-The arithmetic of… ambition-
In the upcoming elections, seventeen parties will participate, so far. Seventeen formations for a country that barely reaches one million inhabitants, with approximately 700 parliamentary candidates.
In the last American elections, twenty parties participated in a country of 350 million, with only six of them achieving significant percentages.
In Germany, with its 84 million people, thirty-nine parties and eight small coalitions emerged.
In Greece, with ten million inhabitants, there are twenty-five parties.
In Russia, with 150 million, there are twenty-six.
What’s going on with us, as the kids say?
Are we ideologically so much more diverse than all of them? Do we have so many different values that some cannot converge to collaborate? Or do we simply not want to share the pie and choose the small personal balcony of solitary ambition?
And if we are indeed so demanding and deeply ideologically entrenched, why is social participation almost nonexistent?
I have attended charitable actions, protests, and social initiatives. Events that collectively gathered not even 700 people. And yet, so many will seek our vote.
Most of those who show up at such events do not seek any votes. On the contrary, those who do seek votes appear only when necessary or when there are cameras around. Free publicity – can we afford to lose it?
And thus the inevitable question arises:
In what society do they wish to contribute and seek our vote when they themselves are absent from anything that truly concerns it?
Let’s put an end to the fairy tale of selfless contribution to society. If they want to keep spinning this little tale, let them do it among themselves.
There is a simple – impractical but revealing – test that truly demonstrates what motivates aspiring politicians:
What if members of parliament were paid a basic salary?
No perks, no outrageous expenses for representation, no allowances, no immunity, no pensions after just one term when the average citizen needs… six centuries to retire.
Would we see the same level of participation? Would we have the same passion for public affairs?
Obviously not.
Politics is a career – and one of the most lucrative at that. While it should be anything but that. In a normal democracy, it would be almost blasphemous to treat it as a career profession. But here it has evolved into an investment that opens doors, facilitates opportunities, offers immunity and side powers.
And all this did not build up overnight. It was constructed over the years, brick by brick, legislation by legislation, privilege by privilege. And representatives have reached a point where they enjoy what citizens should enjoy while providing them with what no one should enjoy in a well-governed society.
I have a theory that explains how we got here and consider absurdity a norm. A theory I concocted one night when sleep eluded me.
The “theory of the white hair.”
If one morning you wake up and all your hair is completely white, you experience shock. But if three white hairs appear, you’ll brush it off. Okay, I’ve hit forty; it’s reasonable. It doesn’t just happen on its own. The following week fifty white hairs will emerge, but again it doesn’t disturb you. You find it a normal progression. Gradually, within a few months or a year, the gray-black hairs become a sadly minimal minority but this transition happened so organically and smoothly that you don’t even notice it. Occasionally you reminisce about the time when you had no white hairs at all.
This is how political privileges came about. They weren’t all voted in one day. They came little by little in such a way that they seemed like “reasonable” small developments. And we’ve arrived at the monster we see today: an enormous beast that we feed like a small pet because that’s how we remember it.
Look at how the Tyrannosaurus rex has turned out now. It’s almost blocking out the sun.
The Papa-Ratsis
