The ancient Greek considered citizens who abstained from the decision making process and the political life of their community to be an ’idiotis’. It was a disparaging term for someone who had consciously detached himself from taking a position on the problems of his community. ‘Idiotes’ (plural of ‘idiotis’) were shunned, as the honour of being a ‘politiis’, a citizen and participating in the political process was one of the highest privileges, if not the highest an adult male could enjoy. The word  passed down in the modern English language as ‘idiot’, which needs no further etymological explanation.

The Greek people will be called upon to be ‘polites’ once more and cast their votes on September 20 for a third time in the space of 8 months -they voted for national elections in January 2015, and in the July referendum on a 3rd ‘rescue’ plan presented to the SYRIZA government by the EU creditors.

As much as someone should feel privileged and even ‘blessed’ to exercise their right of participating in the democratic process and deciding on their future, it would seem understandable why Greek voters are becoming increasingly weary of the whole process. An amusing post on Facebook on the new elections is indicative of the people’s feelings. It had a picture of a season ticket with a comment urging Greeks to get hold of their 2015-2016 Greek elections season ticket…

What ordinary Greek ‘polites’ are craving for is a sense of normalcy and stability in their lives. They are constantly living on the edge and ‘in fear’ of when their recently-elected representatives will ‘wake up’ one morning and call yet another election or a referendum! The term ‘idiotis’ might take on a new, reversed meaning to its original and come to denote a person who feels like an idiot for voting 4 times a year and seeing nothing change despite his or her choice in the ballot box…