PANJIM: The growing complexity in the world makes it very important for people to meet and discuss problems. This was an imperative given that politicians were now emerging who were attempting to take everyone back to darker times. George Papandreou, the former PM of Greece, made these observations during the course of his lecture on “Intercultural Dialogue for Humanising Globalisation” as part of the DD Kosambi Festival of Ideas.
People, he said, become like acrobats instead of becoming innovators. Politicians, he said, were not able to provide answers to globalisation. Many were looking at knee jerk reactions and going back to one’s tribes leading to various brands of fundamentalism. This ended in the politics of fear which has to end.
George highlighted the importance of libraries liking them to light houses. He cited the example of the library of Alexandria which was a very important source of knowledge in the ancient world. Burnt down several times through the years, important manuscripts survived through the ages and led to one of the most important periods in Europe’s growth, the renaissance.
Giving examples from his life he said as a member of a family that had devoted its life to politics, he had spent his early years in Sweden after living under a brutal dictatorship. He returned to Greece to meet his grandfather who was on his death bed. The funeral that followed, he said, was the first public protest against the regime.
As a young boy George was also going through his personal journey. As an early proponent of the guns and bullet principle his intellectual growth, courtesy reading and discussing various political philosophies like non violence struggle, helped him come to the conclusion that guns and weapons change nothing. He also added that democracy cannot be built on military interventions.
Citing another instance, he gave the example of Turkey and Greece who have a long standing dispute over Cyprus. He felt it was important to go beyond set red lines and assist the country whole heartedly when it suffered following an earthquake. Volunteers and assistance from the Greeks helped change perceptions on the Turkish side. A month later Greece suffered from an earthquake and the Turks helped.
Today, he says, tens of thousands of Turks visit Greece peacefully as tourists. The question is whether democracy could work in a globalising world as one with various ramifications. Nationalism, he said, was a problem in globalisation. Countries had become independent but it was important to depend on each other to sort out problems like the refugee crisis, the weather, etc.
Speaking about the global finance sector, he said, it was being controlled by a tiny few which he said was against the social contract. The Greece crisis, he said, was exacerbated by the ills which were prevalent in the system and the habit that was prevalent of not paying taxes.
