Faced with five years of brutal austerity that hurt the foundations of Greek society, the people of Greece decided that enough was enough and erased all their links with the past, opting for the far-left Coalition of the Radical Left (Syriza) led by Alexis Tsipras, giving it a landslide victory. Syriza ended up just two votes short of winning a majority of the seats in parliament and are now forming a coalition to lead.This could be compared to a certain extent to what happened in Turkey in 2002 when the Turkish people rejected all the mainstream parties and buried most of them in history, while giving the Justice and Development Party (AK Party) a resounding majority to transform Turkey into one of the major players in the region and become a G20 country. The Turkish people were fed up with unproductive coalition governments, a militarily-controlled democracy, the high degree of nepotism, favoritism, irregularities and corruption. So they opted for the brand new AK Party. But that is where the similarity ends.Turkey, for its part, had a potentially strong economic foundation, and thus the conservative AK Party administration mobilized industry, boosted exports, revamped the financial system, paid back all its debts, and at one point, managed to extend a loan to the International Monetary Fund. While the world suffered serious economic problems, Turkey managed to sail through the storm with great ease and became the envy of friends and foes alike.Greeks, on the other hand, lived in a welfare state and enjoyed the luxuries of life, thanks to the generous funds dished out to them by the E.U. Greeks hardly have a good industrial base to provide them with export revenue, instead rely on tourism and shipping revenues. In fact maritime revenues are no longer so appealing, so Greeks only have tourism to keep them going and, of course, E.U. funds. However, as all good things come to an end, E.U. taxpayers realized that they were financing the Greeks who lived in artificial abundance. So the Greek economy collapsed and the Athens administration was required to put into force a very painful austerity package that made life unbearable for people. So Greeks put an end to the old mainstream politics and opted for Syriza. Yet it seems contrary to Turkish voters, as they opted for the easy way out and elected the radical left, which may well produce romantic ideals that sound extremely good but have very little viability in the real world.You simply cannot say we will not pay our debts, which run to the tune of $350 billion, and walk away. You have to face the realities of the world. There are several countries that owe huge debts to the E.U. and thus are watching the Greek revolt closely. They will be pestering the E.U. if Greece gets a new lucrative deal or is left to renege on its debts.Greece's prime minister to be, Tsipras, has committed himself to a far-left dream that sounds extremely appetizing. Whether he can create an Alice-in-Wonderland world remains to be seen, especially with an economy that does not produce but relies on handouts from Europe.It will not be long before Greeks emerge from this dream and face the facts of the real world. In fact, Tsipras has already given signals that he will not reject paying back Greece's debts, but that he will renegotiate them with the E.U. Tsipras has put the leading E.U. states on the spot. Now Germany, France and the U.K. have to come up with a plan to ease the crisis. What a dilemma.Beside this, the composition of Syriza shows that soon, typical of all far-left movements, there may eventually be fragmentations, challenges and discord. Let us hope we are mistaken.When the current euphoria dies down and the Greeks face reality, let us hope they do not feel deep remorse for having pushed their country into such an adventure.