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.
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