Today I had some free time in my hands, so I roamed doing last-minute things. I spoke to a lot of people. I visited (almost) empty stores. I have never seen Athens like this - drab, cold at heart, gloomy, discouraged. Around 11 a.m. I was in one of the most popular department stores in Kolonaki. The place is usually bustling with customers; on days like today, it is a zoo. Today though, there were exactly eight, repeat, eight customers, all female, in the ground floor. I waited until all eight had left. None bought anything.
Shop owners elsewhere in the commercial center spoke of a drop in business that touched 50 and 60 percent in comparison to Christmas ‘07. This is not a slowdown, it is a rout. These people are desperate. With the taxman on their heels, loans hanging over their heads, and payroll and social security taxes and contributions sucking away blood that cannot be replaced, they face almost certain failure in the next six months.
Pan the camera away from Athens.
Ski slopes and associated tourist hotels are reporting record bookings. Arachova, close to Athens, is 100 percent booked through next week. Similar reports come from such facilities in northern Greece, where heavy snowfalls have created ideal conditions for skiers. TV news is replete with images of happy-go-lucky revelers bopping about on the slopes and then gathering in cozy chalets, sipping wine and goofing off at €250-300 for a double per night. It seems a good-sized group of Greeks are not feeling the pinch. Are they all “black money” beneficiaries? Most likely.
President of the republic and political leaders have issued the customary New Year messages. Empty words by people so distant from the harsh realities of this place they could easily be thought to have arrived from another planet. Papoulias, Karamanlis, Papandreou, Tsipras, Alavanos, Papariga, Karatzaferis. What a lineup! What concentrated, raw brain power we so desperately need (like a hole in the head).
On my desk this morning I leafed through the leftover pile of papers -- I’m always behind in skimming through these prestigious publications -- and I run into a surprisingly poignant article in one of the weeklies, O Kosmos to Ependyti (the World of the Investor, December 6). The title read: “Greek prime minister said to have failed in governing, now facing rout.” The conclusion of the piece was bull’s eye:
The originality in New Democracy's [the party of Karamanlis] current state lies in the fact that a large party in a position to wield a parliamentary majority is facing the prospect of a serious political defeat and an electoral rout, not because it pursued some particularly "catastrophic" policies, nor because it exhausted citizens by its long stay in government; but mainly because it is found to be lacking in political morality. This may be novel [for Greece], but it is not odd, given that in 2004 the Karamanlis leadership did not offer the realization of a major political aim to the country. Instead, it had promised to bring about what the majority of citizens consistently desired: A repression of the "intertwined interests" [big business interests] plaguing the country; and a governance ruled by high political and moral standards -- "modest and humble," in Karamanlis' words. Today, Karamanlis is being defeated in a battlefield he himself chose five years ago, from a position of strength, facing weak opponents.
Karamanlis’s predicament paves the way to the prospect of disabled government. Papandreou, his usual buffoonish disposition unchanged by the circumstances and the apocalyptic alternatives before us, misses no opportunity to repeat he is “ready to govern.” Even by the prevailing standards of the bankrupt, tragicomic Greek politics, the Papandreou “alternative” looks downright absurd and guaranteed to drive the country deeper into the already bottomless hole, if it does occur. On the sidelines, the small parties of the semi-loony left exist in their own virtual world of unreality, denial, and barren “thinking.” And LAOS, the nationalist fringe party, just can’t escape from looking like a badly drawn cartoon populated by bizarre characters.
A much older friend, who has spent over 40 years in various political and journalistic posts, was exclaiming this morning how he is totally “insane” at the downward spiral we find ourselves in. A true democrat of rare cut, he lamented over his reluctant conclusion that Greece today looks and feels “one hundred times worse than during the junta.” I never thought I’d hear words like this from his mouth. We must be in really bad shape.
Under a previous post, John Akritas has contributed this sharp-eyed comment:
I have to say, I'm with you and I don't really buy the foreign conspiracy theories [about the riots]. I mean, I buy that Greece has a number of enemies out to destabilize the country and which benefit from or can take advantage of the chaos; but my perception is that the chaos is pretty much self-induced; and even if it wasn't, even if it was part of a foreign plot to bring Greece to its knees and make it more compliant in the region, then the craven response of Karamanlis to the disorder becomes even more shocking and contemptible, given that Greek national security is at stake.
Which ever way you look at it, it's a horrible mess. Normally, I'd say a crisis is an opportunity for reflection and renewal; but it seems the same attempt to be positive was made after last year's fires in the Peloponnese and nothing changed. I'm surprised more Greeks, particularly middle class Greeks, haven't, according to the polls, drifted rightwards, to LA.OS. You'd expect in these circumstances some people to crave for more authoritarian solutions. And all that money which is going to have be spent refurbishing the universities, schools and so on – which are, after all, public property – if I was a Greek taxpayer, this is what I'd be rioting about. The Greek middle class seems pretty cowed, as that outrageous bullying over Sunday shopping seems to indicate.
“Cowed” is the operative term. Or, maybe, we should use “cowardly?” The latter term triggers howls of protest from every friend and colleague that I throw it at. But, to me, it seems Greeks have developed the most elaborate excuse theories for staying apathetic in the face of direct threats to the very survival of the system they often praise as something they won’t exchange for the world despite its many flaws and dysfunctions.
Happy New Year!
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