Will the Minister of Education please stand up

Here in Greece, and especially Athens, i look at the mess around me and i wonder if any of it will ever change. What is needed is strong leadership, someone who is willing to make a stand and do what is right. But all too often leaders are missing and too gutless. An ideal example is what is happening now with the 6th grade school book, and satirised the other night by a popular Greek comedy show called Ellinofrenia.

For well over a year the government fully supported the book and the change in the education system. Even though the party won the election- it decided to change its position yet again (from being against changes when PASOK was in power, to being pro change and then anti change again) and withdraw the book from circulation and stop its distribution to schools, now leaving 6th grade primary school students without books. The reason being - it was too gutless to stand by its decision and instead cave in to what the extreme right wing / racist elements in its party wanted.

Ellinofrenia showed clips sarcastically titled 'The Real minister of Education' which showed the Bishop of Thessaloniki Anthimos declare before the election (coincidentally) "The book will not be distributed" followed then by known extremist Nomarch of Thessaloniki, Mr Psomiades reiterating the comment. And, what he said, happened.

All through the election and its run up, the minister of Education was supporting the book (with the rest of the party too gutless to speak, only to comment, "I am not the minister") the fact is that such decisions are not made in a vacuum, the party had decided to modernise the countries education system and bring it in-line with the EU, and the result was the said school book which has been reviewed and applauded by educators from around the world.
So in private they supported the book, but publicly, well publicly that's another matter.

So even in its moment of glory, having won re-election, the party immediately acceded to demands of the church, extremist elements in its party and extreme right wing party LA.O.S and scrap the book completely.

So who really runs Greece? Do all politicians really deserve the bad name we give them, or are they instead trapped and servile to other elements in the community? I don't know, but i am desperately trying to untangle this mess to make sense of it.