{"id":4681,"date":"2020-03-08T21:40:27","date_gmt":"2020-03-08T19:40:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/maniatiki.gr\/wp\/?p=4681"},"modified":"2020-03-08T21:42:43","modified_gmt":"2020-03-08T19:42:43","slug":"unified-mani-the-only-way-to-develop-the-area","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/maniatiki.gr\/wp\/?p=4681","title":{"rendered":"UNIFIED MANI: THE ONLY WAY TO DEVELOP THE AREA"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

  \nIn a few days the yearly celebrations for the anniversay of the Maniot\nuprising and the beginning of the 1821 revolution will start. We will hear celebratory\nspeeches that will praise the common war undertakings by Maniot warlords and\ntheir troops. The celebrations and festivities will break the routine in our\ndaily lives and will remind us of Mani at the height of its  glory. Unfortunately, after the celebrations,\nwe will  continue to approach in a  fragmented and individualistic manner the new\nsituations brought upon us by the third industrial revolution\u2019s information,\neconomy and job market. In the meantime, we the inhabitants of Mani will\ncontinue to sell our land, so that we can meet our financial obligations. The\nmonoculture of the olive tree, the badly organised marketing of the Maniot oil\nand the global overproduction of this product have all resulted in a lower\nincome for us. Tourism, due to the specific characteristics of our region,\nbrings additional income, which is unfortunately also significantly lower than what\nit could potentially be, if we only were able to manage this new source of\nwealth in a firm and orderly manner.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

  \n<\/strong>It seems as if we have forgotten what the popular term\n\u201cUnified Mani\u201d, which Maniots and philo-Maniots like to use in every possiblle\noccasion, means. To us, the members of\nthe \u201cManiot Solidarity\u201d association and the stakeholders of our newspaper, it\nmeans forming common understandings and\nundertaking common actions for developing the potential of our area.<\/em> This\nmeans full exploitation of the geographical, climatic and cultural\ncharacteristics of Mani. In order to achieve maximum potential, all planning\nand proposals need to refer to Mani as a whole, and then funding for smaller development\nprojects should be distributed according to the particular characteristics of\neach area. In this way, the term \u201cUnified Mani\u201d will acquire reality and substance\nand will help bring maximum benefit to specific Maniot municipalities and their\npeople.  <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

   During the 20 years since the\nfirst publication of our newspaper, we have been closely observing the course\nof events in Mani. In the past 20 years\nwe have seen the merging of communities and local authority associations to seven\nmunicipalities in 1998 and to two municipalities in 2010. Since the\nmunicipalities are now only two, we would have expected that there would be\nincreased possibility for achieving a common understanding and developing\ncommon development proposals. What we have observed instead was increased\nbureaucracy and lack of coordinated action. Instead of development potential, what\nwe have observed is just simply managing everyday life in our region. During\nthe past 20 years we saw minimal development in the public sector. <\/strong>There\nwere few initiatives, which resulted in small public works that were carried out\nin a fragmented manner.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

   Unfortunately, the Development\nAgency of Mani (A\u03bd\u03b1\u03c0\u03c4\u03c5\u03be\u03b9\u03b1\u03ba\u03ae \u0395\u03c4\u03b1\u03b9\u03c1\u03b5\u03af\u03b1 \u039c\u03ac\u03bd\u03b7\u03c2), which was founded in 1994, initially tried\nunsuccessfully to bring common understanding and common action between the 80\nmunicipalities and the 4 local authority associations of Mani. Ten years later,\nthe agency became inactive due to different ideas that were formed after the changes\nin the local government administration. These new ideas and the bureaucracy of\nthe state government resulted in separate development proposals, fragmentation\nand disassociation between different public work projects.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

   After the last elections, it seems that a new situation is developing\nbetween state and local (both regional and municipal) governments, with a view\nto less state control and assigning more jurisdiction to local authorities. <\/strong>Hopefully\nthis new trend will benefit the local development projects of Mani. The many\nvoices of the municipal councils could have a positive influence on new\nproposals and projects. It would be a good idea if, not only new, but also older\ndevelopment proposals would now be discussed and re-examined, such as the ones\nthat were presented in the OXE program (\u03a0\u03c1\u03cc\u03b3\u03c1\u03b1\u03bc\u03bc\u03b1 \u039f\u03bb\u03bf\u03ba\u03bb\u03b7\u03c1\u03c9\u03bc\u03ad\u03bd\u03c9\u03bd \u03a7\u03c9\u03c1\u03b9\u03ba\u03ce\u03bd \u0395\u03c0\u03b5\u03bd\u03b4\u03cd\u03c3\u03b5\u03c9\u03bd \u039c\u03ac\u03bd\u03b7\u03c2) and\nintegrated in the \u03a0\u0395\u03a0 program (\u03a0\u03b5\u03c1\u03b9\u03c6\u03b5\u03c1\u03b5\u03b9\u03b1\u03ba\u03cc \u0395\u03c0\u03b9\u03c7\u03b5\u03b9\u03c1\u03b7\u03c3\u03b9\u03b1\u03ba\u03cc \u03a0\u03c1\u03cc\u03b3\u03c1\u03b1\u03bc\u03bc\u03b1 \u03a0\u03b5\u03bb\u03bf\u03c0\u03bf\u03bd\u03bd\u03ae\u03c3\u03bf\u03c5). An old project that really needs to be\nbrought back to the table is the road Milea – Panagia Giatrissa, for which\nfunding was already allotted in 2014, however, for the past 6 years the funds\nremain locked in the coffers of the Regional Fund of Peloponnese (<\/strong>\u03a0\u03b5\u03c1\u03b9\u03c6\u03b5\u03c1\u03b5\u03b9\u03b1\u03ba\u03cc<\/strong> <\/strong>\u03a4\u03b1\u03bc\u03b5\u03af\u03bf<\/strong>\n<\/strong>\u03a0\u03b5\u03bb\u03bf\u03c0\u03bf\u03bd\u03bd\u03ae\u03c3\u03bf\u03c5<\/strong>). We need to finally understand that Mount Taygetos is a unifying and\nnot a dividing feature of the different areas of Mani. We need to remember that\nTaygetos is the mountain that has formed the special geographic and climatic\ncharacteristics of our area that attract tourists to Mani; it is due to\nTaygetos that our ancestors were able to stay independent during the centuries\nof Turkish occupation and it is due to Taygetos that they developed their free\nand fighting spirit, which we have proudly inherited from them.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

   In a few days the yearly celebrations for the anniversay of the Maniot uprising and the beginning of the 1821 revolution will start. We will hear celebratory speeches that will praise the common war undertakings by Maniot warlords and their troops. The celebrations and festivities will break the routine in our daily lives and … \u03a3\u03c5\u03bd\u03ad\u03c7\u03b5\u03b9\u03b1 \u03b1\u03bd\u03ac\u03b3\u03bd\u03c9\u03c3\u03b7\u03c2 UNIFIED MANI: THE ONLY WAY TO DEVELOP THE AREA<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[435,392,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4681","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-2019-main-articles-in-english","category-main-articles","category-1"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/maniatiki.gr\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4681","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/maniatiki.gr\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/maniatiki.gr\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maniatiki.gr\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maniatiki.gr\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4681"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/maniatiki.gr\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4681\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4682,"href":"https:\/\/maniatiki.gr\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4681\/revisions\/4682"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/maniatiki.gr\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4681"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maniatiki.gr\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4681"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maniatiki.gr\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4681"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}