Δευτέρα 6 Ιουλίου 2015

An argument from the heart...

Almost a decade ago, I was on the "market" to buy a house. It was during the last couple of years of the so called "fat cows"... Soon after in 2008, the world economic crisis began, and as the "markets" started to collapse, and Greece found itself under Troika "management" (or rather attempted management) my finances along with the rest of the world's and my country's "collapsed" making my "dream" remain exactly that, a dream...

but I have one of these...

Back then I sat with a good friend and business associate as he explained in irrefutable numbers why it was not a good idea to borrow in order to buy a house. His arguments were very convincing, but he accepted there was one argument he could not go against, and that was the one of the "heart". The good feeling that comes with having your own house was not one he could disprove.

As the situation here became increasingly difficult, with memorandum after memorandum being implemented and the greek homeowner being taxed to extremes, I thanked god I had not bought a house...



As liquidity and bank loans also dried up and the banks started to ask for their money back I thanked God I had no property at all.

Today our Finmin Mr Yanis Varoufakis was forced to resign. Many of us, me included, considered and consider him still, very much a hero. He has been accused of not being enough of a "politician" and this endears me to him even more. But Europe thnks he is the devil...



I recently read his book "Explaining the Economy to my Daughter"

I challenge anyone to read his views and find them wrong. The only argument I cannot go against, is that which anyone might offer, that his views on the economy are not conducive to the continued support of the "markets" and that  "money" is only a tool meant to be used against people in the most terrible way. In other words if profit and money is your "god" I cannot argue with that... but do you have a heart?

Money, and with it Debt,  was first invented to aid commerce and the exchange of goods, but it very soon became a tool of conquering lives, keeping them under a gold or silver, then paper "boot". Finally through the modern banking system it has even become "virtual"... An "imaginary" means of keeping people down, all in the name of "profit" the one true God, of the banking and market system.



We have even created stock markets, modern temples where money is adored, created, multiplied at the cost of human lives, who are are worth nothing to those who worship the dollar or Euro...

The last few days, Greece's economy is teetering on the brink of collapse. Yet on the beach yesterday, we enjoyed the sun and sea, those in love gazed into each others eyes, chidren were played with, families had fun. Later we would enjoy a meal, at a restaurant, while we still can, and the day drew to a close with lovers in each others arms.

The Beatles once sang "Money can't buy me love" and this is very true.

Look at all the high and low priests of the money world... their "happiness" is invariably built on a good many people's UNhappiness.



Is this a world we want to be a part of?

We who live here and grew up here, know the problems that Greece has faced and continues to face. The European institutions would have you believe that they want our good... but if they had really wanted to see real change in Greece they would have helped us bring our corrupt politicians to justice, rather than give them the mandate to apply illogical cuts, wrong ideas and stupid decisions on our lives... For a while many said Greece was an experiment..an experiment on how much the taxpayer can put up with...

Many Greeks, me included, refuse to accept a bad rescue plan being implemented by the exact people who made it necessary. And it is obvious to me now, more than ever, that Greece is a microcosm of Europe.

Corrupt politicians supposedly showing us the right way to salvation... Corrupt EUROPEAN politicians showing corrupt GREEK politicians how to fuck the population.

Do they think we are so stupid?

Mr Varoufakis did not apparently want to play their game so they got rid of him. If they had a modicum of integrity, they would also resign too, and allow others to try and reach some agreement.

What they have to realise is that we are not numbers. We are People. Alive, trying to live a dignified life, bring up our children in a just world, love and be loved.



They have truly lost the plot.

As long as money and profit, remain the goals and the centre of attention there is no hope.

The curve of "happiness" that society and investing in it, is supposed to bring, is in decline. Life has to become simpler... the markets will eventually collapse. Nothing so self-centered can ever hope to be supported indefinitely...

Their arguments may have numbers behind them..but they have no "heart" ... and that is the problem.


Τρίτη 30 Ιουνίου 2015

Referendum time!

I don't profess to be some know-it-all of economics or politics but rather, just like in other aspects of my life, a bit of a jack-of-all-trades...

When I was in Lykeio, second grade, at the beggining of the year, one day the classroom door opened and in came this young man, who looked distinctly like my kinda guy...

He didn't look anything like this, but I'm trying to protect his identity...

Dressed in jeans and a plain black tee-shirt with a peace symbol on a thin leather cord round his neck, he walked in that peculiar kind of lope that seemed to be the standard with persons of the revolutionary persuasion... he walked not only with his legs but with his whole body... lurching forwards with every step...

I decided immediately we would become friends. He was in Corfu, because his father worked for OTE, the telephone company, as a "problemsolver" and was sent all over Greece to sort out technical telecommunications stuff.

We quickly became very close. Our musical tastes for one were the same. He also opened my eyes up to a lot of other things, mostly political...

He was an anarchist. Now unfortunately this is a word with a lot of negative connotations especially in England but also in most of the world... most people would have you believe an anarchist is someone who firebombs policemen, breaks windows and stuff and generally runs riot...

However that is not true. There are quite a few varieties of anarchism, mostly radical Left, and many of them are anarchopacifists. Essentially anarchists reject the state as evil, but I digress..

This was 1984, 3 years after PASOK had won a landslide electoral victory and "toppled" the right wing government that had been going since the colonels left in 1974. I will close this little "story" by telling about the priceless moment, when my father asked over lunch, what my political "leanings" were, and I answered, in all my newly found fervour, "I'm an anarchist!!". My mother, bless her, almost choked. I'm certain visions of future generations burning my effigy in town squares, for trying to blow up something,  flashed before her eyes...


Back in those "primitive" times, with no internet and two television channels both state controlled, it was impossible to get "all" the news unless you knew someone to call and tell you. Athens was then, as it is today, a large part of Greece, almost half the population was and is there. And, unfortunately, pretty much everything is happening there, and we rarely got to find out about it...

For example the area of Athens known as Exarcheia, has always been a hive of left-wing, anarchist and generally "out there" activity... Often there were occupations of buildings for months or even years and attacks by riot police, tear gas, mass arrests...

And, as I found out from my friend, various forms of torture famous from the colonel's times, still continued to be applied by the police then... in a supposed "socialist" and "for the people" state...

Did anything ever really change in Greece?

I read an interesting article in the Guardian recently about what happened in Greece after the 2nd World War. It put another piece of the puzzle in place...
(unfortunately, as I now know, history is always written to justify the exisiting situation, so there was no mention of all this in our school history books...)

As the war finished, the begginning of the struggle between the US and the Communist bloc began..a struggle for world domination..on another level. Greece already had a strong Communist party, and what was "worse" (for the Western powers) was that the Communists having been in charge of the main resistance against the Germans , had already begun to create a form of loosely run state and were keen to start rebuilding Greece. As far as the Western powers were concerned they needed to be stopped before Greece joined the Eastern bloc... they needed help. Who did they enlist? The Nazi collaborators...

So the Nazi collaborators in Greece were never punished, instead they were given arms and the Civil War begun...

A Civil war which was won by them! Because of course they had America and England on their side...

You might wonder what has this to do with today... Well, did you know that a lot of our political persons in Greece are directly linked to families who were Nazi collaborators? And that a major part of the strong animosity between the Left and the Right in Greece has to do with that part of History...?

Nazi collaborators are called dosilogoi (δωσίλογοι) in Greek. Loosely translated it means those who did not do good on their word.

Samaras and the New Democracy Party are closely tied to extreme  right wing ideas and many of the party members are direct descendants of Nazi collaborators and pro-King right wingers. The small party called LAOS, had a member running for MP, who was the son of an infamous Nazi collaborator called Yosmas, who was so "succesful" in his role as "Captain Parmenion" he followed the Nazi troops when they left... he was tried in absence and convicted to death, but upon his return to Greece in 1947, his sentence was converted to 20 years in prison. Three years later he was let go and 1961 found him as the head of a school board in Thessaloniki. Soon he would be implicated in the murder of Grigoris Lambrakis, a well known left wing MP and pacifist... Xenophon Yosmas, as was his full name was also known as "Von Yosmas"...

There is a common "cheer" or "slogan" which is shouted at rallies about "the junta not having finished in 1973..." . This is very true.. The powers that be, could see that the colonels were making a mess of it, and were fast losing any small backing they had from the Greek people (to this day there are people who will answer to any disagreement "what you need is a junta..."

So what did they do? They arranged for a so called "liberation"... hahaha... and called it the Metapolitefsi...

A political government was quickly put into place, fronted by Kostas Karamanlis (the elder...uncle of the more recent PM of Greece, talk about nepotism...) Kostas Karamanlis who had been PM when Lambrakis was brutally killed...

You could say, in a way, that for many Greeks, the war never finished... The Nazi collaborators were never punished, instead they were given arms and power to fight against the perceived red threat. The Civil war tore apart villages, families...

And continues to do so even today. In a weird parallel to the years of the war, it is the Germans yet again, who appear to have their "sights" set on Greece... it may not be actually like that but it sure seems like it...

George Papandreou junior, his finance minister Mr. Papakonstantinou, Meimarakis from ND, and a number of MPs, all have grandfathers who were Nazi collaborators. These people saw to it that budgets and numbers were fiddled and Greece found itself under IMF-Troika rule...
Playing the German game? who knows...

you don't need to be a financial whizkid, to understand that Greece should never have joined the Eurozone. Balance sheets were seriously fiddled to make that happen... in fact many bonds and financial fiddling "ghosts" have come back to haunt Greece in the past years...

Europe's banks poured money into Greece, most of it into shady subsidy deals, and banks and through them to yet more shady businesses and deals.. and.. let's not forget a good many politicians pockets, both greek and European...

Germany's and Europe's heavy industry stood to make a good profit out of all this... Greece filled up with luxury German cars, Siemens got all the best deals to equip Greece with telecommunications equipment and anything else they made.. Pharmaceutical companies made excellent sales, often of completely useless items at exorbitant prices, stuff that would languish in halfbuilt hospitals for years slowly rusting away... (this happened in our hospital here in Corfu.)
For many of us this readily available funding was a Godsend.. after years of very high interest rates, suddenly it was cheap and easy to start or expand a business... But they did not stop there. You could get a loan for practically any reason..
Money, and debt, was deified.
There was even a song that said " Oi oreoi echoun chreoi" (The good looking guys have debts)

The bubble burst years ago...
I remember reading the first and second memorandum, the terrible "Mnemonia" that everyone talks about.. To be honest a lot of what they required as far as legislation and rules, was quite correct...the problem was, and is, that it was being applied (or not applied) by the same bunch of corrupt, good for nothing, politicians as before...
During the last 5 years, when Greece was supposedly changing for the better, and suffering for it too, nothing has really been done. The same people have still been looking after their own and their cronies interests... in fact, worse than before because they used the pressure of the troika's presence to pass law after law, taking away hard earned workers rights and running the health and education system into the ground, along the way.

On the 25th of January 2015, a Left wing party, SYRIZA won the greek elections for the first time ever. SYRIZA had always been a coalition, and is well known for incorporating many "currents" or "revmata" as they are called in Greek. There are more or less "radical" elements, often disagreeing with each other. Unfortunately, in order to have a shot at winning the elections, they had to broaden their views even more, accepting into their party, a number of ex-Pasok memebers and a variety of "weirdos"

(I know that my article is supposed to be informative and characterizations like "weirdo" are not really on... but believe me, they are...)

After five months as government and endless negotiations that were very obviously going nowhere, we now have a referendum scheduled for next Sunday...
The question that is being posed to us, is: "Do you want us to accept the agreement that is being offered/imposed by the Europeans?

Capital controls have been imposed and people are, sort of, panicking... no one really knows how this is going to work out...
I am, a businessman too, and things have certainly become a tad more difficult to say the least..but for now we are managing...

I don't know enough about global economics and how it all works to be able to have an "absolute" opinion on how things are or how they could be made better.

I confess that my opinions on all that goes on, are often more to do with "feelings" rather than some "absolute knowledge"...

But, to defend my position, is there anyone out there who can profess to be in possesion of some "absolute knowledge" as regards how the the "world" cookie crumbles?

We say that Europe is attempting to put its foot down... and frighten Greece's new government into going back on its electoral promises... otherwise they will derail "the program"...get with the program or else, is what they seem to be saying... but is it really the European governments or the big business lobbies behind them?

The idea of a unified Europe s great, hell the idea of unified anything is great.. I am the first to say that we are all brothers and sisters...

But i have to confess that the concept only ever made sense to me when travelling from luxembourg to Belgium to France, where the only sign that you were crossing the border was the sexy voice emanating from the GPS "You are now in Belgium..."

Still I believe Greece must remain a part of Europe... IS a part of Europe!

But not a Europe where money is God, not a Europe who looks after the interests of speculators and banks at the expense of its citizens.. not a Europe who turns its back on immigrants, not a Europe that does not CARE.

I'm voting NO to all that.

Τετάρτη 28 Ιανουαρίου 2015

The expats guide to Greek politics part 2

Note: I'm ditching the "housewives" from the title, it was only a little joke anyway...

Here is a little more on Greece.

Politics.

Like opening a can of worms in ANY country...



But greek politics? more like opening two cans of worms...



I started this article as something slightly different, to give an overview of the situation in Greece currently. Because I like to always do a little research before I put my views about for anyone to see, I did a litlle digging for information...

Here is what I've come up with or know
Let's start with a very quick overview of greek politics over the years..

The ANCIENT Greeks invented Democracy. Real, True, Democracy, meaning justice for all and equality between poor and rich, only lasted for about 140 years. It was a little known man, by the name of Efialtes who managed to create and implement a proper judicial system that allowed the poor a shot at equality and stopped the rich for overruning everything and turning the Democracy into an Oligarchy (where the few rule). The rich of ancient Athens were so in awe of this wise man, Efialtes, that they often saw him, chasing them, in their dreams... and thus the Greek word for "nightmare" came about... Efialtis lost its capital "E" and now means nightmare.

Efialtes in comic book style...
Once they got rid of him and his friends, all ideas of Democracy were forgotten, and Democracy never returned to Greece. Ever. And I'm afraid I kid you not...
In fact, as History is written by the winners, and made to justify the present, they almost managed to "write"  poor Efialtes out of History, altogether...you will see very little mention of him anywhere.

Greece went on to be invaded by Romans, Vandals, Turks, to have kings, to have oligarchs and tyrrants, emperors and dictators... but never again a Democracy... only semblances of one, only bad copies..

And...that wraps up the history lesson for today...

Let's lighten up a bit and take a look at the players in today's political scene...:

NEA DIMOKRATIA
The New Democracy is your classic "Tories". The party was created when it was realised the colonels had to go in 1974 and there was a requirement for a civilian government to take over. A transitory government was formed under Kostantine Karamanlis Senior, and then elections were held which they comfortably won. Nea Dimokratia has since changed a few "proedrous", one of the most famous being Mr Kostas Mitsotakis, who is notorious for being the world record holder in the evil eye. It is believed that if he wishes you  "good morning", you could possibly die within the hour...
Many of its "proedroi" and members were, or had, close ties with Nazi collaborators.
(after election update: ex-PM Samaras, hated by many ND members for being the one who toppled the government in 1992, REFUSED to be present at the handover ceremony of the PM's offices... very bad show I'm afraid...and I refuse to let it go...)
In other news, the notorious Mitsotakis suffered a heart attack on election day and has since had a pacemaker installed (I'm not kidding)
Another take on the New Democracy logo...
PASOK
Stands for Panelinio Sosialistiko Kinima. Started by Mr Andreas Papandreou, George's father. Rumour has it the Americans funded the party originally. The idea is they could see their cronies until then (Nea Dimokratia) loosing ground so they decided to put the "other side" in their pockets too. There are, supposedly, declassified CIA documents proving this.. (bit of a conspiracy theory that, but you know what they say? Where there is smoke, there is fire...) PASOK managed to win a landslide victory in 1981, after which it was all downhill... Money was pouring in from the EU, supposedly for building infrastructures for the country to progress, while all the time the politicians were just lining each others pockets with it, and  taking care of "rousfetia" (political favors) by creating jobs for everyone who had voted for them and their family...(and extended family...) A famous moment was when Papandreou shouted to his then Minister of Finance, Mr Tsovolas, "Tsovola dosta ola!!" (Tsovolas give it all away!) Papandreou's father, George senior is also reported to have been a Nazi collaborator..
PASOK today is a joke. Mr Venizelos the party "proedros", is a prime example of all that is wrong with the politics of this country. Famous for writing (and passing) the law that protects all ministers from any responsibility towards the people and stopping justice from getting them, he once famously changed his surname to make it better for his political career. His real surname is Turkoglou... (now THAT wouldn't do...)
(Election update: After George Papandreou or GAP , set up his own party, they ended up with a meager 5% or less at the elections. That is 5% more than they should have got as far as I'm concerned...)
High time the green sun was swept away...
KKE
The Communist Party. As Communist parties go, seriously hardline... They have fluctuated up and down in percentages, from about 5-11%. Even though they 've taken part in coalitions before (1974) and once even teamed up (an unholy alliance, if there ever was one) with Nea Dimokratia to create the government that would take Andreas Papandreou to court, they are so hardline they refuse to join up with any other party or movement of the Left, even abroad! Something which has not helped them at all... Famous for being one of the few Communist parties to survive the fall of socialism in 1989.
Also famous for apparently having some secret rule that its leaders must be the most bland and uncharismatic people possible. They talk a special language which is called "xilini" (wooden in Greek)  In fact now I think of it, it makes sense..they are a bit like the wooden puppets in Stingray...



SYRIZA
The Left in Greece, has often been broken up into dozens of smaller parties...in 2001, some of these smaller groups managed to put their heads together and create a sort of a common platform... It wasn't easy, Greeks being Greeks... but after a few ups and downs it got to were it is today.. Many of the "more left leaning" and older members are afraid that too many old PASOK members have made their way into the party... This is probably true, as SYRIZA was a middle of the road Eurocommunist/socialist party they could associate with... SYRIZA, like almost every other Greek party has had (and has...) its share of infamous memebers... Two that quickly spring to mind , Petros Tatsopoulos who once, famously, claimed in parliament to have bedded half of Athens.



The other one Grigoris Psarianos, a music producer and songwriter who drives around in little red sportscars and smoke cigars, and has a penchant for making a fool of himself... He was once caught on camera saying the Parliament should be burned down, and another time claiming the "17th November" had the people's support when they were murdering "ex-torturers, killers and proven assholes". When he was young he wrote a popular song, amongst whose lyrics was the following line "oh how I wish I could fart on the seats of parliament" (It actually makes for quite a good rhyme in Greek...)

what did I just say?!!


POTAMI (The River)
Fancy naming a political party after a Bruce Springsteen song... Potami leader Mr Theodorakis, is a lifestyle reporter, famous for his ... "rucksack" and casual dress, who thinking himself pretty clever and with the backup of a big media player behind him, decided to create "The River" party... sounds like fun eh! (His backer is Bobolas, owner of Mega channel and big time contractor of practically every major roadwork in Greece. He is also tied to the infamous "Skouries" gold mine) Unfortunately ole Stav, has all the charisma of a wet rag (always wanted to say that about someone) and you only have to listen to him once to understand how full of himself he is...
(Breaking news...a memo has surfaced, which he sent to his campaigners, during the last few days before the election. In it he proposes that they concentrate on the undecided... and if they are women, that they they should remind them, he was the guy that did the "Protagonistes" reporting show on TV...) he's sad really.
(A little example of how things work with big interests... Bobolas builds the roads, and gets paid for it. Then he also gets the income from the tolls for a certain amount of years, supposedly to maintain the roads..and when due to the crisis the tolls are not making as much as he would like, he puts in a claim for loss of income and gets 350 million Euros compensation! Paid by us!)

stavroeconomy..if we raise wages, the raise will be spent on fuel, and food which are mostly inported so that will increase the deficit..so we say less wages! (and he really did say it...)

KIDISO
Another joke. George Papandreou junior, famous for being the PM that signed ours and our chidrens lives away when he asked for IMF and EU intervention in 2009, has crawled out of the woodwork, and created a new party... The Democratic Socialists Movement... He has some gall...One of his brothers apparently made a fortune out of dealing in CDS at the time...and the other is said to have been some kind of spy... yet here he is, asking us to vote for him again... The only good thing that can come out of this is that maybe, just maybe, with the "split" PASOK and KIDISO will (I do so wish) come out under 3% and find themselves out of parliament... (fingers crossed...)
(Update: KIDISO, I told you so...  they only got 2.4% and didn't get into parliament...yeah!!!)

George Andreas Papandreou or GAP


Golden (frigging) Dawn.
A bunch of thugs, masquerading as a political party. Half of them are already in jail for killing a leftwing rapper called Pavlos Fyssas. They are all a brainless bunch of Nazi-loving idiots, and anybody who votes for them is a seriously  troubled individual... Their leader is in jail too.
(Only in Greece... policemen vote in separate voting centers as they are on duty... So it is possible to sort of see what they vote for... Golden Dawn regularly gets 40-50% in these voting centers..making for the surreal situation where policemen are actually voting for criminals...) Golden Dawn managed to be the third party again...(I will dedicate a complete post to this shame...)

need we say more?
LAOS
Only slightly less fascist than the previous ones, in that they don't make it so obvious... LAOS stands for Popular Orthodox Alarm..and... yes it is alarming... LAOS notoriously joined up to create a coalition government back in 2011 when Papandreou resigned. Two of the party members, Adonis Georgiadis, a true political circus act, and Makis Voridis (axe wielding ex member of a militant extreme right wing group called EPEN) quickly saw what was good for them and jumped ship joining Nea Dimokratia. LAOS is the classic "For God, family and country" kind of party... think Junta and colonels nostalgia, think extreme right wing lovers of Greek tradition, think in some cases even nostalgic believers in the pantheon of Gods! (you know the 12 on Mount Olympus...) Think Republicans...

Adonis Georgiadis ex television book salesman, turned Minister of Health...
ANEL
Led by Panos Kammenos, Greece's answer to Nigel Farage, the "Independent Greeks"  are a bit of a mishmash... Apparently Mr Kammenos is one of those who believe we are being sprayed from above... (chemtrails) (you never know, could be true...) On a more serious note, they are the small party who joined up with Syriza to create a coalition government a couple of days ago. Mr Kammenow was one of the first politicians to start calling things by their name back in 2010, or even before. The fact they talk about the good of the country and patriotism, has left many with the impression that they are slightly nationalistic... also they wish to see a proper solution to the immigrant problem... However I believe it may be a case of some misunderstanding..also the media has targeted them heavily...  I know people who are members and are quite respectful and certainly not nationalists...

Panow Kammenos doing something h is good at. Getting angry!


And that wraps up the presentation for tonight... There a re a number of smaller parties, DIMAR quickly spring to mind who were part of the previous government in the beggining, but lost so much in poppularity, they are no almost nothing...
Also some quaint ones, we will go into in the next part...

Part 3 soon to come... 

Breaking news from Greece...

I said it in my previous post... political time has become incredibly dense...

Here is another thing I've realised much to my amusement... no matter how careful one is, it is still possible to get misinformed...

But more on that in another post.

Ministries are still in the process of being handed over, but changes, symbolic or "real" are already underway...

Here are a few from today:

The guardrails that stood in front of the Parliament for the last two years, permanently, have been taken away!!

I classify that one in the symbolic gestures, albeit an important one.

On the 28th-29th of June 2011 I went to Syntagma Square with some friends, to participate in the protest against the first memorandum. I remember the Parliament building as being this "monolithic presence", with windows tightly closed and surrounded by fences and rows of riot police.
The fences at the time were "temporary" but as the austerity measures progressed and the government increasingly showed it's unwillingness to back off, the fences became permanent.

A permanent reminder that it was us against them..

Today the fences were removed. Because the new government believes they don't need to cultivate a climate of fear... that they have nothing to fear from the people.

An announcement was made this morning on the matter by Minister of Protection of the citizen, Mr Yiannis Panousis, who added that the Police needs to work for the citizen and not against them. Police will keep a lower profile at protests, as in his own words "we need better policing and not a police state"

By 12 o clock, the fences were gone!

before

after

Meanwhile changes have been announced in the educational system, some people are getting their jobs back, mre specifically the cleaning ladies of the Ministry of finance and the school janitors/guards who were laid off. The Minister of Finance, Yiannis Varoufakis, a world renowned Professor of Economy, said the money to pay them will come from cuts in other parts of the ministry budget itself, namely large sums going to various advisors, while the Ministry will make better use of its own resources from now on...

cool dude Yiannis Varoufakis, minister of Finance, explaining how the markets will be taught a greek dance called Pentozali...
The Athens stockmarket, essentially collapsed today, which is a good thing... (personal opinion) enough with the bloody stock markets..let's see economies for real people and not markets...

Τρίτη 27 Ιανουαρίου 2015

The expat housewives guide to Greek politics, or else an attempt to promote healthier (and livelier!!) tableside conversation

Let me start by saying a big thank you to Min for inadvertedly giving me the idea...
and let me continue, by apologising for not posting more prior to the elections...

Time, and especially political time, is "denser" than ever, more so obviously in Greece, where there has been a change of government, and things are "happening" left, right and center...
I started writing this 'bout 5 days ago, but the news I have to "catch up" with is of a stupendous volume... I think it would be best if I make it in a couple of parts... so here goes part one...:

On Sunday the 25th of January, after one of the shortest pre-election periods ever, Syriza and Alekos Tsipras, won a resounding victory and ousted the right wing coalition government set up after the 2012 elections.

They did this against tremendous odds.

Greece's media, controlled by a rich and corrupt few, did everything it could to create a fear against the Left winning.

As the date came near, we expected to hear that if Syriza won, Godzilla would rise out of the Aegean and trample all over the Akropolis...


In other news today, Akropolis attacked by Godzilla. Elgin Marbles safe in London..

Unless one has a thorough knowledge of 20th century Greek History and politics, it is difficult to realise what a monumentous occasion this is.

For many people, this is or at least we hope it is, a case of the new winning against the old...

Syriza is a left wing party that evolved from a number of smaller Left wing parties gettting together in 2001. Communism and the left have a long, and troubled story, in Greece.

Greece at the beggining of the century was an incredibly "backward" country, compared to the rest of Europe. Under Turkish occupation, there had been no Enlightenment worth talking about, no real Industrial Revolution... The main urban centers were Athens, Thessaloniki, Smyrna and Istanbul. the latter two were Turkish, but had large greek populations.
(My great-grandmother was a big land owner near Smyrna, with about 85 people working for her then. after 1922 though she became one of the 1,500,000 immigrants that flocked to Greece, in order to get away from the genocidal Kurds...because it was they who did the dirty work for the Turks, in the agreement they would get the benefit of the land the greeks left behind...)

Greece was beset with many problems, external and internal. The long occupation by the Turks, had left many marks and they weren't only mousakas, kazan dipi and "greek" coffee... (actually turkish coffee..)

The major part of the population was illiterate, there was not much in the way of infrastructure, and nepotism and corruption, ruled. Large parts of Greece toiled under a kind of feudal system...

In 1918, the first greek Communist party was created. In a land with little if any industry, it struggled to apply the Marxist theory to the greek reality...

Communism never really gained much of a foothold here, until the Second world War. Then the Communists became the Greek resistance.

I should add here a ltiile known fact. There were a couple of Greek fascist parties, and one of them even made an attempt at a coup before the war. In fact even Ioannis Metaxas, who famously said "OXI" to Mussolini's advances and effectively plunged greece into the war, was a dictator himself...

Throughout the german occupation, there were many Greeks who joined with the mainly communist "Liberation Army" and fought the Germans in any way they could. Many would pay for it dearly, with their lives... amongst them 200 executed at the Kaisiariani shooting range, and in many cases whole villages that were burned to the ground in retaliation for resistance attacks.

There were sadly, also many greeks who collaborated extensively with the Germans, many right wing politicians as well.

After the war a terrible thing happened. The Nazi collaborators were initially locked up in order to await trial as many of them had taken part in atrocities and torture. Some of them even fled the country together with the 3rd Reich forces pulling back...

As Athens was liberated, the greek Communist Resistance already had organised a loose form of government to aid reorganisation. Stalin and the allies however had already divided up the world between them.. and Greece was meant to be "Western"... Churchill, fearing the communists would take over and spoil the plan, let the Nazi collaboratoring Greeks free, gave them weapons and set them fighting against the "Liberation army" There ensued a bloody civil war, out of which the winners were the "bad guys"... (with aid by the US and Britain...)

Nazi collaborators were never brought to justice, with few exceptions, and instead they ended up running the country. Almost every government since then has had some ties to them. They were (and are) everywhere...

Thus you might say, there was never any closure in Greece re the war... add to that, there were no damages paid by the germans and also the money/gold they "borrowed" during the war was never returned...

Talk about adding insult to injury...

So when Alekos Tsipras yesterday was sworn in as PM (with a political oath and not a religious one, another break from "tradition") his first visit was to the Kaisariani monument to pay his respects to the 200 comrades who lost their lives there... and he was making a strong point...

Laying a few flowers at the monument


Walking past the names, maybe a little message to Merkel, we have not forgotten our fallen comrades?

And when Mr Samaras in a terrible breach of etiquette refused to show up at the Megaro Maximou and hand over the keys and building to the new left wing Prime minister...he was also showing, just how very very much this hurt... to be the first PM to lose to the Left... (priceless if you ask me... what an absolute jerk, a bad, bad loser)



But what really is Syriza?
Even though I have never been a member I've voted for them in the past and in this election. Many of us are afraid there are too many ex-PASOK members to do any good, for one thing...  Syriza has a Communist background, but the KKE (the greek Stalinist/Communist party wants nothing to do them) I believe Syriza is a more european version of the Left... a more people orientated party.
At the very least Syriza is a break with the old...that is what we hope. Younger Greeks would like to see a distinct separation of church and State, an end to corruption, a state centered around the good of the people and not the chosen few...

Are we certain this will happen? Not by far. But many of us are more than willing to chip in FOR it to happen, and many woke up on Monday feeling distinctly more optimistic. Many of the people who make up Syriza' ranks are people we know, people we trust, people we like. Many of the people who make up Syriza's ranks are exactly that.

People.

These girls lost their jobs to be replaced by contractors. But they can still smile worth a million bucks...