Yanis Yaroufakis writes:\u00a0 On September 6, 1946 US Secretary of State James F. Byrnes traveled to Stuttgart to deliver his historic \u201cSpeech of Hope.\u201d Byrnes\u2019 address marked America\u2019s post-war change of heart vis-\u00e0-vis Germany and gave a fallen nation a chance to imagine recovery, growth, and a return to normalcy. Seven decades later, it is my country, Greece, that needs such a chance.<\/p>\n
Until Byrnes\u2019 \u201cSpeech of Hope,\u201d the Allies were committed to converting \u201c\u2026Germany into a country primarily agricultural and pastoral in character.\u201d That was the express intention of the Morgenthau Plan, devised by US Treasury Secretary Henry Morgenthau Jr. and co-signed by the United States and Britain two years earlier, in September 1944.<\/p>\n
Prior to Byrnes\u2019 speech, and for a while afterwards, America\u2019s allies were not keen to restore hope to the defeated Germans. But once President Harry Truman\u2019s administration decided to rehabilitate Germany, there was no turning back. Its rebirth was underway, facilitated by the Marshall Plan, the US-sponsored 1953 debt write-down, and by the infusion of migrant labor from Italy, Yugoslavia, and Greece.<\/p>\n
Europe could not have united in peace and democracy without that sea change. Someone had to put aside moralistic objections and look dispassionately at a country locked in a set of circumstances that would only reproduce discord and fragmentation across the continent. The US, having emerged from the war as the only creditor country, did precisely that.<\/p>\n
Today, it is my country that is locked in such circumstances and in need of hope. Moralistic objections to helping Greece abound, denying its people a shot at achieving their own renaissance. Greater austerity is being demanded from an economy that is on its knees, owing to the heftiest dose of austerity any country has ever had to endure in peacetime. No offer of debt relief. No plan for boosting investment. And certainly, as of yet, no \u201cSpeech of Hope\u201d for this fallen people.<\/p>\n
It is the mark of ancient societies, like those of Germany and of Greece, that contemporary tribulations revive old fears and foment new discord.<\/p>\n
As I write these lines, the Greek government is presenting the European Union with a set of proposals for deep reforms, debt management, and an investment plan to kick-start the economy. Greece is indeed ready and willing to enter into a compact with Europe that will eliminate the deformities that caused it to be the first domino to fall in 2010.<\/p>\n
But, if Greece is to implement these reforms successfully, its citizens need a missing ingredient: Hope. A \u201cSpeech of Hope\u201d for Greece would make all the difference now \u2013 not only for us, but also for our creditors, as our renaissance would terminate the default risk.<\/p>\n
A \u201cSpeech of Hope\u201d for Greece does not have to be technical. It should simply mark a sea change, a break with the past five years of adding new loans on top of already unsustainable debt, conditional on further doses of punitive austerity.<\/p>\n
Who should deliver it? In my mind, the speaker should be German Chancellor Angela Merkel, addressing an audience in Athens or Thessaloniki or any Greek city of her choice.<\/p>\n
Hope was a force for good in post-war Europe, and it can be a force for positive transformation now. A speech by Germany\u2019s leader in a Greek city could go a long way toward delivering it.<\/p>\n
Yanis Yaroufakis writes:\u00a0 On September 6, 1946 US Secretary of State James F. Byrnes traveled to Stuttgart to deliver his historic \u201cSpeech of Hope.\u201d Byrnes\u2019 address marked America\u2019s post-war change of heart vis-\u00e0-vis Germany and gave a fallen nation a … Continue reading ![\"Hope](\"http:\/\/www.w-t-w.org\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/06\/Hope-for-Greece.jpg\")
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