Laziness, conservatism and inertia
For lazy people, inertia is paradise. Antonis Samaras, the former conservative prime minister, is not lazy. His strenuous but ultimately unfruitful effort to pull Greece out of the crisis between 2012 and 2015 is proof of that. Moreover, during his tenure as prime minister, despite the economic crisis, there was some diplomatic movement in Greek-Turkish relations. Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis rightly pointed out that Samaras had met with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and that during the Samaras administration, with Evangelos Venizelos as foreign minister, exploratory talks were held (17.10.2024).
To be sure, at the time, the ever-active Venizelos served as both deputy prime minister and foreign minister. He had deep knowledge of the country’s international position, its opportunities and limitations, and has a rich body of written work on the subject – unlike Samaras, who wrote nothing, even during his political hiatus. Still, it’s curious that a prime minister so sensitive to national issues would defer to the wishes of a deputy prime minister, however powerful, while showing defiance as an MP when his party is in power. But then again, we’ve seen everything in life, especially in politics.
Perhaps at the time, Venizelos convinced Samaras that “calm waters” don’t “always bring great storms,” but rather money into the public coffers – money we still need. Whether the former prime minister has actually bought into the government’s narrative of a “fortified (once again) economy” is unclear, but it’s preferable that our national deficit is spent on defense investments – purchasing frigates, aircraft and other expensive paraphernalia – rather than burned on air interceptions over the Aegean. In 2020, the US Air Force estimated the cost of an F-16C flight at $22,514 per hour, while the cost of interceptions during the heightened tensions of 2020 reached half a million euros per day.
Conservatives, however, also favor inertia – not because they are lazy, but because they are cautious. They understand the dire situation fully but fear that any action could make it worse. This fear is justified, especially for those who have seen much. In all societies, change comes with high upfront costs, and the outcomes are always uncertain. Very few ventures are complete successes, and failure can never be excluded. But societies, collectives and individuals that don’t continually experiment with new approaches end up as what the Americans call roadkill.
Samaras, however, is not a typical conservative. He has taken significant risks in his life. As a young MP in 1993, he brought down his party’s government and paid for it by staying out of politics for 20 years. He returned to New Democracy, but as opposition leader in 2010, he defied all European leaderships (most of which were conservative) and common sense. He paid the price when he was forced to implement the second, unnecessary memorandum, as proven by the experience of other countries. (Leftist Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras similarly paid the price when he implemented the equally unnecessary third memorandum.) Samaras’ decisions may have harmed his party and the country, but they were certainly not conservative. He cannot be seen as someone who plays it safe.
What remains is stubbornness, which, as the Greek saying goes, “can take the eye out.” But popular wisdom doesn’t clarify key details: How long do these grudges last, and whose eyes do they take out?
