Cyprus-Forum.com

[Bananiot]

No foreigner needs to downgrade, degrade and denigrate Greece. The Greeks are quite capable of doing all those by themselves.

[Hermes]

No foreigner needs to downgrade, degrade and denigrate Greece. The Greeks are quite capable of doing all those by themselves.

What a silly reply. Have you ever stopped to ask yourself how a small, semi-developed economy came to borrow an unsupportable €300bn? Or why Italy is facing economic meltdown? Or why Spain and Ireland's economies are on life-support? Or why German, French and Dutch banks are insolvent? Are all the people of these countries morally inadequate? Including the northern Europeans whose banks are in danger of collapse as a result of their reckless lending?

Scapegoating the Greeks does nothing to address the issue that this crisis is a systematic Europe-wide crisis. The European system is collapsing in different parts. This crisis is not solely a Greek crisis. Greece has its own problems of corruption, clientelism and structural failings. But the current crisis is a crisis of the Eurozone banks as well as a crisis of the periphery debt. Ireland is not known for tax evasion or being a corrupt state and it finds itself close to default. Spain has less debt and deficit than the UK but is also in the firing line. The issue is that Europe has been in complete denial of the very nature of the problem. Comments like yours show a complete lack of understanding of the problem. They are just ignorance and a kind of stupid glee masquerading as moral superiority.

[Talisker]

No foreigner needs to downgrade, degrade and denigrate Greece. The Greeks are quite capable of doing all those by themselves.

What a silly reply.

It's a good laugh though to see Bananiot and Get Real! in complete agreement on this matter! Who'd have thought that would ever happen?

[Bananiot]

Greece has its own problems of corruption, clientelism and structural failings

You said it Hermes, we agree on this one, you have hit the nail on the head. Are corruption, clientelism (party rusfet) and structural failings, the trade marks of a European country? Of course not (I hear you say) and this makes two of us.

P.S. Now it is the appropriate time for me to read again through "Modern (satirical) history of Greece" by Vasilis Rafaelides, again. Among else, Rafaelides says (written in 1988): "O EΠΟΜΕΝΟΣ ΔΙΕΘΝΗΣ ΟΙΚΟΝΟΜΙΚΟΣ ΕΛΕΓΧΟΣ ΠΡΟΒΛΕΠΩ ΝΑ ΚΡΑΤΑΕΙ 200 ΧΡΟΝΙΑ. ΑΝ ΚΑΙ ΔΕΝ ΝΟΜΙΖΩ ΠΩΣ ΘΑ ΥΠΑΡΧΕΙ ΕΛΛΑΔΑ. ΘΑ ΤΗΝ ΕΧΟΥΝ ΦΑΕΙ ΟΙ ΕΛΛΗΝΕΣ ΜΑΖΙ ΜΕ ΤΑ ΧΡΕΗ ΤΗΣ"

Translation: "I PREDICT THAT THE NEXT ECONOMIC INVIGILATION (BY FOREIGNERS) WILL HOLD FOR 200 YEARS BUT THERE PROBABLY WONT BE A GREECE BY THEN. IT WOULD GET EATEN AWAY BY THE GREEKS ALONG WITH HER DEBTS"

Vasilis Rafaelides (died in the 1990's) loved Greece and because he loved Greece he did not mince his words. He wanted to see things done but of course the Greeks brushed him aside because he was interfering with their favourite sport: Corruption, clentelism and ... structural inadequacies.

[GreekIslandGirl]

It's one thing to predict economic decline and another to jump on a bandwagon trumpeting how 'third world', unsavable, and non-European the Greeks are. It's an irresistible weapon this anti-Greek bandwagon that the camouflaged racists are jumping upon. This is exactly the type of racist publicity generated in Britain to hyper-inflate Greece's interest rates and add to its demise. Consider yourself as adding to their downfall and not their salvation with this perpetual, protracted anti-Greek rhetoric. Close your eyes to those rubbing their hands with glee as you deliver the lamb for slaughter.

[Get Real!]

And what of Cyprus once Greece is gone?

You’re one of the foolish fervent supporters of the notion that Greece and Cyprus are mutually exclusive, by negating the sovereignty of Cyprus and reducing Cypriots to just another group of ”Hellenes”!

So it therefore follows that DEATH TO GREECE can only mean…

LIFE FOR CYPRUS!

[Get Real!]

Are you on drugs, Get Real?

What will it take for fools to wake up… or perhaps they are not fools but faithful servants of their true bloodline!

What made Greeks Greek, wrote the historian Herodotus in the 5th century BC, was a sense of shared religion, language and customs. Despite the wars and rivalry of the Greek city states, Greeks were Greek and the rest were barbarians – barbaroi, those people who speak foreign languages that sound like "bar, bar, bar".

Now you could argue that GR sounds like he's talking gibberish a lot of the time. However, despite his touching and rather sentimental claim to having a Neolithic bloodline, I'm prepared to give GR the benefit of the doubt and say that he's still a Greek as he speaks gibberish in the Greek language. Thus he cannot be a barbarian. Although he does try our patience, I still claim him as one of our own. For better or worse.

It’s unfortunate but not surprising that you and Herodotus have nothing in common.

Of course that doesn’t stop you from fantasizing...

[bill cobbett]

Again.... Gawd, this thread is sooooo rubbish.. so don't mind me adding a little more...

Three pages of rubbish where no one has asked the simplest question of the 3rd rate writer of this 3rd rate article, someone who is soooo determined to make his point that he doesn't stop for a mo to define "European" to readers; what he/she thinks a "European" is, what it means when we refer to people as "European".

So a few questions... What do we mean by "European"? The member states of the EU? The states of the Council of Europe (which includes such places as Turkey and Russia) ... and what about places like Brazil, Argentina, Mexico or even the USA, are these "European" places...? Is it a matter of religion? Values?

[Get Real!]

No foreigner needs to downgrade, degrade and denigrate Greece. The Greeks are quite capable of doing all those by themselves.

What a silly reply. Have you ever stopped to ask yourself how a small, semi-developed economy came to borrow an unsupportable €300bn? Or why Italy is facing economic meltdown? Or why Spain and Ireland's economies are on life-support? Or why German, French and Dutch banks are insolvent? Are all the people of these countries morally inadequate? Including the northern Europeans whose banks are in danger of collapse as a result of their reckless lending?

Scapegoating the Greeks does nothing to address the issue that this crisis is a systematic Europe-wide crisis. The European system is collapsing in different parts. This crisis is not solely a Greek crisis. Greece has its own problems of corruption, clientelism and structural failings. But the current crisis is a crisis of the Eurozone banks as well as a crisis of the periphery debt. Ireland is not known for tax evasion or being a corrupt state and it finds itself close to default. Spain has less debt and deficit than the UK but is also in the firing line. The issue is that Europe has been in complete denial of the very nature of the problem. Comments like yours show a complete lack of understanding of the problem. They are just ignorance and a kind of stupid glee masquerading as moral superiority.

Greece has ALWAYS been the black sheep of Europe that has never contributed anything to the EU but was a constant recipient so quit finding pitiful excuses!

[Get Real!]

Again.... Gawd, this thread is sooooo rubbish.. so don't mind me adding a little more...

Three pages of rubbish where no one has asked the simplest question of the 3rd rate writer of this 3rd rate article, someone who is soooo determined to make his point that he doesn't stop for a mo to define "European" to readers; what he/she thinks a "European" is, what it means when we refer to people as "European".

So a few questions... What do we mean by "European"? The member states of the EU? The states of the Council of Europe (which includes such places as Turkey and Russia) ... and what about places like Brazil, Argentina, Mexico or even the USA, are these "European" places...? Is it a matter of religion? Values?

But why are you stuck on the "European" bit of the article? Plenty else in there was 100% spot on.