तक्षेप और उनके तंत्र भी प्रस्तुत किए गए। पहला हस्तक्षेप स्वतंत्र मीडिया को प्रोत्साहित करके, वास्तविकता पर आधारित काउंटर नैरेटिव का निर्माण करके और सत्तारूढ़ सरकार द्वारा नियोजित मनोवैज्ञानिक हेरफेर की रणनीति का मुकाबला करके लोगों द्वारा निर्धारित कथा को बनाए रखना और उस पर कार्यकरना था।
role of women and girls in various terror groupssadiakorobi2
Women have three distinct types of involvement: direct involvement in terrorist acts; enabling of others to commit such acts; and facilitating the disengagement of others from violent or extremist groups.
Greece-EU relations: hypocrisy in all its greatness
1. Ц Е Н Т Ъ Р З А Л И Б Е Р А Л Н И С Т Р А Т Е Г И И
C E N T R E F O R L I B E R A L S T R A T E G I E S
21 A, Patriarch Evtimii blvd. Sofia 1000, tel: (+359 2) 986 14 33
fax: (+359 2) 981 89 25. E-mail: cls@cls-sofia.org; http://www.cls-sofia.org
Research Project
Hypocrisy, Anti-Hypocrisy and International Order
The Dilemmas of Liberal Power in the 21st Century
BACKGROUND PAPER
Greece-EU relations: hypocrisy in all its greatness
(The Greek perspective on economic and refugee crisis)
Takis Karagiannis
With the kind support of:
2. 2
Greece-EU relations: hypocrisy in all its greatness
(The Greek perspective on economic and refugee crisis)
Takis Karagiannis is a senior political editor at the most prestigious Greek political website
www.protagon.gr. Mr. Karagiannis has studied International and European Economics at Athens
University of Economics and Business (Major: International Economics & Finance/International &
European Political Economy) and has a great experience covering the developments in the EU and
Greece from the beginning of the crisis six years ago.
Introduction
Since Democritus formulated his quote "many people use the best words, even they behave
with the most obscene manner" to the time when Sharon Stone said "women may fake an
orgasm, but men may fake an entire relationship" -although a lot of people argue about the
copyright of the phrase-, 2,380 years have passed. And throughout these 24 centuries, few
things have changed in the correlation between the human nature and human conduct.
Hypocrisy -in terms of mendacity- is inherent to the human race. Never has a society been
recorded, either without any signs of hypocrisy or with the ability to eliminate them. As it
seems, there is only a poor chance to experience such a society in the future. And as an
ingrained part of our entity, hypocrisy is an undivided component of our political culture [1].
"Hypocrisy is a form of lying. When people talk to each other they blame one another for
deliberate ambiguity, concerted role playing, equivocal phrases, and hesitant minced words.
Moreover, they manifest this kind of behavior the very same time they call for honesty and
clarity; the very same time they request from their interlocutors to mean what they say, and
to say what they mean. "Such a thoroughgoing is the human hypocrisy", Steven Pinker -
Canadian-born, American cognitive scientist and popular author- writes in his book "The
Stuff of Thought" [2] vividly impressing that hypocrisy is a form of lying; a form of lying
with an effective camouflage around itself. We lie in order to hold ourselves together as a
person [3]. We wish others to think well of us; and we, surely, want to think well of
ourselves. And as politicians are primarily human beings, having been raised and educated
in an identical environment, they inevitably display similar behaviors occasionally.
3. 3
Not many years ago, in the post-Olympics Greece, circumstances used to be smoother.
Hypocrisy was engrossing the public debate just in the interest of symbolic issues.
Confrontations were focused on whether a radical left politician had the right to choose a
private school for his children, whether it was acceptable the General Secretary of the
Communist Party of Greece to hold an iPhone device (and by doing so, glorifying the idea
of capitalism and being a great example of what pervasive strength the ideological opponent
of the communism has), or whether the major opposition party had the right to elevate the
implementation of the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) at the highest possible level,
even if had previously been leading the anti-austerity movement.
Presently, outlook is much more different. All facts mentioned beforehand pertain to the past
and look more like a farce, rather than the reality that Greek people had to deal with, less
than a decade ago.
Nowadays,
seven years after the economic crisis broke out in Greece,
six years after the first MoU,
five years after the formation of -the first in decades- coalition government in
Greece,
four years since Golden Dawn -whose leader is still in custody on charges of
organizing a criminal group- gained access to the Greek parliament,
three years after the Greek state budget recorded a primary surplus that let the
country -even temporarily- to tap international markets for the first time since 2010,
two years after the beginning of the end of Nea Demokratia (ND)-Panhellenic
Socialist Movement (PASOK) bipartisanship, and
one year after the first ever, self-proclaimed government of the Left
Greece still experiences hypocrisy in all its greatness; constantly, in every sector, in all
possible ways and in every combination.
While the rest of the world agonizingly witnesses the situation in Greece, Greek people
persist in accusing their European counterparts of the way they have been behaving since
2010; a behavior that has been disclosed as highly hypocritical and riskily opportunistic.
4. 4
Refugee Crisis
There is a remarkable similarity in the modus that the residents of East Aegean Islands are
expressing their increasing anger, fuelled by the steep refugee flows, and the manner of the
rhetoric tone of Coalition of the Radical Left (SYRIZA) political members against the
European Union (EU), due to the implemented policy for the refugee crisis. And if Stelios
Kouloglou, among the most active SYRIZA Members of the European Parliament (MEPs),
has suggested in several of his recent interventions, albeit in a rather epidermal way that the
EU behaves "hypocritically", then Dimitris Papadimoulis did not have any diffidence to do
so more intensely, more emphatically. The vice president of the European Parliament, and
head of SYRIZA MEPs, provided the journalists of the Italic newspaper Il Fatto Quotidiano
with a hint for the headline which pursued the interview "Inept and hypocritical Union: only
punishes us" [4] he bestowed. Similarly to numerous other occasions [5] in this particular
interview Mr. Papadimoulis did not expand his considerations on the reasons that stimulate
him to characterize the behaviour of European counterparts in this manner.
On the contrary, this has been well established by Alexis Tsipras. The Greek Prime Minister
(PM), in quite a few affiliations during the past, has censured Europe’s attitude, justifying
the depiction "hypocritical" regarding Brussels’ weakness to convince other Balkan
countries to keep their borders open. In mid-March, during a meeting of the European
Radical Left and Ecology [6] Mr. Tsipras pitched for "Europe has to change course" [6], and
emphasized that "there are no common rules; thus, certain countries can close their borders
in the name of nationalsovereignty" [6]. This is a rationale Alexis Tsipras adopts and serves
in his own rhetoric quite often, although the basis of his criticism is focused on non-EU
countries which do not fall in Brussels’ jurisdiction. In other words, the Greek PM generally
decries Europe on a lack of solidarity and hypocritical practices; however, he essentially
refers to a directly involved particular party. This is none but FYROM (Former Yugoslav
Republic of Macedonia1
) that is not constrained by EU Directives, Regulations, or
Conventions in determining its policy on the refugee crisis.
To perceive exactly how the Greek PM interprets the situation that has been shaped
throughout the Old Continent, his speeches need to be studied. Additionally, much attention
1
The Republic of Macedonia is a country in the Balkan Peninsula, in Southeast Europe. Due to a ongoing dispute over the
name Macedonia, Greece still refers to its neighbor country as the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia
5. 5
should be paid to the way SYRIZA leader perceived causes and causalities for the refugee
influx. Mr. Tsipras does not accept that the elemental justification -due to which countries as
FYROM and Serbia obstruct their borders-, is the inability to manage the refugee flows. The
reason according to the Greek PM "is the monster of fascism which is fed by the austerity
policies" [6] which have been implemented both by Berlin and Brussels in recent years.
Therefore, according to Mr. Tsipras’ hypothesis, there is criticism towards the European
counterparts over the root cause behind the phobic behavior of Balkan countries instead of
Europe’s frailty to preserve its borderlines.
But there is something else which pushes the man who pulls the strings in Greece to talk
about hypocrisy in Europe. Something linked neither to an inherent political consideration,
which Mr.Tsipras has been delivering ever since, nor to tactics deriving from the ideological
Left matrix, in which the 42-year-old politician has been nurtured; yet, it is related to what
happened in the summer of 2015. The outcome of negotiations and the attitude that both the
EU Commission and the Member-State leaders adopted, has granted to the Greek PM the
counterweight he has placed on his political scale. Countries as Austria, Slovenia, Slovakia,
the Czech Republic, and Germany have been gradually closing their borders in the grounds
of the primacy of national sovereignty over the collective European acquis. Nonetheless,
these are the same countries which have not respected the national sovereignty of Greek
people and government by the time SYRIZA had taken power; and have tried to impose
"austerity as a must in a country that had democratically appointed a government under
different election commitments" [6]. Namely, SYRIZA leader denounces the Central
European countries for invocation of sovereignty when it comes to issues of these countries
per se, while in the past they aspired to circumvent Greek national sovereignty via the
economic policy that was actually applied.
The former is the political dimension of Alexis Tsipras’ arguments as to whether Europe
reacts hypocritically in the context of refugee crisis. However, there is a disparate extent;
one, that even though it stands away from ideological confrontations, is vigorously
approaching the reliance on emotion.
From the Greek parliamentary step [7], meaning the supreme institutional point, Mr. Tsipras
delivered a speech characterizing "the tears flowing today are hypocritical, because it is not
only the dead children that the Aegean Sea washes up, but also the living ones who are
heading to the path of exile from their country alive ones who are stacked on the path of
6. 6
exile" [7]. And while demanding the leaders of countries that are engaged in one way or
another to the war raging in Syria to act responsibly, he also declared that "Greece does not
claim even one euro in order to serve its purpose towards these people who die in our yard"
[8]. Twenty days ago, in the presence of Werner Faymann -the recently resigned Austrian
Chancellor who had previously ordered the border shutdown- Mr. Tsipras emphasized that
"the refugee receptor countries need too much money to contend the difficulties" [9].
Stelios Kouloglou is not just a SYRIZA MEP; less than a year ago he still worked as a
journalist. One of the most famous opinion makers in Greece, especially during the outset of
the economic crisis, he has been blaming European leaders for their policies. On his own
website, tvxs.gr, several articles describing Europe as hypocritical [10], mainly due to the
provision for the return of a very limited percentage of refugees have been published. The
migration ratio as described in the EU-Turkey agreement [11] which affects only 72,000
people, despite the human influx that has been calculated at 4,000,000, is what stimulates
the denunciation. Seraphim Seferiades, Associate Professor of Political Science at Panteion
University and Life Member at Cambridge University, considers that "refugee migrations
rely on the discretion of European countries and their pure intentions" [10].
It is not just SYRIZA MEPs who undermine that European leaders’ policy is imposed by
hypocritical motivation. George Kyrtsos -former journalist as well- vice chairman with
delegation for relations with the NATO Parliamentary Assembly, and MEP of ND referred
to "the horrid hypocrisy of the 28" [12]. What motivated him to proceed with this statement
seems unrelated to aspirations behind Brussels’ recommended policies; the true incentives,
according to his opinion, are consistent with a lot of oxymoron behavioural patterns being
observed alongside. "Neither a mutual foreign affairs policy nor a defence policy is there"
[12], he expressed in pursuit of indicating that it is unacceptable for European counterparts
to demand common action in the Aegean Sea area without the aforementioned requirements.
Yet, politicians and journalists are not the only ones criticizing Brussels. Frequently, the role
of the Great Inquisitor is assigned to University professors who shape public opinion either
through their articles or with their public speaking. An illustrative example is Joseph Weiler,
president of the European University Institute in Florence, who argued during an interview
in Kathimerini [13] -one of the largest Greek newspapers in circulation- why European
leaders act in this fashion. In accordance with his train of thought Europe confronts a
profound problem; and the refugee crisis is not it. This is the demographic problem [14].
7. 7
"With the exception of two Member-States, Europe commits suicide. The dramatic
population decline is one thing. The real issue is comprised of the balance between the
young and the older people. […] Immigration is a matter of life or death for Europe" [13],
Weiler stressed, adding that originally there has been a strong will in the majority of
Member-State capitals to assist those countries encountering arduousness with refugee
movements. Obviously, the deeper intentions concern the aforementioned demographic
problem; and it is not just innocent solidarity with the Mediterranean and Balkan countries.
Economy
May that the criticism towards European leaders on the refugee crisis be a less than a year
open issue, the one directed towards the economic policy has already been around for half a
dozen years one. Since the beginning of 2010, when the International Monetary Fund (IMF)
participation in the Greek rescue program was a common secret, both SYRIZA and ND -the
two parties that have afterwards lead the anti-austerity movement- have been blaming
PASOK for the policy it had adopted. And if this reaction was predictable for Alexis
Tsipras' party, the attitude of the center-right party was anything but foreseeable.
The Greek PM and the governing parties themselves on the opposite ideological side of
what the troika suggests. From the very first moment when George Papandreou -Greek PM
2009-2011- signed the first MoU in 2010, and later when Antonis Samaras -Greek PM
2012-2015- took charge, the Radical Left party persisted in declaiming on a single
hypocritical contradiction; the one that stands both in politicians’ that implement the MoU
agreement rhetoric and its results. For SYRIZA, the "unimpeded implementation" of the
policies recommended by the IMF, the EU Commission, and the European Central Bank
(ECB) does not lead to economic growth; but instead to "pension and salary cuts, fresh
layoffs in the civil sector, rise of unemployment levels and even more closed shops" [15].
Thereafter, anyone who walks on the MoU path "reacts hypocritically" [15]. For the Greek
Radical Left this is an ideological matter; a subconscious issue relevant to the placement
onto the political map of economy. European counterparts enforce "neoliberal, antisocial
policies" and this package only "serves the domination of the banks" [15].
But ND used to describe the reality in a similar, subjective way. Antonis Samaras, party
leader 2009-2015, had been among many other politicians standing on the other side of the
8. 8
policy adopted by the Greek government due to the IMF participation in the rescue program.
It was Mr. Samaras who described himself as "the architect of the anti-austerity, anti-MoU
movement" [16]. Mr. Samaras had stated that "MoU brought Greece even closer to declare
bankruptcy" [17] and had also foreseen that "this policy mixture would induce the vicious
circle of fruitless sacrifices that led to interminable recession" [17]. And all this conversation
had been evolved at the very same time that ECB had acknowledged a short-lived
stabilization and incunabula of recovery [18].
Back in 2010, there were several members from other political parties, except for the above-
mentioned conservatives, who opposed to and accused European leaders of their strategy.
George Papakonstantinou, the former Minister of Finance who signed the first MoU, and a
persona non grata for the majority of the Greek people, writes in his recently published book
[19] about his European counterparts’ ambiguity. Several Ministers of Finance have been
assuring Mr. Papakonstantinou that IMF would have no participation in the rescue
mechanism [19], while at the very same moment they were negotiating with IMF officials
the terms and conditions of its involvement [19], as the Greek ex-minister underlines.
However, it is not easy for someone to find such a rigorous politician, journalist or
economist as Yanis Varoufakis. Economist and holder of the position of Minister of Finance
for seven months (January-July 2015), Mr. Varoufakis used to argue against the adopted
policy since the IMF placed itself into the routine of Greek people. Simultaneously, while he
was resolving the major argument on the European banks rescue, an EU Commission report
[20] was certifying that "since the beginning of the financial crisis, 112 banks, representing
just around 30% of the EU banking system by assets, have received State aid, instead of the
taxpayers" [20].
Maybe the most representative example of Yanis Varoufakis' rhetoric and his way of
thinking can be spotted on Harald Schumann's documentary "On the Trail of the Troika"
[21], in which the Greek economist analyzes his arguments for almost 60 minutes. Likewise,
in 2015, Mr. Varoufakis has been negotiating with his European counterparts albeit the
former Greek minister acutely blamed them for hypocrisy afterwards [21], because they had
already consented to the role of troika; a troika that was trying to diminish pensions while "it
was turning a blind eye to what is one of the greatest scandals of the banking sector of
Europe: the Greek recapitalization process" [21]. Certainly, he escalates his rhetoric,
highlighting that troika attitude emanates from "either complicity or idiocy" [21]. Yet, Mr.
9. 9
Varoufakis does not let the question floating on people's minds and he justifies himself by
saying he tends "to come down of the side of complicity" [21]. And if anyone wonders what
the reason is behind all, the answer is all about the Greek rescue package. "What was the
bailout for? The bailout was not in order to bail Greece out. Greece was never bailed out.
The bailout loan that was extended in May 2010 had a very single, singular, and simple
purpose. That was to transfer banking losses from the asset books of banks, not only Greek
ones, but also French ones and German ones, onto the shoulders of tax payers, initially the
Greek tax payers. And the troika is here supervising this sinister transfer" [21].
Mr. Varoufakis particularly highlights the technical frame of the process [22]. He accuses
the ECB of hypocrisy, as officials in Frankfurt suggest the national banks to follow the rules
whilst they know there is "no alternative than to violate their own rules and this is why if
ECB tells the truth about the state of the Greek banks it will precipitate in a new crisis" [21].
To underscore the administrative distortion of the banking system, Yanis Varoufakis wrote
his own book [23] which actually is a dictionary full of lexical and conceptual economic
terms that plague the Greek society; many of them created by him indeed.
Of course, there are several other examples of the term "hypocrisy" not referring to the
procedure of covering up the aims and purposes of financial and banking insiders, but is
being attributed to Europeans in its purest, raw, and crude form instead. As a lie.
Tasos Pappas, a Greek journalist better known for his radical left rhetoric rather than his
social democratic one, authored a whole article dedicated to Pier Moscovisci at the
Newspaper of the Editors -also well-known for its sharp leftist point of view- entitled
"Hypocrisy and Lies" [24]. The Greek journalist accused the European Commissioner of
Economic and Financial Affairs, Taxation and Customs of "apparent lie, covered up with the
familiar diplomatic language used by EU bureaucrats" [24]. According to Mr. Pappas, EU
officials declare that every Member-State is the one to decide for its own tax system [24].
Yet, they are the ones who describe as "unilateral action" [24] any law-making activity.
Another argument is also being used by the detractors of the European insiders concerning
their behavior. EU tolerates, "if not to say endorses" [25], the offshore "tax heavens and the
concessions of Luxemburg credit institutions" [25], whereas EU officials demonstrate strong
intention to obliterate tax evasion. Indeed, this is something that Nikos Xydakis has used
plentiful times as argumentation. Mr. Xydakis has been, from 2003 and on, the editor in
10. 10
chief at Kathimerini -a major Greek newspaper- ; he has repeatedly been commenting both
the "hypocrisy on the apex of the EU pyramid and how dependent the head of states are
from the multinational companies" [25]. Nikos Xydakis started serving as a Minister of the
Greek state from the Day One of the SYRIZA era. He still answers the purpose as the
Alternate Minister of Culture in the cabinet of Alexis Tsipras.
But harsh criticism has not been endorsed just by the Radical Left in Greece. EU toleration
of the IMF configurations has been object to criticism by the right-wing aligned newspapers
since the eruption of the economic crisis. Democracy newspaper had published its front page
to mark the fifth "anniversary" of the IMF-Greece’s "marriage" under the title "Five Years
of Memorandum: The Poor Greek Economic Auschwitz" [26]. No more than a paragraph
and 109 words have been enough for the editor in chief to describe what has been happening
in Greece, according to his point of view, naturally [26]. As Democracy quoted, the Private
Sector Involvement (PSI) was "supposed to have wiped out €105 billion of Greek debt, but
the only real result was the European banks rescue, and the Greek-state social insurance
institutions collapse" [26]. In addition, this is something that "has been anticipated from the
beginning" and it reflects "how hypocritically European leaders talk to the Greek people"
[26].
The approach that nurtured the society over the past years is reflected in a nearly a 4-hour
video [27], which counts for several thousand views on YouTube. It is the first Popular
Assembly at the Syntagma Square, on June 7th
, 2011. More than 1,ooo Greeks had been
present at the most central part of the capital, to listen to four people exhibiting the way for
the country to overcome the crisis without having to traverse a path strewn with thorns;
aftereffect of the 2010 signed loan agreements [27]. Three of them (Yanis Varoufakis,
George Katrougalos, Euclid Tsakalotos) were given ministerial positions in 2015, and two
of them (George Katrougalos, Euclid Tsakalotos) remain today in the Cabinet. The fourth
(George Kazakis) serves as the leader of the United Popular Front (EPAM) which did not
even run in the last elections. Such procedures, such meetings had been a frequent
phenomenon back in 2010-2012, when PASOK, under George Papandreou, initially was in
power; and the coalition government subsequently, with Lucas Papademos as the PM.
For almost four months, from May to August 2011, it was impossible to cross Athens
downtown by car; in daily basis, tens of thousands used to demonstrate against austerity.
Both ND and SYRIZA had been amongst political and social institutions calling Greek
11. 11
people to participate to these marches and rallies. These aforementioned social movements
formulated Aganaktismenoi2
, the Greek branch of Indignados.
Discussion
Hypocrisy -either as a word or as a meaning- has its roots to Ancient Greek theatre. Actors
were actually called "hypocrites" and their art on stage was defined as "hypocrisy".
Nevertheless, using everyday acting techniques in social contacts -even more in
interpersonal relationships- it is reasonable to accuse someone of being hypocritical. And
although Ancient Greeks used to appreciate hypocrisy as a form of Art, unfolding as
performance in front of an audience, the hypocrites as individuals did not enjoy an equal
admiration.
From Plato who formulated the following "wolf -which is the wildest animal- looks like a
dog -which is the calmest one-. The man who wants to be safe has to protect himself from
these similarities" to Jean De La Bruyère who scribed that "a veil of modesty covers merit,
and a mask of hypocrisy covers wicked", and Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov, alias Lenin who put
forth the successive "honesty in politics is the result of strength; hypocrisy is the result of
weakness", several philosophers and political scientists have been engaged to the concept of
"hypocrisy". However, nobody has ever managed to propose a model which could be
adopted by a political system in order to eliminate hypocrisy.
In Modern Greek though, the word "hypocrisy" and its derivatives, either nouns or
adjectives, have no positive meaning. Whenever someone uses these units of language
intends to stress a behavior; the meaning of the phrase and the importance assigned to it are
absolutely clear. Throughout the evolution of language that gave birth to the term
"hypocrisy", the word itself has come to possess a more negative sense in Greek than in
English. Maybe this is a substantiation of how frequently the term is being spelled, and how
much it has been spoiled.
2 Aganaktismenoi is the Greek word for Indignant, used for the anti-austerity movement, involving a series of demonstrations
and general strikes. In May 2011, the second wave of rallies was proved different from the previous one, as most of the events
turned violent. As in Spain, these demonstrations were organized entirely using social networking sites
12. 12
It is true that Greeks have repeatedly been accusing European politicians of great hypocrisy.
It is true that Greek journalists have blamed Brussels for bilingualism quite a few times. It is
also true that the Greek party leaders have highlighted that their counterparts and partners
wear masks in order to cloak their true intentions. However, all the above-mentioned Greek
society pillars react identically, operating the very same way they blame the Europeans for.
Greeks behave hypocritically. Some of them shun undertaking the vital reforms the state
needs, despite having previously included these to the campaign promise. And some others
exorcise every single proposed reform whereas at the very same time they explicate the
necessity of this implementation.
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Acknowledgments
This assignment was supported by the Centre of Liberal Strategies. The author of this paper
would like to express his gratitude to Ms. Anna Diamantopoulou, President of DIKTIO -
NETWORK for REFORM in Greece and Europe, introducing his work to the Centre for
Liberal Strategies. Moreover, the author should thank Mr. Yannis Mastrogeorgiou and Mr.
George Papoulias for facilitating effective communication. This research would never come
true without the very helpful comments and suggestions received during the preparation of
the paper from Ms. Faidra Psarommati-Giannakopoulou, Mr. Dimitris Daniil, Mr. Themis
Lambrou and Mr. Stathis Ziogas.