PROPAGANDA GRECIA

Paula Sánchez-Vasconcellos Alfonso

PROPAGANDA IN GREECE Not a necessity? I interviewed Konstantina Thomaldi an international politician teacher in the National University of Athens, place where she is also natural from. She told me, that they are living an election campaign marked by a serious immigration crisis and the skepticism, not to say about reluctance of citizenship, that in Sept. 20 voted for the third time so far this year after the January general referendum. The real unknown in Greece is not know which party will win the elections scheduled early in August by Alexis Tsipras, but what the final composition of the future government will be, since no one achieved an absolute majority in a political scenario defined by fragmentation . She explained me, that for them who rules or who does not is not that important, the ruling party is the least if they know what are they doing. That they need someone who sets them aside from the difficult situation they are going through right now, someone who knows what to do with their economy and society, and so that once and for all Greece can behave more like a country in the European Union does. For European people is not like that, in most of the countries who rules is even more important than how they do it. They will just make what they tell them to do, or even they will do what the majority does. And as propaganda elements are created to make people believe in something or to have a certain ideas, here is where propaganda takes place. Propaganda elements are very known and important in Europe but not as in Greece, because they have a real necessity of knowing what is that party going to do with their country. On one side, the leader of the center-right New Democracy party Antonis Samaras is conscious that being part of Europe is something that will benefit their country and because of this it obviously can serve as a kind of propaganda, and this is why his motto is: "Greek people decide the destination of the country, if you vote 'yes' to Greece, you vote 'yes' to Europe. " But she upholds this by saying that is a normal thing, because getting closer to Europe is what people wants, and propaganda exist to tell people what they want to hear. He also advocates maintaining the path of structural reforms and privatizations demanded by the Troika of creditors of the country and this year promises to exit rescue and tax cuts. On the other hand, she explains that Syriza, the leftist party led by Alexis Tsipras, is more or less in the same position, that he promised an end to the austerity imposed by creditors and a "tough" negotiations with European partners facing a haircut of Greek sovereign debt, provided as part of the eurozone. She ends the interview by saying that the Greeks are not really into propaganda because all the parties say the same, and as they say the same, they are the same, and they also promise the same, promises that will never come true.