I may be a long way away from that tiny little place that I call home. Cyprus has been on the front pages of every magazine, newspaper and headline news on all radio stations, even as far far away as Australia. There is only one plus side- people I have met recently suddenly know where I am from and I have been imprinted on their brain as coming from that troubled island.
The rest has been a painful and drawn out process with collective intakes of breath at various junctures which leave us all exhausted emotionally and almost weeping. The moment now is one of relative calm after the storm, a small respite, without perhaps total clarity but the hope, because that is what it is, that we may be going forward, rather then backwards in the abyss and the ignominy of bankruptcy.
I wonder if in the immediate aftermath of this total trauma there will be any cries for answers, some attribution of blame, some understanding of how things went SO wrong. Whether people will demand some explanations from those in charge of why action was not taken earlier and the islands fate was allowed to got to the wire. When there are bigger forces than you determining your path, you have to be cognisant of what it takes to tow the line.
It is one thing to go for the trappings of power, it is another thing altogether to exercise it with responsibility and accountability.
I don't know how it was in Cyprus before the meltdown, but I remember visiting Europe and thinking - "wow! this is beautiful, but how on earth do they pay for all this? Nobody seems to do much work, and the huge military bill is taken care of by Uncle Sam." No poor people to be seen, but also no working people, no people selling bananas off carts or recycling scrap or buying and selling old clothes. Somehow the economic scene in India seems more real - the poverty isn't hidden by handouts from Uncle Sam, and the wealth too seems real. I guess the European experiment was too good to last. Now it's all up to Germany. Just my thoughts.
ReplyDeleteMy heart bleeds to see how far we have been pulled down by irresponsible bankers and bad managers. We have not seen the end of this debacle yet and few if any seem to be accountable to their long suffering customers MM
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