I had no intentions to writing on my blog today, but given the extremely terrifying events which took place in Athens yesterday I just can’t help it. I am feeling deeply sorry, upset and intimidated and I am writing not so much to be heard from the world but mainly to calm down my nerves and demonstrate the frustration in which the Greek society lives in at present. Of course, I am not capable of saving neither the world nor the Greeks or even save myself from the repeated cruel incidents that we have to face without having a say on them or the power to make a change. Sadly, we have no other choice than learning to live with the current situation.
We Greeks decided to peacefully protest yesterday against the new metres that our current government decided to take in order to fight Greece’s economic meltdown as well as to prevent the bankruptcy of our country. I am quite certain that most of us understand the need of those metres to be applied and that deeply inside even though we didn’t want to believe it at times, we knew since a long time ago that our economy has never been as fruitful as the economy of other, clearly better standing, European countries. So, the credit crunch, recession or economic breakdown which unfortunately managed to have a huge impact on the most powerful European countries, or even the U.S., was definitely expected to bring a disaster to small Greece.
I am not an expert on bankruptcy issues but reading about what happened in other countries that had no choice than taking this road, here are a few things that could happen if we had decided to give up and go with the wind:
-The economic output would decline dramatically.
-The retail and service sector would be decimated.
-Higher unemployment rates would be reported.
-The price of imports would increase and any bank account savings would be lost since the currency of the bankrupt country would be worth less to nothing.
-Financial assistance would not be available from the inside the country.
-A serious decline in the standard of living would be caused.
-No police or fire protection would be available.
-Get out of the European Union which would be terrible.
I am sure most of you Greeks reading the list above think that we are already facing those consequences even though we haven’t declared bankruptcy. Nevertheless, I assure you that the situation could be a lot worse than it is now and we all have to do our part and learn to live with the new metres in order to prevent the worse to come. And even though we are all complaining all day long about the salary cuts, the high rates of unemployment and the debt levels of our country, we still have each other, still make our living and sometime, I apologise for saying that, but we have to learn living within rules. Because every single Greek has tried once in their lives to take advantage of the ‘windows’ that our legislation kept ‘opened’, you know what I mean, and you don’t need to be a highly educated person to realise it, it’s just basic maths.
So, it might be hard to admit but we all played our role on the results; yes, some more than others. Because some of us are richer, more powerful, have more connections, or they are just ‘smarter’ than others and managed to widely open several windows and/or balcony doors.. and as a result they entirely solved their financial problems for their families, relatives, close friends and perhaps for their grandchildren’s families as well. That is because Greeks enjoy showing off and sharing their wealth even if they are not wealthy. Believe me you cannot tell whether a Greek is rich or not, because even in times we face financial difficulties, we have this gift to know how to enjoy life and we truly enjoy sharing our food and belongings, and that’s part of the so called Greek hospitality.
Generally speaking, we are nice, generous, family people but there will always be exceptions in the rule. Yes, I am referring again to yesterday’s incidents. A bunch of brainless people decided to break in the planned peaceful protest in Athens and take away the lives of 3 innocent Greeks who were working yesterday at Marfin Egnatia Bank during the somewhat general strike, in which the public sector employees were the key participants. Many people who went there to support their rights were injured and taken to the hospitals and various others had to watch out of the sudden their cars burning out in flames.
Since yesterday the whole nation is in deep pain; after all, we might be seen as a small country, but we actually are is a big family. And we are truthfully sorry for those people’s losses, deeply worried about their families and extremely angered at those who caused that to happen. So, according to my personal opinion only, the ‘brainless’ ones are anarchists, people who have never worked in their lives, who have no life objectives, minimum knowledge (I doubt if they even know the etymology of the word anarchism) and are not capable of love, giving and sympathy. Therefore, they cannot be called ‘Greeks’; they are useless, hopeless, brainless and psychotic and they decided to become killers. Killers who kill innocent people and at the same time killers who kill the dreams and hope of the Greeks remaining.
However, I have one more option in mind and I give you an example just to pass you on the information so that you make your own judgements. After all, who am I to judge? Do you remember the unfortunate shooting of the 15 year-old boy in Exarchia the 8th December 2008? Did you know that after the incident a bunch of anarchists took over the Greek Embassy in London and burnt the Greek flag replacing it for an anarchist flag? Did you know that BBC was reporting the incident all the time? Do you realise how serious is that and how bad I felt at that time being a Greek living in London? Do you realise the degree of the dreadful impact on the reputation of our country? Did you know that very much later after the incident I had heard that those ‘anarchists’ were Greek students studying in London that had some spare time to kill and did that without giving it a better thought? Do you know how rich are their families? I don’t really know nor have any specific evidence to prove if that’s true or not but if it is I am ashamed. So much ashamed..
And on top of them all, for one more summer season we will have to suffer the decline in tourism. We, ordinary Greeks, the most hospitable nation in the world are ending up watching the several travel advices warning travellers not to visit because there is a ‘general threat for terrorism which has been on the increase’’. And here we go.. group cancellations have already started to take place and OMG I am so much scared of what is following.. You knew that in Greece the numbers of jobs directly or indirectly related to the tourism sector are approximately 900,000? Where will all these people turn to to earn their living?
I understand this might have not been my most positive article and that I start on having some difficulties on taking a romantic attitude towards things; I apologise if some of my statements had been somewhat reality shocking but democracy gives me the freedom of speech and that’s all I got for now in addition to my anxiousness on whether Greece is capable for recovery or not.
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