The Killers of the People

What’s the big deal, you’ll probably tell me. A member of parliament called the Americans “killers of the people” live on the SKAI channel. It’s as if he opened his wardrobe, found a pair of bell bottom pants, preferably low-waist, and put them on to go to the reception, proud of his classic taste. It does not matter at all whether he got the inspiration at the time when the prime minister was sweating trying to mimic the exotic sounds of the language of the “killers,” abusing it so as to show his free spirit, obviously. It does matter, on the other hand, that political retro is in fashion in our under-cultured country, together with the specific racism that develops whenever we face someone whom we know to be stronger than us.

Who said it is of absolutely no importance. I assume that many in the governing party believe, and also plenty outside the majority government consider it obvious, that those responsible for the Islamic State are the Americans and the French, as the MP in question did not forget to clarify. He also grabbed the opportunity to state his doubts as to how much the government will be able to serve its historic role — that of protecting the weak.

He did not clarify whether he was referring to all the Americans or whether he had spotted among their millions some who do not kill the people. I have a friend in New York who, from what I know, does not kill the people. He also failed to clarify whether the German Nazis are included in the “people,” whom the Americans were killing in order to save Europe, or the people of the Kim family in North Korea, or the fighters of the Democratic Army who wanted to turn Greece into Albania.

There are many things you can say about U.S. policy. You can blame it for the dismantling of Iraq and the situation in Afghanistan and loads of poor workmanship in administering our world — fine print for the political thinking that gets produced by know-it-alls in the country because they don’t let such details get in the way; fine print also for those who believe that SYRIZA managed to rid itself of its ideological junk, after the departure of the Lafazanis supporters.

The ideological grid through which the left has been feeding itself for decades now, from the nostalgia of the civil war to the vision of overturning the civil regime, is as strong as the thirst for power. And today, if someone pulled that slogan about the Americans out of the “dustbin of history” — what a beautiful phrase, I never thought I would use it — tomorrow, somebody else will remember that they do not support the memorandum. And because the “memorandum” is of ideological value for those on the left, and not just a way to manage the crisis, when the time comes, very soon, the anti-memorandum cowboy attitude will be asking for its existential rights.

Let us not forget that the consistent material of the governing party is neither the rescue of the country nor its stay in Europe. It’s that the Americans are the killers of the people: commonly speaking, a collection of outdated ideologies, whose worth has been cashed by our world a long time ago.