Seldom if ever in politics do the consequences of poor economic or political judgement force a humiliating volte face as abrupt and as dramatic as the one that the Greek Prime Minister has just had to endure this week. What does it mean for Greeks? Is it emblematic of realpolitik in action?

Like humans across the globe whenever bad things happen to them their response is always to blame a third party. In the case of the Germans after WW1, it was the perfidious Jews who had “stabbed Germany in the back” as they articulated it. In fact this idea was first propagated by General Erich Ludendorff even before the Armistice was signed. Even though it was his personal miscalculations that had resulted in Germany’s defeat, even somebody as resilient and as obdurate as Ludendorff could not utter the words mea culpa – I am to blame. Instead he insulted the virtues of the ardent patriotic Jewish population!

Main picture: Greeks vent their anger against austerity in general and the Germans in particular

Isn’t that what always happens.

Will Mugabe ever admit that his disastrous land grab policies have converted what was once a self-sufficient country into a net importer of foodstuffs!

It is with this sense of schadenfreude – possibly not a virtuous trait – that the hard-left government of the Coalition of the Radical Left (SYRIZA) has been forced to eat humble pie. What was Syriza’s initial response to the EU’s demand for additional austerity measures? They made it personal. The Germans were labelled as blood sucking neo-Nazis attempting to fulfill Hitler’s unrequited ambitions of world domination.

Dilapidated Greek flag

What Alexis Tsipras then encountered was the immovable force of Angela Merkel, a latter day Margaret Thatcher in her steely resolve.

Why was she “not for turning” as Maggie once famously quipped? Greece had already been bailed out twice and what was more galling for the Germans was that the Greeks had lied straight-faced about the extent of their economic rot. The Greek population had not only been living beyond their means but to state that they had embarked on a spending spree of titanic proportions was not a gross understatement of their situation. Bogus figures hid the extent of the deficit. Based upon these sanguine figures, the Greeks were gaily able to borrow as if there was no payback.

Anti Merkel sentiment – the Greek’s bete noir

Compounding this problem was their penchant not to pay tax. The level of tax fraud is so immense that less than 25% of all doctors in Greece pay taxes.

Greece has been forced to accept draconian austerity measures instead of the death of its economy. In lieu of receiving a EUR86 billion bail-out, Greece has forfeited policy autonomy. Clearly the rest of the EU has not prepared to accept Greece’s blithe assurances that they possessed the political will to enact these reforms.

Greeks portraying Merkel as synonymous with Nazism

Amongst the array of measures are reforms of VAT, pensions, budget cuts, bankruptcy rules and the implementation of an EU banking law which could force large depositors to take losses.

After an election platform which sought to terminate years of austerity, what was Tsipras forced to accept: Those very self-same reform measures which he had so summarily rejected but now his own party had agreed has to ram through the Greek Parliament. Instead of telling the EU to go to hell, his party now has the unenviable task of selling this package of painful austerity measures to Parliament and the Greek people.

Sir, Can I have some more of those Euro Notes?

What would have happened if General Pershing, the American general in France during 1918 had been able to impose his solution on Germany? He fervently believed that if Germany was not comprehensively defeated in battle rather than getting off Scott-free by signing an Armistice, this would sow the seeds of a future conflict.

How right he was proved to be?

What would have happened if South Africa had prevented Mugabe from destroying the Zimbabwean economy through a raft of inane policies? Aside from being labelling South Africa as the stooges of white capital, Zimbabwe’s citizens could now be residing in a prosperous country and South Africa would not have to support at least one million Zimbabwean refugees. On a personal negative note, I would not be able to employ an intelligent Zimbabwean gardener from Bulawayo.

Customers being handed priority stickers outside a bank

Keith was one of those Matabele who had been forced to flee Zimbabwe in fear of their life when Robert Mugabe sent North Korean troops into Matabeleland to suppress opposition to his rule in the early 1980s. To say that their methods were inhumane and contrary to human right norms would be a gross understatement of the reality. Instead these troops went of a murder spree. Such was Mugabe’s commitment to human rights and free speech!   This hypocritical attitude was in stark contrast to his accusations against the Rhodesian Front regime of Ian Smith!

Fuel runs dry

The implications of the bailout are more pervasive. They are indicative of the requirement that the use of a common currency is only possible if the economies of the various countries are in synchronicity with one another. Perhaps it even displays the limits to a common currency as this would require even greater integration as regards fiscal and economic policies & the loss of fiscal sovereignty. Already the British have opted out for these reasons as economic independence would be sacrificed

Moreover it also illustrates the limits of “get tough” policy. If the defaulter was not a minnow economically – Greece represents 2% of the EU – but a major player like France what would the response have been?

Greeks protesting

The appropriate austerity would not have been forced upon them. Instead like a latter day miscreants in human rights, such as China, at worst receive a stern rebuke in this regard, rather than sanctions. Like all school yard bullies, they rarely receive their comeuppance as the creation of a coalition to oppose them is fraught with difficulties.

It is only the minnows such as the North Koreans, the Iranians and now the Greeks which can be pressurised into mending their ways.

Sadly this is realpolitik.