POLITICAL TIME AND ITS IMPLICATIONS FOR THE FUTURE OF NATIONS AND SPECIFIC REGIONS

Time is continuous. We humans segment it so that we can regulate issues that concern us, starting from the length of our own lives and encompassing almost all matters related to life, including our own, that of our relatives, our nation, and even humanity. Within these matters, political time plays a crucial role in the progress of societies. This is because the political system directing each society leads it to progress or to stagnate, depending on how it approaches political time. Political time is a dynamic entity, and the evaluation of the events of each period depends on their impact on future periods. Since the dynamics of the evolution of modern societies are rapid and uncertain, political time becomes very dense, requiring political planning with a much greater time depth. Otherwise, the resulting developments will not be controllable.

In democratic systems where governments are elected through universal suffrage, politicians are authorised to make decisions with a long-term perspective to function in an international reality that evolves very rapidly. Given that political time for producing stable and fruitful results for critical issues, such as, for example, promoting national goals at the central level or ensuring continuous progress and prosperity at the local level, is much longer than the terms of elected representatives, a substantial conflict arises between the broad and narrow views of political time. Unfortunately, citizens, who are called upon to renew or terminate the terms of elected representatives through universal suffrage, are, to a large extent, influenced by the narrow view of political time. They evaluate politicians based on the short-term impacts of these decisions, hindering politicians from shaping their policies with a broad time perspective. Overcoming this opposition can only be achieved through persuasive, analytical, and well-documented arguments. This approach, in conjunction with the overall acceptance climate of those in power at the central or local level, can influence the conscience of citizens, leading them to directly correlate the immediate and individually beneficial with the long-term and generalised social result. This is a challenging endeavour for politicians, given that its failure leads to election losses, and few dare to undertake it. Since the preceding analysis includes many theoretical considerations and general concepts, I will attempt to make it more understandable with two examples, one at the central and one at the local level. In these examples, the negative effects of the narrow view of political time during the critical decision-making period have manifested and been documented by the citizens.

1. Those among us who are older remember the first example, at the central level. It was the pension reform attempted by the Simitis government in 2001, aiming to maintain the ability of pension funds to provide pensions for their members over the next two decades. The party trade unionists and the great majority of the party’s politicians organised strong protests, and the bill was withdrawn. The political pressure led to the loss of power by the party in the subsequent elections, the weakening of trade unions, and eventually economic bankruptcy and internal devaluation of the incomes of all workers through drastic cuts imposed by the agreements of understanding (μνημόνια).

• Τhe second example, at the local level, dates back to 1998, when local government was redesigned with the abolition of Communities and the creation of Municipalities. In our area, the proposal to revive the old municipalities (which in Western Mani used to be Avia, Kardamyli and Lefktro) faced strong political opposition, because of the exclusion of certain communities. During the crucial preparatory period, the Regional Councils that were established cut off the communities of Verga and Mikri Mantineia, despite the opposition of the majority of the representatives of these two communities. In order to overcome these obstacles, it was proposed that the seat of the new municipality of Avia should not be Kampos (as it used to be), but Verga, a proposal that would have been universally accepted by the citizens of these two communities. However, the Regional Council of Kampos did not even want to discuss the proposal… The results, 25 years later, are the abolishment of the municipality of Avia with Kampos as its seat, the underrepresentation of Verga in the city of Kalamata, and the struggle for population numbers in the newly-created municipality of Western Mani.

From these examples, it is evident that the effectiveness of long-term management of political time is crucial both for state and local affairs.

                                                                                                                                        THE EDITORIAL BOARD

Every decade or so, a generalised journalistic interest in the natural and cultural environment of Mani returns. The timing is generally associated with rich, environmental projects funded by European resources. Usually, the new study largely duplicates the previous one, yet it is paid for by the new funding! The resulting proposals are based on a free approach to the natural and cultural environment, but with little consideration of the people who live and operate in the area. It goes without saying that the reactions, from almost all the residents and land owners are strong, and these studies only go as far as repaying the costs of their preparation…  Having followed the evolution of this issue for over three decades, we suspect that the recent publications are related to the studies financed by the Recovery and Resilience Fund for rezoning the settlements of Greece, prioritising many settlements in Mani. Our newspaper MANIOT SOLIDARITY, in its almost 25 years of publication, has never opposed measures for the qualitative upgrading of the region, as long as this upgrading is not fragmentary and as long as it is accompanied by measures of an integrated nature, with guaranteed funding and a clear timing of implementation. It goes without saying that this view is also valid in the present case. It is therefore appropriate to give a brief presentation of this issue below, which is crucial for the region and has been brought back into the news.

The residential area of Mani, for the greater part of its extent, has been created by the evolution of the first patriarchal family settlements, usually in neighbouring natural outcrops of the natural area. With the passing of different generations, the originally constructed houses turned into small group settlements, usually at short distances from each other. With particular social, political and environmental sensitivity, Antonis Tritsis, Environment Minister in 1982, considered it necessary to create the possibility for residential development of the country’s settlements that were not classified as traditional or coastal settlements. This possibility included many settlements in Mani. However, discrepancies from the lack of implementation or multiple distortions of the original legislation were caused mainly by political expediency for the exploitation of the euphoria of the owners whose properties increased in value. Discrepancies were also caused by the parasitic operation of the network of services offered to the land owners during the procedures leading up to the sale of their land for residential use or for the construction of buildings in the new residential zone bordering the “stagnant” settlements.

From the brief description above, it is obvious that, for the qualitative upgrading of the new residential area of many settlements of Mani, the removal of the deviations or distortions of the original regulations is required. This does not mean abolishing the residential status, because this would violate the constitutional guarantee of property, and it would put land owners who have used it for residential purposes on an unequal footing with those who would exercise this right in the future. But it does mean that the state is obliged to implement public works that it has so far failed to prioritise and finance. One of the best of these technical public works is a form of urban planning of the new residential area, as envisaged by the original 1982 legislation. Another good example is the design and implementation of all necessary infrastructure projects providing for residential densities such as those that have arisen in our area. A form of “cleansing” of the entire matrix of groups of persons involved in the construction system of this residential zone would also be beneficial.

We believe that Maniots, like most citizens who have agricultural roots and an experiential relationship with the natural environment, will stand in solidarity with government decisions that will move towards an integrated quality upgrade, even with their own participation in land and money. However, such decisions must follow the ancient saying of the Oracle of Delphi: he who creates a problem has an obligation to fix it. In other words, the political system, responsible during the 1980s for the distortions of the original legislative regulation of the “stagnant” settlements and the tacit tolerance of all its deviations in order to enjoy the political euphoria of the benefitted citizens during all electoral procedures, has an obligation with its current political expression to make the necessary decisions of restoration which we discussed above. In this way, the political system will be rewarded by the citizens, not only for the qualitative restoration of the residential area, but also for the manifestation of the courage that political ethics requires as a necessary condition for the progress and prosperity of the states and their citizens.

                                                                                                    THE EDITORIAL BOARD