Thousands of years ago no one could believe this story. Even ten years ago no one could believe that the most incredible nightmare would become an indisputable pessimistic reality…Greek pride is down, or at least we think so.
Watching outside the vicious circle of economic and financial problems, the social dimension of this crisis makes it a tricky puzzle to be solved only by the good will of some EU governments and primarily by the socialist national government. The electoral promises and national recovery plans are still pending because only a tiny part of the more than 11.3 million population can ‘afford’ the bitter bill of the domestic measures. If this situation continues, the islands, USA and the traditional but ‘undercovered’ friend of Greece, Russia, are meant to be the only hopes at hand. According to some European think-tanks, the rumors that approve the permanent or temporary cancellation of Greece membership in Eurozone or in the worst scenario from the ‘EU G-27’ are more realistic than ever. And it would be definitely the end of the the traditional era of tolerance and support for the weakest nations in the Old Continent.
During my stay in Greece I faced a lot of facts and some very meaningful details about this new non-wealthy Greece. Many youngsters were expressing their desire to start a new life somewhere else because they feared that the situation would not improve. Everywhere you could see people rolling a cigarette and they did so in order to save a few euros (at least that's what my new greek friends let me knew). Higher taxes are indicating higher prices and many people cannot afford paying 20 to 30 euros in excess per month for buying packed cigarettes, told me a shop-keeper in the train station of Thessaloniki.
Even if Germany’s monetary help was vital for the sick economy of their country,there you could find a lot of people blaming her as the only responsible for increasing the retiring age in Greece. For many greek political analists this was a very simple, but very logical condition from the ‘new ally’, Ms.Merkel, in order to protect the german workers from the cloud of disproportion and inequality(this is annoying for many workers in other EU member states) and for keeping in high levels her popularity. The application of the measures that derive from this agreement has immediately causing social and economic trouble among the low and middle classes, mostly in industrial and touristic regions. Most of them, under the pressure of the flow of unemployement and the lack of money (maybe the lack of hope in this moment may be the most grave absence) , are being involved with many extremist movements that recently,some of them, are considered to be rather than anarchistic, a real sample of terrorism. Many of them accept the old and uthopian theories of attacking the rich people for protecting the poors. Maybe the working culture would have been the best loan that Germany could have given to the former richest country in Balkans!
The Macedonian (or the FYROMian) issue couldn’t have been left out of my slightly subjective and in the first sight full of pessimism report. Many greek Macedonians(those who come from the region Macedonia,Thessaloniki) proudly declared that this issue is more important than the economic ones. For them,FYROM should never be recognized as the ‘Republic of Macedonia’. They interrupted a work-shop in order to clarify to the foreign participants that were attending the conference that the speaker was offending the old Helens by not calling it FYROM. Later, the speaker clarified that this statement was not said by purpose.
I feel obliged to finish this brief report for one of the oldest nations in the World with one phrase:It’s not important who have you been in the past. In order to go ahead stronger than before, you should stay in front of the mirror forgetting only for a moment your glorious past and say to yourself: Yes, I can do it!
And some years later Greece will be again Greece, maybe a better and reasonably prouder one!
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