Greece on Stage

My guess is that there was a teleconference earlier today that linked up the leaders of Greece, Germany and France so that they could discuss the Greek and European fiscal situation.  Without knowing any more about this than what is available in the general media, and with a generous amount of imagination, here's what might have been said--by using the English language as a common means of communication--if this were to be performed as one of those one-act plays:

(At the Greek Prime Minister's desk, his telephone rings, he looks at Caller ID and sighs loudly, then picks up the phone on the third ring and says):  "Hello, it's a bright sunny morning here in beautiful Athens, this is Mr. Papandreou, how can I help you?"

(He hears a peevish-sounding woman's voice respond):  "Mr. Prime Minister, I am so happy to have reached you this quickly!  This is Angela calling from Berlin; I have Sarkozy in Paris on the line with me.  We need to speak with you for a few minutes regarding your announcement late yesterday."

(And then he immediately hears an excited man's voice saying):  "George, this is SuperSarko!  Hey, man, we need to get some things cleared up!  Let's talk!"



(George's eyes involuntarily look heavenward as he says):  "Angela!"  (He carefully pronounced her name correctly as "An-he-la."  Well, it was close enough for government work.)  "Nick!  Good of you both to call!  Hey, Sarko-man, how's that new baby of yours?  You really are the Omni-President!  You're all over the place, even with this whole money-thing going on!  Well, anyway, you both must have heard the news about my incredibly patriotic decision to have our nation's voters make the final decision on whether or not Greece should accept your incredibly generous offers of aid in exchange for them putting up with higher taxes and a lower standard of living.  You know how it is here--Greece, our heritage, our history, Salon, the Golden Age and all that stuff; since we started the whole democratic thing, I figured that this was a great time to remind the world that even after centuries of that whole Ottoman Empire thing we can all still come together and face a crisis with democratic resolve!  Once my people have spoken their democratic agreement, we will all be much better euro-citizens for having done so.  Isn't that a great idea?"

(Angela, sensing that George needs to stop for breath, jumps back into the conversation, and she still sounds peeved):  "Yes, George, we heard about your announcement, that's why we're calling you.  It's because Super--I mean Nick--and I did a checkpoint for a few minutes before calling you, and we both agreed that we thought that we had all talked about this just last week, and that you as Prime Minister of the great democracy of Greece, exercising your democratically-granted powers, had agreed to our offer on behalf of Greece. In fact, I'm looking at my very neatly-written and orderly notes from our meeting, and--why yes!--that's exactly what my neat and orderly notes say, that we had an agreement.  Do you remember that agreement, George?"

(Nick, just bursting with Gallic excitement, exclaims):  "Good of you to ask about the baby, George!  She's doing great, thanks!  And Carla is, too.  And guess what?!?  I remember the meeting just like Angela does, too!  And, by the way, she keeps great notes on these things!  So, George, do we have a deal, or what?  We have this G-20 meeting coming up this week, and with all those anti-Europeans out there who are so negative on the euro and the European Union. . .well, we have to look really good at this week's meeting, that's all there is to it!  What have you got for us, George?  Do we have a deal?"

(George, leaning back in his chair, closes his eyes as he takes a deep breath before speaking, and then says):  "Here's how it is.  It's a good deal, and we Greeks like good deals, just as we like democracy.  So I'm confident that our proud democratic heritage is going to come right out and say it's a good deal.  But first we have to make that proud democratic heritage understand it is a good deal.  And last Friday, when I got home after our meeting, everybody asked me about how good the deal was, and I told them about how our debts would be cut in half without Greece having to do anything except have higher taxes and a lower standard of living for a while. . .well, then somebody asked 'How long is a while?' and I said something like 'Well, for a few years, or maybe several years, or maybe more years than several, it's hard to say at this point.'  Then some newspaper did a poll of the people about this on Saturday, and they reported it on Monday--only yesterday; they're so fast!--and the report said that about 60% of our proudly and historically democratic citizens have expressed that they have some issues with understanding the goodness of the deal."  (George now sits up straight in his chair and uses his best stentorian voice to say):  "Therefore, we will hold a national referendum so that we can explain why the deal is so good for us, and then there will be a historical democratic vote that shows how the people of Greece want to be a part of the European Union and use the euro currency.  And we will do a first step this week by having a confidence vote on my government in Parliament so that the people of Greece and of Europe and all the world can see how strong our democratic government is on this deal!  It will be great!"

(Angela, becoming skeptical, says):  "Yes, George, we know all about democratic elections here in Germany.  But sometimes they don't work out the way you want them to.  Like that election we had here about 80 years ago when He-Whose-Name-Shall-Not-Be-Spoken won, and that turned out to be a disaster for everybody.  Things seem to work out best when it's all done in a neat and orderly way.  And you could do it that way in Greece, couldn't you, George?"  (Now Angela shifts to a persuasive tone of voice and she goes on to say):  "You could just explain to all of your government colleagues how we carefully and precisely came to this agreement in an orderly fashion, and then have each of them do their own little government job to make each piece of the agreement work for us?  Then it's all in order.  You can do that, can't you, George?"

(George reaches up to his collar to loosen the knot on his silk tie as he responds):  "There's a big part of the problem right there, Angela. . .it's that whole "order" thing that you keep saying.  It just doesn't translate well into our language down here in sunny Greece.  It's not just the meaning of the word, my friend, it's the entire concept that somehow just doesn't fit in well with our ancient and honored Greek democratic and disputatious way of running the country."

(Nick senses his opportunity to take control of the conversation; he jumps in with):  "We're just not feelin' the love here, George!  Help us out, man!  We've got all these important people coming in to a real nice resort for this meeting and they're getting worried that the deal is falling apart and then maybe all the stock markets are going to fall apart and then maybe nobody's going to have any money to help you out and then maybe Europe is going to fall apart and so they're worried that then things will get really bad!  Come on, George, you're the PM!  Tell your proud and democratic Greek citizens that this is a really great deal!  Lead them out of the wilderness, man!!  Let's do this thing!!!

(George, as he moves to hang up the phone):  "OK, nice talking and sharing feelings with both of you.  Gotta go now!  See you at the big meeting!"  (Click.)