Amazing panoramic aerial photographs of the Parthenon, Acropolis and surroundings.
We need to remember the beauty of Greece.
We need to remember the beauty of Greece.
Saturday 31 August 2013
Highest unemployment in Europe
Greece had two unenviable firsts in the latest Eurostat unemployment figures for May 2013, with the highest unemployment rate in the entire Euro area, 27.6% (it was 23.8% in May 2012). Among women, it's 31.3%. Also, by far the highest youth unemployment rate: 62.9%.
These are not statistics, these are human beings who can no longer pay the rent, buy food, warm their homes in winter. There are families without a single breadwinner, who may be relying on a grandparent's pension to feed the whole family. More than one fifth of the nation was living below the poverty line in 2010, the most recent figures I can find--I fear the figures are far worse today.
These are not statistics, these are human beings who can no longer pay the rent, buy food, warm their homes in winter. There are families without a single breadwinner, who may be relying on a grandparent's pension to feed the whole family. More than one fifth of the nation was living below the poverty line in 2010, the most recent figures I can find--I fear the figures are far worse today.
Friday 30 August 2013
Suicide
Sorry this is my second consecutive post about death, but this incident shocked Greek public opinion yesterday. A German expatriate woman drowned her seven-year-old daughter in the bathtub, then hanged herself. Very little else is known so far.
The fact that they were on the popular tourist destination Corfu leads me to speculate. Was she a tourist who met a local man, fell in love and stayed? There are many such cross-cultural unions. But a holiday romance can lose its sparkle when reality sets in. Winters on islands are certainly less exciting than summers on the beach and in the clubs. Life in a village is nowhere near as glamorous as the seaside resorts, and can involve hard physical labour in the fields. Even locals chafe at the scrutiny, the gossip, which is the norm in villages. A foreign woman would have been subjected even more harshly to this.
Life is doubly hard for an expatriate, who has to learn a new language, eat and cook unfamiliar foods, conform to local traditions, perhaps even religion. One may not be able to readily find familiar foods from home, hear and speak one's own language. In-laws may be unwelcoming. There is a Greek saying, 'papoutsi apo ton topo sou, kai as einai balomeno'--'a shoe from your own place, even if it is mended'. In any disagreement, and these are inevitable in any relationship and in any family, it is easy to blame the problems on the foreigner, the outsider, and to tell them to go back to where they came from.
All this and more, is dubbed culture shock. On Corfu there is a large expat community. I happen to know of a club for English-speaking 'foreign wives'. Perhaps the German mother did not know English and could not get support from this club.
Perhaps because she was German, the woman was shunned or spoken badly of in her village. Many people in Greece blame the Germans for the debt crisis. Some journalists have been reminding us of the horrific crimes perpetrated against Greeks by the German occupation during WWII: deliberate starvation of the population, decimation of entire villages in reprisal for any loss of German soldiers, looted archaeological artifacts, and of course the forced loan, which has not been repaid. Any compensation from Germany has been incommensurate, and some wishful calculations suggest that the amount Germany owes Greece is enough to wipe out the debt. Many Greeks resent the fact that Germany is now telling Greece how to put its financial house in order, seeing this as a new occupation. German Chancellor Angela Merkel is often depicted in cartoons with Hitler moustache and swastika armband.
Perhaps the unemployment statistics, the likelihood of a bleak future for her child, made this woman want to return to Germany, but her partner would not hear of it because of his love for his fatherland, an established business, his doubts about making a new start in a foreign country at the age of 58, or elderly parents to care for. So in desperation she took this tragic way out.
We may never know her reasons, but the fact is that in a country that once prided itself on one of the lowest suicide rates in the world, the figures have hit a fifty-year high, and since the Greek Orthodox religion views suicide as a cardinal sin, I suspect that the actual figures are much higher, as relatives try to cover up the suicide as something else in order to ensure burial in hallowed ground (although apparently the rules are less strict now) or to avoid social embarrassment.
Many of these suicides are very public, such as that of the retired pharmacist Dimitris Christoulas, as though making a political statement. His suicide note referred to the wartime collaborationist government Tsolakoglou and was a call to arms that was reproduced in a marble plaque set up on the spot where he died, but which was soon taken down by the authorities. Unlike the dramatic self-immolation of the Tunisian street vendor Mohamed Buazizi, which started the 'Arab Spring', this did not spark a 'Greek Spring'. Of course I am suggesting Greeks should take up arms and revolt, but that was the pharmacist's expressed hope in his suicide note, and the parallels are evident.
The fact that they were on the popular tourist destination Corfu leads me to speculate. Was she a tourist who met a local man, fell in love and stayed? There are many such cross-cultural unions. But a holiday romance can lose its sparkle when reality sets in. Winters on islands are certainly less exciting than summers on the beach and in the clubs. Life in a village is nowhere near as glamorous as the seaside resorts, and can involve hard physical labour in the fields. Even locals chafe at the scrutiny, the gossip, which is the norm in villages. A foreign woman would have been subjected even more harshly to this.
Life is doubly hard for an expatriate, who has to learn a new language, eat and cook unfamiliar foods, conform to local traditions, perhaps even religion. One may not be able to readily find familiar foods from home, hear and speak one's own language. In-laws may be unwelcoming. There is a Greek saying, 'papoutsi apo ton topo sou, kai as einai balomeno'--'a shoe from your own place, even if it is mended'. In any disagreement, and these are inevitable in any relationship and in any family, it is easy to blame the problems on the foreigner, the outsider, and to tell them to go back to where they came from.
All this and more, is dubbed culture shock. On Corfu there is a large expat community. I happen to know of a club for English-speaking 'foreign wives'. Perhaps the German mother did not know English and could not get support from this club.
Perhaps because she was German, the woman was shunned or spoken badly of in her village. Many people in Greece blame the Germans for the debt crisis. Some journalists have been reminding us of the horrific crimes perpetrated against Greeks by the German occupation during WWII: deliberate starvation of the population, decimation of entire villages in reprisal for any loss of German soldiers, looted archaeological artifacts, and of course the forced loan, which has not been repaid. Any compensation from Germany has been incommensurate, and some wishful calculations suggest that the amount Germany owes Greece is enough to wipe out the debt. Many Greeks resent the fact that Germany is now telling Greece how to put its financial house in order, seeing this as a new occupation. German Chancellor Angela Merkel is often depicted in cartoons with Hitler moustache and swastika armband.
Perhaps the unemployment statistics, the likelihood of a bleak future for her child, made this woman want to return to Germany, but her partner would not hear of it because of his love for his fatherland, an established business, his doubts about making a new start in a foreign country at the age of 58, or elderly parents to care for. So in desperation she took this tragic way out.
We may never know her reasons, but the fact is that in a country that once prided itself on one of the lowest suicide rates in the world, the figures have hit a fifty-year high, and since the Greek Orthodox religion views suicide as a cardinal sin, I suspect that the actual figures are much higher, as relatives try to cover up the suicide as something else in order to ensure burial in hallowed ground (although apparently the rules are less strict now) or to avoid social embarrassment.
Many of these suicides are very public, such as that of the retired pharmacist Dimitris Christoulas, as though making a political statement. His suicide note referred to the wartime collaborationist government Tsolakoglou and was a call to arms that was reproduced in a marble plaque set up on the spot where he died, but which was soon taken down by the authorities. Unlike the dramatic self-immolation of the Tunisian street vendor Mohamed Buazizi, which started the 'Arab Spring', this did not spark a 'Greek Spring'. Of course I am suggesting Greeks should take up arms and revolt, but that was the pharmacist's expressed hope in his suicide note, and the parallels are evident.
Wednesday 28 August 2013
Died for a EUR 1.20 ticket
Two weeks ago a 19-year-old Greek jumped off a moving trolley bus to avoid paying a fine for not having a validated ticket. He struck his head on the pavement and died. There are mixed reports: he struck the ticket inspector and a passenger who tried to intervene, or the inspector tore his T-shirt to try to restrain him, or in trying to save him. How did the door open while the trolley was in motion? How did the young man strike the back of his head--was he pushed, or did his foot get caught in the door as he was trying to flee? Here and here are just some of the theories. We won't know what really happened until the inspector and the driver are tried.
This incident caused a flurry of analyses in the local media. Was the lad a fare dodger? Was he one of the many unemployed youth of Greece who cannot afford even basics such as transportation? Some witnesses said he claimed he and his parents were all unemployed, perhaps to gain sympathy from the inspector and the passengers. But his parents later said they both had jobs, and they hired a lawyer to be their spokesperson in the media. Some passengers supposedly offered to pay for his ticket, but the inspector insisted on fining him.
Ticket inspectors in Greece are not all employed as such. Some are bus/trolley drivers who volunteer to do this additional "work" after hours or on their days off, because they can keep 40% of any fines they collect. This may explain the zeal of this particular inspector. It can, of course, not justify driving a person to their death.
The phenomenon of not paying one's transport fare is on the rise, or at least the inspectors are catching more dodgers. I have seen inspectors fining well-dressed people and people carrying shopping bags from boutiques, and this has been going on even before the financial crisis, so it is not always a case of a poor person who cannot afford the fare. I think in these cases it is part of the general mood of tax evasion. According to some reports the youth in the fatal incident actually had a ticket, but had not validated it. In fact it struck me that before the debt crisis I had only seen Greeks being caught by inspectors. The immigrants usually had tickets, perhaps because they were afraid of being asked for their papers. Now I also see immigrants without tickets.
Earlier this month I happened to be on a bus when a Greek man who did not have a ticket started shouting and running up and down the bus, then he tried to open the doors to jump off the bus, but luckily in his case they did not open. The inspectors let him off, when I asked them why they said he had a letter saying he had just been released from a mental hospital. But they did not let an immigrant get away with it even though he was waving a EUR 20 bill at them, saying he was on his way to renew his monthly pass, which he also showed them. I said to the inspectors that it was just the first of the month, surely they could give him the benefit of the doubt since they had just let the mental patient off, but they retorted that otherwise why should I be the dumb one who renewed my bus pass before the end of the month. I guess they were right but it seemed rather unfair.
A month or so ago they announced that all passengers would have to get on at the front of the bus, so the driver could check tickets or monthly passes. Other passengers would not be able to disembark until all new passengers had been checked. But this measure was only introduced on some bus lines, not all, so passengers were confused. And many drivers just waved people on without checking their tickets, either because they were opposed to the measure as just one extra duty added to an already difficult job, or because they saw that it would delay transport schedules even more.
I think the best solution would be to reintroduce bus conductors. When I first came to Greece they sat at the back of the bus, so everyone had to buy a ticket as they could not board the bus without going past the conductor. This would ease the unemployment situation, and the additional salaries would be more than covered by the additional tickets sold. If this is not feasible, then introduce an electronic ticket which beeps when valid, to speed up the check by the bus driver, and enforce it on all lines.
Already one person has died because of not paying a bus fare. How many more deaths will it take before the system is modernised?
This incident caused a flurry of analyses in the local media. Was the lad a fare dodger? Was he one of the many unemployed youth of Greece who cannot afford even basics such as transportation? Some witnesses said he claimed he and his parents were all unemployed, perhaps to gain sympathy from the inspector and the passengers. But his parents later said they both had jobs, and they hired a lawyer to be their spokesperson in the media. Some passengers supposedly offered to pay for his ticket, but the inspector insisted on fining him.
Ticket inspectors in Greece are not all employed as such. Some are bus/trolley drivers who volunteer to do this additional "work" after hours or on their days off, because they can keep 40% of any fines they collect. This may explain the zeal of this particular inspector. It can, of course, not justify driving a person to their death.
The phenomenon of not paying one's transport fare is on the rise, or at least the inspectors are catching more dodgers. I have seen inspectors fining well-dressed people and people carrying shopping bags from boutiques, and this has been going on even before the financial crisis, so it is not always a case of a poor person who cannot afford the fare. I think in these cases it is part of the general mood of tax evasion. According to some reports the youth in the fatal incident actually had a ticket, but had not validated it. In fact it struck me that before the debt crisis I had only seen Greeks being caught by inspectors. The immigrants usually had tickets, perhaps because they were afraid of being asked for their papers. Now I also see immigrants without tickets.
Earlier this month I happened to be on a bus when a Greek man who did not have a ticket started shouting and running up and down the bus, then he tried to open the doors to jump off the bus, but luckily in his case they did not open. The inspectors let him off, when I asked them why they said he had a letter saying he had just been released from a mental hospital. But they did not let an immigrant get away with it even though he was waving a EUR 20 bill at them, saying he was on his way to renew his monthly pass, which he also showed them. I said to the inspectors that it was just the first of the month, surely they could give him the benefit of the doubt since they had just let the mental patient off, but they retorted that otherwise why should I be the dumb one who renewed my bus pass before the end of the month. I guess they were right but it seemed rather unfair.
A month or so ago they announced that all passengers would have to get on at the front of the bus, so the driver could check tickets or monthly passes. Other passengers would not be able to disembark until all new passengers had been checked. But this measure was only introduced on some bus lines, not all, so passengers were confused. And many drivers just waved people on without checking their tickets, either because they were opposed to the measure as just one extra duty added to an already difficult job, or because they saw that it would delay transport schedules even more.
I think the best solution would be to reintroduce bus conductors. When I first came to Greece they sat at the back of the bus, so everyone had to buy a ticket as they could not board the bus without going past the conductor. This would ease the unemployment situation, and the additional salaries would be more than covered by the additional tickets sold. If this is not feasible, then introduce an electronic ticket which beeps when valid, to speed up the check by the bus driver, and enforce it on all lines.
Already one person has died because of not paying a bus fare. How many more deaths will it take before the system is modernised?
Monday 26 August 2013
The Debt
Greece woke
up one wintry morning in 2009 to be told the country was in debt. More than EUR 260 billion in debt. That corresponded to nearly EUR 30,000 per man,
woman and child. I know someone who had that kind of credit card debt, who withdrew cash from one of a dozen cards to pay off
the minimum monthly payment on another card, hoping like the ostrich that the
vicious cycle would not catch up with them.
But this was an announcement by the country’s newly elected Prime Minister George Papandreou Jr., the same
person who during the election campaign had said the now
infamous ‘lefta yparxoun’—'there is money'.
Now
suddenly the state coffers were revealed to be empty, and Greece was beholden to foreign banks
who held billions in loans. It did not take long for Fitch to downgrade Greece's credit rating, with the other agencies following suit. Every few days headlines announced new lower ratings until Greece slid all the way down to Junk. Every few days new scenarios were debated by the media pundits: default,
leave the Eurozone, return to the Drachma. Then the IMF were called in for help, and along with the European Commission and the European Central Bank, were dubbed the Troika, which imposed swingeing austerity measures in return for bail-outs.
I am not an economist, though since the debt crisis was revealed I have read so much that I could probably understand an undergraduate Economics textbook. Fear not, I will not bore you with this. If you want to understand the background in a nutshell you can read about it here (BBC) and follow a Guardian timeline and second Guardian timeline .
My purpose in starting this blog is not to add yet another economic analysis--I will leave that to the experts. What I hope to do is to put a human face on these statistics: latest figures for May 2013 show nearly 1.4 million unemployed, over one quarter of the overall Greek working population, with nearly two out of three in the 15-24 age group jobless according to Reuters and The Telegraph .
As I said, I'm not an economist. So why do I think I have something to say? Well, although I'm Australian I have lived in Greece for over 30 years--I arrived just weeks after George Papandreou Jr's father Andreas Papandreou swept into power in October 1981 with his PASOK party on the slogan of 'allaghe'--'change'. I am fluent in Greek. I've been married to a Greek for 25 years and have a child who goes to a Greek school. We live in a working-class suburb of Piraeus, and I work near the centre of Athens. I don't have a car, so I use public transport and walk. I have seen a great deal of human misery close-up, and I want to give these people a voice. I know this won't change the Troika's austerity measures, but perhaps someone reading this blog may be moved to help. You don't need to be in Greece. Unfortunately there is human suffering everywhere. Greece is just the example I am personally familiar with, so that is what I will be writing about.
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