Quo vadis?

Broken Britain vs. Greece on the brink

On the one hand, there is Greece: for two years now media have covered the crisis in Greece in an unsympathetic style, secretly blaming the South European lazy ethos for all the doom and gloom. If you watched the despicable "go Greek for a week" Channel 4 program, you know what I am talking about.

Recently however, the insightful coverage has prevailed and even more so it has uncovered the unbelievably harsh reality of living in Greece amidst this crisis.

The Guardian reports that HIV and malaria are having an eerie comeback in Greece due to the deteriorating health system.

It also reports that Athens children are too hungry to do sports.

If this is the picture of a lazy nation that got what it deserved, then I don't know what to say.

On a more positive note, global post reports on a rising grassroots movement in Greece that is aimed to tackle the failing system, and has brought some type of social synergy back to the Greek society.

It's easy to think that all of this is "far away", and does not concern us happy hard-working Northern Europeans. We pay our taxes, you say, we are not like the Greeks. But then, where did all of this come from?



Plan B protests and sings:

We've had it with you politicians
you bloody rich kids never listen
There's no such thing as broken Britain
we're just bloody broke in Britain
What needs fixing is the system
not shop windows down in Brixton
Riots on the television
you can't put us all in prison!

Oi! I said Oi!
What you looking at you little rich boy?
We're poor round here, run home and lock your door!
Don't come round here no more, you could get robbed for
real (yeah) because my manors ill
My manors ill
For real
Yeah you know my manors ill , my manors ill!

So, we really need to think about easy and shallow generalizations long and hard.
What did Greece do wrong? How can we fix it?
What did Britain do wrong? How can we fix that?

I have no answers. All I know is that this is one problem, not two and whoever thinks otherwise is simply fooling himself.