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| Who you gonna vote for? |
Lord Byron wrote those words and surely one would be hard pressed to find a more memorable example of a Hellenophile than the crippled, sex-symbol poet and revolutionary.
It would also be hard to find somebody quite as deluded as to what Greece actually means, especially to fellow Europeans - or rather, what it should mean, liberated from its magnificent past and taken for what it is. This is a question of considerable relevance as Greece becomes a byword and an example for the economic troubles facing the developed world, and southern Europe in particular. Instead of talking about Greece however, we hear of Greece. Day in and day out ever since the crisis which, let's not forget, originated in the subprime mortgage market in the US, Greece has been the subject of universal pity, of Germanic scorn, of derision and up to an extent, of hope too. It is profligate, it is being crucified, it is brought this on itself, it's the people's fault, or it's the politicians', and so on. Invariably, the articles and commentaries are peppered with references to Greece giving 'us' democracy, and a few of the clever ones add, 'It gave us tragedy, too.' Of course, democracy is not necessarily the best Greek loanword we have to describe our political system; plutocracy works just as well.
I admit to being firmly in the hope camp, but as I set off on the day of the election, those hopes were buried before I even landed in Athens. Let's return to the narrative though, nice and chronological. After the May parliamentary elections, which ended in a "political gridlock" (ie. a situation that arises when centrist parties don't get their way), there was suddenly a new name going around the progressive circles of the world - Syriza. I had heard of them before, much like one hears of leftist parties that usually struggle to even get seats, or whom the neoliberal centrist consensus has declared to be living in the past. Yet what was different here was of course the fact that Syriza was now the second largest party, a contender for government even. Once a new election was called, it was clear that this was the closest that a leftist party has been to a parliamentary victory since, well maybe the 1931 Spanish election. You can surely tell that this boyscout was very excited.
I'd had the intention of visiting my friend for a while now and the timing could not have been better - I would fly in, catch up with an old friend while also celebrating the left's victory. Perfect. But the dark clouds had already set in long before my flight; the EU propaganda machine went into overdrive, scary scenarios which the European institutions had for months been vehemently denying were now being leaked and discussed in the open. Not just the EU institutions, the European press was also on high alert, could not get enough of using the phrase 'radical left-wing party', and talked of a potential Syriza government only in terms of the economic disaster that would ensue. Meanwhile, in Berlin, Chancellor Merkel and other German politicians were beginning to hint that a Greek exit is perhaps not unavoidable or even undesirable; an MP from her party (Alexander Dobrindt) put it in very stark terms, saying a Greek default and exit from the Eurozone was inevitable, should the Greeks elect a Syriza-led government. And in Paris, Franรงois Hollande, then newly elected President, refused to meet Syriza's leader, making it quite clear how socialist the French socialists really are when it comes to protecting the French banks or upsetting Angela Merkel. The message was clear - the political, economic and media mainstream of Europe was not going to just allow such radical change without a fight.
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And so it happened that I arrived in a Greece somewhat different from my Byronian imagination. Syriza did not start a gust of transformative wind across the continent, it did not make a difference and Greece was not going to be the one to break the ranks of the political-economic consensus. The euro and the German banks were safe, and a heavy feeling of defeat overcame me and many other European leftists. I arrived quite late at night, and my friend told me to meet her 'by the ugly fountain' in Plateia Mavili. It was then however, on a balmy night, that I realised how dumb my expectations had been. Not because the Greek electorate was scared off, not because I was overly romanticising the potential left-wing victory. But rather, because there was a Greece all around me which was in fact far more interesting. The urban Greece, not the nice beach on an island. The progressive Greece, not the party-political one. And finally, a welcoming one - but that much I admittedly expected anyway.
Perhaps the best time to arrive in Athens is on a summer evening, as one sees the life of the city, the elderly men still out and chatting at midnight, the usual images of a Mediterranean metropolis where the night is far less of a taboo than up north. In the day, it's a city of much harsher beauty, but how much of this is down to the recent economic trouble, and how much is simply part of the urban fabric, is unknown to me. Certainly, some aspects of city beautification and maintenance have taken quite a hit with the government's desperate attempts at austerity. Pavements are cleaned with less gusto, and cracks fixed less often; though this was never Geneva. My first real glimpse at what 'crisis' actually means in Greece came quite unexpectedly. Walking through a vegetable market below Likavittos, I hear a lady arguing with a vendor at one of the stalls. Their faces and tone betray a heated argument, and it likely isn't one about the price of okra or beans, this is something more. I enquire with my friend and she promptly explains the woman was saying how she cannot believe the man voted for the fascist party Chrysi Avgi (Golden Dawn) and an argument ensued. It wasn't so much the content, with usual themes of immigration, austerity and such, it's rather the atmosphere, the tension that I could feel, being alien to the situation. A middle age woman, out to buy groceries, ending up in a fight over politics with the guy selling veg - and while in the Balkans, politics is something that you take with you wherever you go, it's not normally something you'd fight over with strangers, not people who sell you things. This was definitely something that struck me as odd, but also reminded me of the general breakout of bickering before the civil war in Yugoslavia, and that's not what you would call an encouraging sign.
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| Not a Banksy in sight. Phew. |
But it's not just the hostility present on the street, the resentment towards the police runs far deeper. Following the elections, Athens was rife with talk of how the electoral stations around police headquarters, where most police vote (since they are unable to travel home, as most Greeks have to) had a remarkably high percentage of votes cast for Chrysi Avgi, suggesting that many in the Athens police are staunch supporters of the fascist party. My comments to a group of friends are met with understanding nods, "Honestly, I don't know which girls sleep with them, I wouldn't touch that. Actually, we should all go on strike," remarked one.
Strike! From the neoliberal heartland of London, strikes in Greece still look like powerful tools of politics and not hampered by apathy or "decency at work" regulation, which transformed most strikes into boring marches down Whitehall. Strikes here are still a key weapon left to many Greeks, especially those in big cities, which had traditionally depended on public jobs and big business, both of which are in trouble. And yes, the strikes were big, violent even, and they made the headlines around the world - though it's telling how riots in Tahrir Square are a revolution, but they're just good old riots in Syntagma. For the most part though, people still go to work despite the pay cuts, which can reach up to 100% in the private sector - employees who literally work for free, because it's better to stay with a job and hope that a salary will be paid out one day, rather than risk it in the sea of unemployed. This struck me as something really remarkable, and something wholly unknown in the creditor states of the EU, where Greeks are generally viewed as not the most hard working. As the Dutch went to the polls last Sunday, I wonder how many of them would consider working for free for months on end, and whether that would have any effect on them when they were casting votes based on their imaginarium of Greeks syphoning off their hard-earned euro.
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"Jobs are like boyfriends, if you had one four years ago, you might still have one. But you can forget about finding one now." Economy, jobs, salaries, strikes. More time, less money, less stability, more thrill. Lives have of course been changed. Young people were especially hit, as often is the case - here's some numbers for those so inclined. As jobs were lost, so were rented flats, that epitome of independent life, and many young Athenians moved back in with the parents. While Greek families are traditionally closer and more used to sharing space than their Anglo-American counterparts, this had a devastating effect on many a relationship, and some young people decided to leave Athens altogether and seek better lives abroad. Incidentally, my friend is a Chinese language tutor and says business has been good, people are keen to leave and China is seen as a land where there's money to be made, so lots of young people give emigration a go. Others have moved to the countryside. Not only to the islands, which are shielded from the crisis by the tourist industry, but also in Greece's rugged north, establishing organic farms, specialising in growing mushrooms or keeping snails for export, but also brining urban lives to rural surroundings. There is still promise in Greece and, for the most part, I was impressed by the solidarity that people felt in the face of the crisis, especially with small gestures, like Metro tickets with time remaining on them, left by commuters for those who can't afford to buy them. (a practice which the police have started to crack down on).
But it doesn't end with such individual actions. Reminiscent of post-default Argentina, groups of people have taken over and adapted certain function of the state or of institutions, principally to do with the provision and exchange of basic goods; places like Skoros are gaining traction with Athenians of different backgrounds and aren't just radical fringe activities. Another such innovation is "The Other Human", a social kitchen/experiment; rather than being a standard soup kitchen, its members cook and eat on-site (they cook "live", as they like to say), breaking the taboos and barriers between the charitable haves and the recipient have nots; perhaps this is easier because the "donors" in this case are not institutions or wealthy individuals out to gain prestige or tax breaks through charity, but rather, people who want to do something for other humans - hence the name.
Crisis breeds both violence and solidarity, my friend remarked. People react to it in different ways. Some become creative, some leave, others vent their frustration on immigrants and other easy targets. But aside from all this, we must not forget the resilience of everyday life. Days and evenings roll on, the (wonderful) bars of Athens are full of life, outdoor cinemas with ashtrays on tables still around, well kept elderly couples still take their evening stroll around Kolonaki. It's charming, there is no doubt about it. The kind of city where you could definitely imagine living. Maybe this is ultimately the lesson in this tale - it's the everyday that's precious and worth protecting.
