The
New York Times
Nikos
Konstandaras JAN. 28, 201
Athens — It
may just be coincidence, but in the year since a radical left movement and an
extreme right-wing party joined forces to govern Greece, the resilience of the
European Union has been tested. But it may be also that the forces released in Greece have
emerged in many other countries, poisoning relations among member states.
The glue
that holds Greece ’s
paradoxical coalition together, and which we see across Europe ,
is populism. Not some coherent ideology that puts the people’s interests first,
but a policy based on opportunism, on cultivating a grandiose sense of national
identity and then presenting that identity as being threatened by domestic and
foreign enemies. It uses current problems to undermine efforts at solutions,
and conjures past and future utopias rather than trying to keep up with
dizzying change.