A central area of specialization of mine as a social scientist is the so-called
content analysis: the capacity to reach at the true content of a speaker’s or
writer’s speech or text, since the very choice of sentence construction and
vocabulary choice suggests to the analyst who can apply such techniques, the
real motives and intended targets in the message.
Of course in the case of GAP, who has time and over again said things only to do
the complete opposite, who has offered us so much evidence regarding his
politics towards the People and to those seeking to maximize exploitation of the
People, one needs not to be a scientist to gain immediate understanding of the
fact that GAP’s address at IFT was full of empty promises and wishful thinking,
blatant inaccuracies and audacious lies, announcements on management and
administrative initiatives which required a level of pre-existing organization
far from the reaches of Greek reality at this time and place (assuming of course
that the level of national organization described or assumed and in deed
pronounced achievable by the end of 2011, is in existence in some other country
in our time).
What we should pay attention at is the totality of these messages in the text of
the speech which are NOT empty words and which are NOT inaccuracies, because it
is there that the whole point lies. It is there that the whole truth of GAP’s
‘dream’ for Greece lies, something which of course has already been made
apparently clear by the hitherto course of the country under his government, but
which nonetheless becomes even more distinct if we know where to look.
GAP, and in particular his communications skills advisors, have obviously tried
to help him bypass the ‘reef’ and possible debacle of his speech via the ‘passe
partout’ tactic: we may describe or make reference to the medium but avoid any
reference as to where this medium may lead, surreptitiously letting the wishful
thinking and imagination of his audience to fill the gap as to which is or where
lies the target of the whole task, so that the audience will come to think that
GAP truly intends to succeed at those tasks the audience needs to hear or
desires to see realised.
Thus, GAP said: ‘…to change [Greece] radically, to reform her, to pull her once
and for all away from the crisis’, which is true. He truly wants to change
Greece radically and to reform it. If only he could have added INTO WHAT he
wants to radically change Greece and IN WHAT WAY to reform it. A change does not
necessarily or by default refer to a change for the better FOR EVERYONE.
To be able to judge whether the change he visualizes is indeed better, more
complete, etc., we should stay away from comparative and generalizing messages
and concentrate on the ‘end result’, i.e, the final outcome of the change, not
by using attractive but difficult to explain and subjectively-defined
connotations (for example, ‘just taxation’ that is open to a range of
interpretations) but by using clear and unequivocal data (for example, what
percent income tax, what percent VAT cuts, etc) so that they can subsequently be
checked by the Citizenry.
Further, the fact that he does not make it clear which ‘crisis’ he is talking
about, secure in the knowledge that most of us will simply assume that he refers
to the economic one, is unacceptable in such an address – announcement for
future initiatives, since by the name of ‘crisis’ he might have simply been
referring to the crisis in banking (and so indirectly sending a message of
submission to their demands), or to the crisis of the quality and compromise of
Greek statistical data (and so indirectly referring to other links with external
auditors), etc.
He also said that we are all in ‘transition’ without specifying exactly which
conditions we make transit to.
The target to make Greece an ‘exemplar’ (in investment initiatives, in forging
viable relations between the state and the business world) is far from being an
objective description of a process, because it fails to tell us what exactly
will Greece be an exemplar for: an exemplar for the protection of the
multinationals from taxation? An exemplar for the ceding of property rights to
foreign investment, regardless of whether this compromises the People’s
interests? Or an exemplar of self-restricting national sovereignty under the
mandate of third parties?
An exemplar simply refers to an example set as a goal for those wishing to
achieve a result which however may or may not be necessarily positive,
humanistic or legal. It does not necessarily mean that such exemplar will spell
good fortune or happy days for the People.
The notorious Hitler’s era utilizing an IBM-devised filing system to archive and
keep records of mass deaths in the various concentration camps was a nightmarish
one for everyone but the party officers and collaborators of the Third Reich.
It was however an exemplar system.
He also told us that he ‘…will give birth to a different Greece…’ recognizing
the fact that the pains of such labor are felt by ‘…those who shoulder other
people’s sins…’.
‘Different’ is a neutral adjective that alone fails to suggest either a positive
or negative connotation to a noun. He who used to have a hand which is
subsequently amputated, is ‘different’ after the amputation. It certainly does
not mean that he is also ‘improved’.
In a nutshell, and I could fish out lots of similar words and phrases in GAP’s
address, the particular acting prime-minister is telling us that he is going to
‘change Greece’, to ‘reform it’, to ‘realize its potential, to ‘turn it into an
exemplar’, and so on and so forth, but he says nothing about the condition he is
going to bring Greece into (substantiating with data not baseless
generalizations), to whom he is going to bestow Greece, whose interests he is
going to frustrate and which ‘establishments’ will undermine (by the term
‘establishment’ Greeks routinely refer to the established plutocracy / crony,
although similarly ‘established’ are the Work Rights and other Social victories
of the People during the past century). Nor does he tell us to whom he is
referring when he talks about ‘those who wish to partake, to create’, whom he
declares he will protect, or who are the ‘parasitic’ ones.
Who will be included in those definitions changes depending on who answers the
question, because the cronies in the minds of the Greek People (and rightly so)
are as much parasitic as are the set of work protection acts in the mind of the
investor/banker/state cronies. The People will define as parasitic the numerous
crowds of advisors – councilors – ministers – assistant ministers and the army
of secretaries and bodyguards, while the government people have reserved that
term for the NHS (National Health System) doctors, the Civil Sector, the Private
Sector, the Free lancers and in general everyone who is not part of their brood.
We understand then how these generalities that GAP has to audacity to present as
an address to the People containing a ‘message’ could spell a nightmarish
scenario for the People or simply be the unsubstantiated blabbering of a person
out of time and place.
Of course in his effort to show himself as a ‘technocrat’ GAP made the mistake
to offer examples which could help us understand what exactly it is that he
defines as non-parasitic and so worthy of enjoying his protection:
multinationals bearing many dark sides in their histories and international
organizations (which of course have anything but the good and prosperity of the
Greek People as a priority in their mind) and which have been responsible for
many more adverse rather positive effects whenever they got involved.
He also expressly tells us that he wants ‘to change the course of history’. Of
course the course of history changes when the international conditions change,
and not when a state reforms or even upgrades itself. Hence, for GAP to change
the course of history, he will have to change literally our National state of
affairs. That is, the state in the international scene, will either cease to
exist, or it will shrink or get fragmented or enter a state of ward, or lose its
sovereignty or expand. The course of history in terms of Greece changed in 1452
when the country was subjugated (or even earlier for those who consider that
Byzantium was a force of occupation), in 1821 when the country was liberated and
became a State and since then with any Convention or Treaty based on which the
country’s borders changed or its sovereignty expanded.
So far GAP has not offered any indication that he ‘dreams’ of expanding Greece
at the National level. The only thing he has done is to ridicule the country
worldwide and present it everywhere as a hooker in search of customers.
Just like Obama (who most likely has the same kind of communication advisors)
said ‘Yes, we can!’ so parrots GAP ‘Yes, it can be done!’ trying desperately to
fool the People in spite of all destruction already completed, to put up with
him.
And with the communications advisors forgetting that the Greek People are not
like the American People and that GAP has nothing to do with JFK, they made GAP
say ‘….patriotism is…what Greeks can do for their country’, and to refrain from
wandering what the state (not the Country) has not done for them.
Because we are Patriots and we have to see what we can do for our Country, it is
time we understood GAP’s generalities about ‘transition’, ‘change’ and perennial
‘pains of labor’ as clear threats against the People and the Country and
demanded that Greece indeed change from the paradise of anomie of the governing
cronies into an Equality of Law for all, without discrimination, and entrenched
our Human Rights, by ousting all those cronies and dynasties that they have
spawned since the Nation- building time and who stand in the way of all Greeks
to take their fortunes in their own hands.
Translation courtesy of Michael T.