Poverty and Prosperity, Politics and Parties, Protests at Parliament, but No President: December in Crete and Athens

 

Poverty: Clothes and Shoes Cast Off and Passed On

When I first saw an abandoned shoe on some rugged rocks near the sea beyond the dead end of a gravel road leading out of our neighborhood, I thought it might be the beginning of a fictional mystery. When I saw a small package deep in a water hole nearby, I imagined smugglers making secret trips to that rocky coast to deliver contraband goods to the occasional pickup truck drivers I passed on my walks out that way. However, the few people I saw there seemed to be fishing, and I began to notice  abandoned shoes in other places as well. A dirty, smashed, nondescript sneaker near a dumpster. A black shoe with laces in the road. A pair of children’s sneakers neatly aligned next to another dumpster.

So what’s the story with abandoned shoes in this country, I wondered? Why haven’t I seen so many in the U. S.? Since I’ve been writing and thinking more about the reality of life in Greece and real Greeks today, I don’t think it’s so much of a mystery. It’s more a matter of what people do with things they don’t need any longer, and what people and animals do with what’s thrown away as garbage here. Generally speaking, Greeks are certainly more careless about littering than Americans; garbage can be found scattered all over the place. The strong winds don’t help any; nor do the stray cats that jump into the dumpsters in search of food or the stray dogs that pull apart whatever’s left outside of dumpsters. But in these years of economic crisis, I don’t think most people throw potentially useful things deep into dumpsters. There are no yard sales or garage sales here, but people pass children’s clothes and shoes around the neighborhood or family until they fall apart, or they give them to the church or to people they know. Even middle-class Greeks have become less ashamed to take hand-me-downs than they used to be. There’s always someone who needs something now. People hang articles of clothing and umbrellas over the side of a dumpster or leave toys, furniture, and shoes next to it. Then the junk man or woman, Roma, or destitute people come along and take what they can use or sell. They also root through what has been thrown into the dumpster to be sure they don’t miss anything—an increasingly common sight in recent years.

 

Enough Prosperity for Parties?

During the first few weeks in December, the people I know in Crete seemed to be more focused on their own personal lives and families than on political developments here in Greece. One family has been mourning the grandfather who passed away last month. His forty-day memorial service occurred the same day as the school Christmas party and my daughter’s classmate’s birthday party, and the day after a neighbor girl’s birthday party. Many families have managed to celebrate this month, even if they are concerned about their children’s progress in school (since they got their grades for the first term in mid December) or how they’ll pay all their bills on top of the increased taxes the Greek state has thrown at ordinary citizens to make up for their failure to collect from large-scale tax evaders or otherwise compensate for governmental overspending and corruption over the decades. Of course, when I discuss birthday parties I’m talking about the families who have been able to remain in the middle class rather than the increasing numbers crowding in with relatives, splitting one paycheck among three generations, or turning to soup kitchens, churches, dumpsters, and Doctors of the World for free food, clothing, and health care (see, e.g., Greek Patience With Austerity Nears Its Limit and Crisis stretches welfare groups, prompts a change in tactics.) There was some discussion about the local government at one party, but otherwise I heard little about politics in my own relatively privileged circles in Crete, even though almost everyone seems to have to cut back on spending because of lower incomes and higher taxes. 

 

 

Politics, But No President

However, the political news has had more of a sobering effect on late December social gatherings here in Athens and its next-door neighbor Piraeus, where we’ve come to spend the holidays with family and friends. Imagine this: as the U. S. finally seems to be emerging from another Great Depression, a supermajority in Congress has to approve the President’s candidate for a Prime Minister who functions as a figurehead much like the British queen; if not, the constitution mandates elections within a month for the President and all members of Congress. Since Democrats and Republicans can’t agree on the candidate, the jobs of all members of Congress as well as the President are in jeopardy, all at once, leading to uncertainty that destabilizes the still foundering economy. –Sound ridiculous and impossible? In spite of U. S. government shutdowns, I think so. Yet that’s what has happened in Greece. Of course, here in Greece, it’s the conservative/centrist New Democracy (Nea Dimokratia) Prime Minister’s candidate for a ceremonial President that failed to win approval by the opposition party, the leftist coalition SYRIZA, as well as a host of other small parties. So the country is headed for national elections on January 25, and Europe is nervous.

The temperature dropped in Athens yesterday, plummeting from highs in the 60s last week to around freezing, with some freezing rain, sleet and snow in some areas. But things are heating up politically, since the upcoming elections throw Greece’s relationship with the troika, its creditors, and the euro into question. On January 25, Greeks fed up with austerity will decide whether the conservative New Democracy Prime Minister Antonis Samaras (and his increasingly irrelevant socialist coalition partner PASOK) should continue on his euro-friendly course of harsh reform and overwhelming debt or step aside for SYRIZA’s radical leftist Alexis Tsipras, who no longer wants to leave the euro but continues to promise to renegotiate Greece’s debt agreement, seek at least some debt forgiveness, and reverse many of the austerity measures that have led to more than 25% unemployment, a one third drop in household incomes, reductions in healthcare benefits, and severe increases in taxes over the past six years of Greece’s version of the Great Depression (Greek Patience With Austerity Nears Its Limit).

SYRIZA supporters are delighted by this chance to bring their party into power, since it leads New Democracy by 3 to 4.5% in the latest polls, although one poll paradoxically said one third of its respondents would prefer a New Democracy-led coalition while only 24% want a coalition led by SYRIZA (Opinion poll lead for Greece's anti-bailout party narrows). So it is likely but not certain that SYRIZA will win the election but less likely that it can attract enough votes to lead the country on its own, as opposed to forming a new coalition that would take over responsibility for whatever may happen next here. Everyone I talk to who’s not a SYRIZA supporter seems to doubt that there will be any improvement. Some say the future of Greece will be in SYRIZA’s hands and depends on what they dare to ask of creditors and the troika; others say it’s up to the troika and Greece’s creditors, and how much they are willing to give back to the millions of Greeks and immigrants who have suffered poverty, illness, desperation, and hunger here, not just “made sacrifices” for the sake of too much reform too fast at the wrong time. Of course, first it’s up to voters to decide whom to trust with Greece’s next step—a perplexing question, given the failure of so many Greek politicians to put the country’s affairs in order. Sure, Greece needed to make a lot of changes, and sure, many were able to comfortably give up something, with money left over for parties—but others were not. They are the ones who used to be gainfully employed but now turn to unemployment agencies, charities, and even garbage bins. This is not an exaggeration. Now, how much can you ask struggling people to endure when they don’t know how to pay their bills? How far should you push people toward desperation? Where will those pushes take Greece and Europe now?

Now, everyone’s talking about whether SYRIZA will be able to govern on its own, or with whom it could form a new coalition government, what the latest polls say about the decreasing size of SYRIZA’s lead, and what a new government will mean for Greece. SYRIZA, once a proponent of a return to the drachma, has sounded less extreme for some time now, so its leaders don’t seem likely to go that far (see e.g. The Question Hanging Over Greek Debt). But many argue that austerity cannot be ended and the debt cannot be evaded if Greece is to stay with the euro (see e.g. The angry kingmakers), so no one knows what will happen. Like many, I am infuriated by statements like this one by Wolfgang Schäuble, the German finance minister, which show a complete lack of understanding of the serious problems caused by austerity measures: “We will continue to help Greece to help itself on its path of reforms” (quoted in Europe Braces for Economic Fallout as Greece Heads to Early Elections). German officials have not helped Greece help Greeks at all; they have helped impose harmful measures that increased unemployment and deepened the Greek depression. I can certainly understand most Greeks’ desire for a change in government, although I don’t know if such a change will bring improvement.

The Price of Prosperity

Improvement is clearly needed, and fast. Half of one highly educated family I know in Crete is preparing to move to the U. S. for a better-paying academic job; another is considering an offer in Kazakhstan; a third family is divided between Athens and Dubai. The brain drain that’s been going on for years continues; as the brightest and best educated leave the country in search of better jobs and opportunities, I wonder who will be left to offer Greece hope for the future. Here in Neo Faliro, Piraeus, the owner of a small grocery store that never seems to have many customers says she wishes things would at least stay the same, but instead they keep getting worse all the time; now, with the plight of Greece once again thrown into doubt, people are afraid to buy much for Christmas. They don’t dare to purchase a lot of heating oil, even with prices far below last year’s (Uncertainty sees fuel demand revert to crisis level), so my coat again smells like wood smoke after an evening stroll. Even in the showy bakeries full of tree-shaped Christmas cakes covered with green icing and round New Year’s cakes, counters covered in Greek sweets, and huge mounds of snowy, powdered sugary kourambiedes and spicy, syrupy brown melomakarona, a saleswoman said people are not buying as much as they used to. An Albanian immigrant working at another bakery, clearly exhausted since they’ve been open almost constantly these days, unlike the regular stores that close December 25-26 and January 1-2, assured me that it’s still much better here than in Albania—although one of her compatriots and news reports tell me that many Albanians have returned home because that’s not true for them.

No More Protest Outside Parliament

It looks like it must be better here than Albania when we head to outlets where the parking lot is packed and a salesclerk wishes to escape the Athens crowds for a smaller town or an island like Crete. It looks better yet in Syntagma Square, in front of the Parliament building during the changing of the guard, with no protesting Syrian refugees camped out to block Athenians’ and tourists’ view of the traditional giant boat outlined in white lights, the tall trees growing in the square that are festooned with more little white lights or hung with blue and white stars and circles. The protesting refugees were removed in the middle of the night on December 15, by some accounts “without incidents” (Syrian Refugees Removed from Syntagma Square), by others with one refugee injured and many forced to leave behind their identification documents and their belongings—even shoes (Police remove Syrian refugees from Syntagma). Apparently the government had been negotiating with them, offering immediate asylum with refugee status and access to health care, although it did not promise housing to any but the most vulnerable women and children. I haven’t been able to learn much more about the refugees since they’ve been taken away, but at least the government made a clean sweep of the sidewalk so pedestrians can enjoy the lights, the Santas, and the oddly incongruous oversized Micky and Minnie Mouse, Dora, and Sponge Bob for the holidays. At least the opposition (SYRIZA) couldn’t complain about refugees protesting across the street from Parliament as they objected to the government’s candidate for President.

But Impoverished Immigrants and Greeks Are Still Begging for Change

I was surprised by a beggar inside the McDonald’s at Syntagma which I tend to visit about once a year, largely to remind myself that once a year is enough. The young man, who looked like he might be Filipino, foraged in the papers on the tray left next to me and took a bite out of the remains of a sandwich. He said something about taking food from garbage because he’s hungry, and requested money. Since I’d never seen anyone begging inside an indoor restaurant, I was too surprised to ask him about his background, so I just gave him some change and wished him well. Another immigrant, a Black man from Cyprus and the Republic of Congo (we didn’t quite understand in what sense), told a longer, more rambling story on the train than I’d ever heard from anyone requesting sympathy and money. Begging has been common in Athens for many years, and we still see many Roma women and children begging and trying to sell balloons and roses, but the face of some of the Athenian beggars seems to be changing. More of the impoverished in Greece are now native Greeks. Krishna Guha, head of global policy research at Evercore ISI, has written, “The entire eurozone is in a race against time to achieve the necessary economic adjustments and deliver stronger growth and jobs before the politics breaks” (A View From Abroad). Greece has lost that race.

A Show of Prosperity for the New Year?

Even so, Athens is trying to put on a happy face in Syntagma and the surrounding streets, with starry lights strung across some roads and white walls of lights covering most of a large mall whose shop windows are inexplicably filled with colorful, exotic Orientalist scenes of masked mannequins, dragons, and rickshaws. For me, the plethora of English-language novels in Public, a store reminiscent of Barnes and Noble, was enough of an exotic delight; I hadn’t seen so many outside my own house since I was last in the U. S., let alone spoken with a saleswoman who admitted they should have Louise Erdrich’s books and does intend to order them. The rest of that store was not the calm haven of that English-language book section, but more of a Christmas madhouse of toy and electronics shoppers, much like the overcrowded local supermarket and bakery on the days before Christmas and New Year’s. At least the Athenian strays seem calmer than the ones in our Cretan neighborhood.

In Crete, I left behind the first gorgeous crocuses, early purple anemones, and vast, flourishing wild shrubs full of verbena’s multicolored florets. Here, I saw more orange and green than anything else on my Christmas day walk, although I think most of the oranges here are the bitter ones used to make spoon sweets, rather than the sweet fruits of Crete. Look at that: now I’m not only nostalgic for the U. S. at Christmas and New Year’s—which I am, very much missing my family, friends, snow, ice skating, cozy homes, familiar customs, and favorite foods and scents there—I’m even nostalgic for Crete! Well, that’s where we are putting down roots now. We have a lot of rainbows there, and the rescued kittens that live near some neighborhood dumpsters are growing, even if their shaggy fur is sometimes wet. 

I wish everyone a warm, safe home with people they love, adequate clothing and shoes, the education they need to prepare for a decent life, plenty of healthy food to eat, good health and healthcare, and hope and peace in the new year and beyond. As Greeks say, Χρόνια Πολλά, Hrone-yuh Poe-lah, or many years of good health to you!

 

Footnote: Avoiding a New Plague?

In the most prominent spot next to the Theater Under the Bridge (Theatro Kato Apo tin Gefira) near the train station in Neo Faliro, Pireaus, a graffiti artist once painted a flaming euro coin above open blue hands; it was later replaced by an illuminated candle. (See my October 2012 blog for the flaming euro.) Now, that has been replaced by an impressive painting of a mannequin in a 17^th century European plague doctor’s mask. I have been thinking about the symbolism of this, since I considered the previous paintings in that spot highly symbolic. Before I understood what I was seeing, I thought of a mask used to protect protestors from riot police’s tear gas, and this could be part of the allusion. However, since there have been few riots in Athens this year, there may well be a stronger as well as more direct allusion to a plague—and the question of what kind of plague has struck Greece, what is its source, and how people can protect themselves against it.

Christmas in Greece: Festivities, Feasts, Fires, and Fears

Leading up to Christmas in Greece, a mild season this year in Crete and Athens, poinsettia trees and cyclamen flowers bloom, community groups organize charity bazaars, schoolchildren stage performances during which parents talk, and schools offer parties featuring cheese pies and sweets, Santa and stories, crafts and (in our case) Cretan dances and Zumba. Christmas carnivals spring up in various city squares, parks, and stadiums, with colorful rides, giant bubbles, and seasonal activities for children, as well as opportunities for commerce by immigrants, Roma, and Greeks. Greeks gather at the homes of friends and family for reunions, reminiscences, gifts for the kids, food, and drink--and to share their pessimism about the future of Greece, complaining about high taxes and expenses, with salaries back at 2006 levels for those who still have jobs, and ever lower pensions. I have spoken with only one person who believes the current centrist coalition government is doing the right thing, and only one other person who believes the leftist SYRIZA (the main opposition party) can improve things. And those are the leading political parties in Greece, nearly tied in the polls--but with not even a quarter of respondents supporting either one.

 

Piraeus, or Pireas (the port city that runs into Athens), is really not where I wanted to spend this most home- and family-centered holiday (in my own American experience), partly because it's not a place where I can satisfy my very particular sentimental and aesthetic preferences for small colorful lights on large houseplants and live Christmas trees, plus the dozens of red and white candles my mother used to light all over our spacious living room, the menorah candles for Hanukkah, a fire in the fireplace (and no concern for smog), hot chocolate and Monopoly after ice skating and sledding or frisbee football, my mother's cooking and baking and our Christmas cookie decorating sessions: my all-American, intercultural, nostalgic memories, not even completely marred by my parents' divorce, with extended family so far-flung across our large continent that we adopted dear friends as family to share holidays with us. Of course, this first Christmas and New Year’s after my mother died were bound to be difficult. I miss her, as well as my father, and I haven’t yet gotten used to her absence.

But here we are with my mother in law (one of the most thoughtful, accommodating, unselfish people I know) in Piraeus for the typically long school vacation: more than two weeks this year, to encompass everything from Christmas Eve through New Year's and then the celebration of the lights (Epiphany) and Agios Ioannis (Saint John's) day. And it was busy enough here with the shopping, children's gifts, kitchen cleanup, visiting with Greek family, and cooking (including my annual turkey soup with leftovers from the bird Greeks eat only at Christmas and New Year's, along with goat and pork) that I kept my nostalgic desires in check and just accepted the day for what it was, here and now, festive and celebratory in its own family- and food-centered Greek way.

While the White Mountains of Crete have been living up to their name, well covered with snow for weeks now, here in Piraeus on my Christmas morning walk it felt like fall, with mild temperatures and many trees still full of more yellow leaves than we tend to see in our part of Crete, with some crumbling underfoot as they used to back in Pennsylvania, except that here they mix with citrus trees in front of the few dilapidated and renovated neoclassical houses that remain, dwarfed between five to seven-story apartment blocks. A few boats decorated with lights add an interesting twist to the ubiquitous Christmas trees and scattering of Santas (and the large boat in Athens's central Syntagma Square provides an especially noteworthy return to Greek tradition this year after last year's bizarre, needlessly expensive scaffolding-light-and-noise monstrosity).

Once our company joined us, I witnessed an interesting Christmas dinner discussion of the accuracy of goat bone readers (like fortune tellers, or the readers of eggs and interpreters of coffee grounds left in a cup). A father claimed that the first initial of his then-future wife's name, the birth of their two sons, and the sons' first initials had all been correctly foretold by a Romanian woman, but his wife disagreed, and his son objected that such beliefs were un-Christian. A grandmother explained that the Orthodox Church allows such fortune telling on Saint George's day in April, and her son whispered to me that this was part of the church's attempts to reconcile the pagan and Christian beliefs of Greeks in early Christian times. I suppose I could have heard a similar conversation (which reminds me of Zora Neale Hurston) in some parts of the U. S., but I haven't been in the right place for it so far.

Young people in Greece sing their Christmas carols, or Calenda, in return for money, often accompanying themselves with triangles, on Christmas Eve morning and again on New Year's Eve morning and January 5, the day before Epiphany, which is known here as Fota, the festival of light and day for blessing the waters and boats (when a priest throws a cross into the freezing sea, and brave youths race to retrieve it). Sometimes we see wandering bands or accordionists playing carols or other music in the streets these days. What I'd never seen before was a little band of youths with two trombones, a clarinet, a trumpet, and a drum

marching through a small neighborhood "super"market as they played (and how they could do that, with the crowds in that small space, I don't know; I find it difficult to just make my way through some of the aisles to shop there when it's busy!). I hadn't ever seen (or heard) the Calenda played with plastic tubes of varying lengths, either, as groups of visitors did at the Eugenides Foundation's Interactive Science and Technology Exhibition Hall next to its digital planetarium last week. I played my part best in the carol with the same tune as "Jingle Bells," where I actually knew the rhythm. Then we watched a wonderful film about expeditions to Everest, which was the highlight of our visit, since some of the exhibits didn't work correctly, although others were fascinating. Our favorite was the air percussion room, where it sounded like we were playing drums, cymbals, and bells when we hit the air.

Actually, there was a great deal more energy, as well as far more people, when the Technical University of Crete hosted a science fair for elementary school students on December 7, with chemistry demonstrations using ordinary household materials such as baking soda, vinegar, eggs, water, oil, and dyes; small robotic dogs and soccer players that ran (awkwardly) and attempted goals (without any remote control); cell phones to tell when plants must be watered; illustrations and elementary discussions of mathematical models and fractals; computer-generated shadow puppetry; elementary students' exhibits of the water cycle and a volcano that erupted; and more demonstrations than anyone could visit in a few hours. What was most encouraging was that both children and parents were excited and impressed by the science, and with an estimated 3,000 visitors, it felt like the university was THE place to be on that Saturday afternoon! My son even delayed leaving for a birthday party in order to watch more of the chemistry demonstrations. I suppose that event was more impressive than the Athens museum both due to the enthusiastic, energetic efforts of hundreds of students and professors, and because Chania residents unaccustomed to access to a science museum really appreciated seeing something extraordinary.

More recently, we delayed our venture into central Athens to see what Christmas carnivals and activities might impress our children and to check out this year's lovely traditional decorations in Syntagma Square, because of concern about the severe smog created by the fireplaces and wood stoves used to heat homes. This is the result of heating oil prices that are drastically higher than a few years ago (and much higher than in New York and London), thanks to the government’s efforts to combat smuggling and to raise more of the money that the Troika demands, while salaries are so much lower than they used to be, and many families’ electricity has been cut off because they couldn’t pay their bills. There has been such a serious problem with air quality in Athens and some other Greek cities that children and elderly people were advised to stay indoors some days, and people were asked to stop using fireplaces. Since one teenager died and another couple's house burned down during recent attempts to heat homes with fires, more assistance has been offered to the most impoverished so they can afford to heat their homes more safely, but I don't know if the aid will reach enough people in time to prevent more tragedies. And southern Greece isn’t even very cold yet. We are fortunate; we are still able to pay our bills, even though D’s salary and benefits have been cut several times. I was not even bothered by the air quality in the city; nor did I notice a smell of smoke outside. Even so, each time I came in after going out at night, I was surprised to find that my hair smelled like a wood fire.

The government and its supporters claim that the economy is improving--but so they've been saying for some time, and many ordinary Greeks have yet to see evidence of this. Granted, Greece will have a primary surplus this year, and investors in government bonds will make a great deal of money, but this occurs at the expense of people who lack heat, electricity, homes, sufficient warm clothing and shoes, necessary health care, and/or adequate nutritious food, since the government and the Troika have acted less to promote ordinary people's well-being than to help banks, bonds, and the national economic numbers that are most important to the upper classes. It's true that some Greeks have enough money to rent little cars for small children or pedal-powered cars for families next to the extensive Paleo Faliro playgrounds and promenade by the sea, while others can afford the entry fees required for children's holiday activities that were free last year, when the city of Athens spent far more on Christmas, or pay for carnival rides. New exercise equipment for adults in Paleo Faliro, a new daycare center and toddlers' playground in Neo Faliro, and still

impressive metro stations such as the one in Kerameikos with its sculpted forest also imply a measure of prosperity. 

However, many small businesses are struggling to stay open, or closing, leaving many empty spaces for rent or destroyed by weather and vandalism. Tens of thousands of university students began their fall semester only in mid December due to staff strikes, and prisons suffer from such excessively overcrowded, unhygienic, barbaric conditions that they sound like they resemble the dungeons of the Dark Ages (Greek prison system collapsing – labeled 'inhuman'). Doctors serving Greek public servants, including teachers and professors,

have been striking for months, except for emergency treatment, leaving basic and preventive care unprovided for many who cannot afford to pay private doctors. The article about the "Council of Europe report: 10austerity imposed human rights abuses in Greece" provides a concise overview of the ways hastily applied, inadequately considered austerity measures threaten the health and well-being of Greeks and other Europeans with their negative effects on pensions, health care, workers' rights,

unemployment rates, and freedom of expression, rather than “Safeguarding human rights in times of economic crises” (as the report is titled). The article suggests that Greek leaders' plans to satisfy the Troika's demands to save money often end up conflicting with the Treaty on European Union and the European Social Charter. On subways and sidewalks, wandering Roma children with accordions  and collection cups compete with Greek beggars' stories of hardship, prompting some handouts, some silence, and one well-dressed middle-aged woman’s notation of an unemployed father's address, with the comment that she wanted to send him something.

On the other hand, some free-spirited Greek youths demonstrated their exuberance with back flips and twists into the Paleo Faliro sand the other day. And the impressive wall painting of two blue hands cupped below a flaming euro coin (pictured in my October 22, 2012 blog) outside the Theatro kato ap' tin Gefira (Theater Under the Bridge) near the Olympiakos soccer stadium in Neo Faliro has been replaced by a possibly more hopeful image of a lit candle. I don't know if that refers to the Christmas holiday, or to increased hope for the Greek economy and the country as a whole. In any case, we shall see whether the midnight firecrackers and phone calls of New Year’s Eve, the Vasilopita or New Year’s cake, with one piece set aside for strangers, and the family gatherings over holiday dinners foreshadow a more joyful, caring, generous and hopeful year for Greece in 2014. We finally visited the nearby Archaeological Museum of Piraeus for the first time yesterday and were impressed with its small but often impressive collection before beginning a long seaside walk past the boats and harbors of Piraeus, so that was a good start for us. May it be a happier new year for those who struggled in 2013.