BREXIT

On June 23, 2016 the British voted LEAVE in the referendum to remain or leave the EU. I welcomed the news the following morning with satisfaction, in spite of significant inconveniences the Brexit may entail for me and my family. I am not sorry to admit that there is so much hate in my heart for what has the EU become in the last six years. I unconsciously hoped that the Brits would decide as they did and fantasized of giving the finger to the Deutsche Bank, the European Central Bank, the IMF, to Schäuble, Merkel and Lagarde and to lesser institutions, politicians and Brussels' bureaucrats who are responsible for the humanitarian disaster in Greece. The austerity measures imposed on my country had been designed to destroy our economy. The IMF and the Troika have repeatedly admitted that their measures failed, but they insist on more and more. People have lost hope, tens of thousands have committed suicide and hundreds of thousands of young people and scientists (mostly physicians and civil engineers) have fled the country to make a decent living abroad. The Greek Constitution has been grossly violated; taxes for the middle class increased by the tenfold and half the Greek population is living under the poverty line. The economic policy is drafted in the German ministry of the economy and then communicated to the Greek Parliament to be signed by grossly incompetent and self-seeking members of parliament. If a referendum were called in Greece, the people would vote LEAVE by a great majority. This is not the Europe we had envisioned; this is a nightmare for the people and a heaven for bankers and major corporations whose role is to deceive and enslave people.

It is so obvious that the EU serves the interests of bankers and corporations. It is a fact that decisions at an EU level are made by non-elected officials and not by the elected EU members of parliament. In the minds of Greeks over fifty years of age the EU raises a most horrible specter, which is a combination of two specters not less horrible: the specter of iron-clad Nazi Germany that robbed Greece of its money, destroyed its infrastructure and murdered hundreds of thousands of civilians during WW II, on the one hand, and that of blood thirsty, shift-eyed, vengeful and greedy Shylock who every six months or so demands his pound of flesh from Greece.

May the BREXIT be the first major victory of the people of Europe against Neoliberalism, Globalization and Totalitarianism.