When democracy is only a pretext and empty rhetoric...

 When democracy is only a pretext and empty rhetoric, the scope for intra-governmental and intra-party differences and antagonisms is widened to the fullest. Then the parties themselves are not political formations, they do not express the needs and goals of specific social groups. They admit with naive pride that they are "multicollective", not only of votes but also of opinions, ideological perceptions, selfish pursuits. They are, that is, non-political interest unions.

That is why the party congresses, the central committees, the executive offices of the parties function in the pretend "democracy" only as manifestations of a stereotyped ritual. They neither express social demands, nor produce policy. They host rhetorical crowns and serve up empty pretenses – mostly televised impressions.

There is, therefore, no sense in the moral exhortation to ministers who disagree with the government to expose their disagreements to the "party organs" before making them public. It is as if someone is exhorting them to sow wheat on the asphalt. To bring political proposals and political reflection to spaces that have been set up to be politically barren and only ceremonially decorative.

In pretend democracies, being a minister does not mean you practice politics. As a rule, you spend most of the day making phone calls and visiting your electoral clientele. If the scope for swindling has been necessarily limited, you provide your clientele with psychological stimulation and consoling understanding. Your most important task is to find ways of skilfully reconciling the internal and external interests that intertwine in your field and dictate the policy of your ministry. If you're particularly ambitious, you hastily try to promote two or three side initiatives that you know will be short-lived, since your successor in the ministry will definitely rip them off to experiment with his own.

The ministers of a sham republic do not share in overall governmental responsibilities. That is why even the boldest (usually those aiming for the prime minister's chair) do not hesitate to publicize their criticism or their objections to some aspects of government work, to the suitability or otherwise of their colleagues, to the strategy of a specific ministry. Thus they try to save a decorative, but distinct role, since the exercise of politics has been excluded from their competences. Reasonable and forgivable.

But also rare. As a rule, the ministerial party functionaries wander into television and radio booths (they are in the duties of the daily suffocating program) only to extol the prime minister and the government work, embellishing even the most obvious failures of the government. It is then that the decent citizen shows his children the picture of these sad victims of the lust for power, to say: "Take heed, never come to such a human disposition."

When democracy is only a pretext and empty rhetoric, the scope for intra-governmental and intra-party differences and antagonisms is widened to the fullest. The parties themselves are not political formations, they do not reflect the needs and goals of specific social groups. They admit it with naive pride that they are "multi-collective", not only of votes but also of opinions, ideological perceptions, social aspirations. That is, non-political interest unions.

At least let the conscience survive even in a minimal element of the people: what is "democracy" and what a gross fraud. For the Greek consciousness, democracy will always be the self-governing community, the wider family of every human being.

SOURCE: CH. YANNARAS, 17.7.2022. ARCHIVE OF CULTURE, 18.7.202