We all know its financial woes, caused mainly the absolute stupidity of pinning a sun-loving, Retsina-swigging culture with an economic mainstay of olive oil and tourism, to Germanic efficiency and Audis and Mercs.
But what is even starker is the social cost Greece is paying for being a member of the European Union. The most explosive ingredient is no longer alchemizing weak Drachmas and strong Deutschmarks into Euros, but fourth world immigration.
Who would want to flee to Greece with its cocked economic time-bomb, you may ask?
Well, millions – because it is the gateway to the big prize: Europe.
Previously battlers from North Africa, Afghanistan and other basket case counties would blow their meagre life savings on an overcrowded berth on a leaking rust-bucket and cross the Mediterranean to Spain or Italy.
Once in, most would head to England where the streets are paved with welfare cheques. Many didn’t make it, the rust-buckets either sinking or increasingly vigilant border guards interning them.
But now they simply have to buy a budget airline ticket to Turkey where border guards point them in the direction of their ancient enemy, Greece.
Turkey is striving to become an Ottoman-style regional power once again and has relaxed visa restrictions for North African and Eastern countries.
Casual attitide
You can fly from Algeria or Libya to Istanbul for 60 Euros. And it’s a much safer option than paying for a passage in a smuggler’s unseaworthy boat.
Since almost all immigrants head on to Greece’s porous border and then to Europe, the Turks aren’t particularly bothered.
Indeed, two years ago 350 destitute fourth world immigrants were crossing into Greece a day, accounting for 90% of all illegal immigrants flooding into Europe.
The main offshoot of this is the formation of a Greek political party called Golden Dawn, which campaigns vigorously for repatriation of immigrants and Greece for Greeks. If people did that in, say, Pakistan or Peru, they would be called nationalists. In Europe, they’re called fascists.
But this debate isn’t about the numbers. There is a world of difference between skilled immigrants following employment opportunities and the destitute flotsam and jetsam that surges across the border to Greece, many of whom are from Afghanistan, Iraq and war-torn parts of Africa like Eritrea and Mali.
Most arrive penniless, speaking no Greek, and with few qualifications to find work.
They now form a highly visible underclass, whose prospects – if any – are confined to street hawking and casual labour. They’re a drain, financially and socially, on a country that’s already on its shredded knees.
You don’t have to be Einstein to grasp that this is a gift to far-right parties, especially in areas that have never experienced immigration
Confrontation
In Greece, as in much of Europe, the far-left is just as thuggish as the far-right – and in many cases, even more fascist. They actively seek confrontation, and they get it.
Things came to a head last month when an anti-rightwing rap artist named Killah P was stabbed dead, allegedly by a supporter of Golden Dawn. The killing has provoked riots across Greece, with brutal clashes between left and right.
Ugly street riots aside, there is no real right and wrong here. There is no doubt that the fourth world flood, where immigrants have no skills, an alien culture and no intention of assimilating, is unravelling the fabric of many ancient communities.
On the other hand, throughout the world we are witnessing the biggest mass migration from rural to urban areas in global history.
Four billion people will live in cities within the next few decades, a significant number of which will be seedy coastal metropolises comprising sprawling shanty towns where there will be little or no formal law and order.
So for many people, immigration to the first world is the only way out. It’s difficult to condemn them for this.
I have no idea where all this is going to end. I don’t think anyone does. But it’s fair to say that the cradle of western civilisation is on fire.
