Johann Schloeman on Greece as a transformation state

Thousands of people took to the streets in Athens on Thursday to protest the new austerity measures introduced by the Greek government. But the Greeks' understanding of themselves developed over decades and it is arrogant and naive to demand that it should change in just a few months, the columnist Johan Schloemann writes in the left-liberal daily Süddeutsche Zeitung: "Greece has been practically insolvent for half of the one hundred and eighty years since its founding. ... The attempt in the 19th century to install an efficient administration based on the French model with the help of the Great Powers and philhelenist Bavarian functionaries failed from the outset. The newly liberated Greeks associated the obligation to pay taxes with bad memories of the Ottoman rule. ... Since then clientelism and the shadow economy have paralysed Greece, and this was exacerbated by civil war and the two world wars. ... Greece cannot be changed simply through quick adjustments to its budgetary and economic policy. On the contrary, much speaks for considering Greece today as one of the transformation states for which an entire branch of political science has developed."

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