Random thoughts that concern nobody, or perhaps of a concerned nobody

I try to follow what is happening. (Certainly not through television.) It’s not easy, because so much is happening, on so many levels. Plus, I have a life to live, a job to do, friends to devote time to, problems to solve, a family to be a part of, a personal life to maintain, characters to breathe life to, one day. 

Here is a list of what I know has happened in the past two weeks:

• A bomb was planted in a busy shopping centre, on a Sunday, when shops were closed. A phone call was made to the police, police went in and found the bomb, no harm done. Afterwards, a very long statement was published, explaining the reasons behind the planting of the bomb in that particular place and at that particular time. For the most part, that statement made a lot of sense to me.

• A Senegalese illegal immigrant, chased by municipal police, jumped off a bridge and onto the rail tracks and died.

• A former colleague of mine who suffered from terminal cancer, requested that instead of wreathes, which is what people usually buy at funerals, people would contribute to a social medical centre in a southern suburb. With the collapse of our health system, a lot of people rely on these volunteer medical services for healthcare.

• The law that was recently passed in Parliament, which finally allowed children born to immigrants in Greece to be given the Greek nationality, much to the fascist party’s delight, was somehow declared ‘anti constitutional’.

• Four men, in their early twenties, were arrested after having robbed two banks and kidnapped a man. They had guns, but had used no force. Police beat them to a pulp while they were in custody and then digitally processed their photographs, so that their faces would be ‘recognizable’. The four men are self proclaimed anarchists and are strongly supported by their families. One of them was with Alexis Grigoropoulos, the 15-year old student who he was murdered by two police officers in 2008, when he was shot.

• Greek farmers handed out their produce to a huge crowd of desperate citizens, as a form of demonstration. In the chaos caused by the crowd pushing to get to the free food, a man was injured. This is the photo that was published in The Guardian. How does this make you feel?

Would I be as hot blooded if I was in my early twenties as those four men are? (Oh, can I call them boys? They look like boys.) I’m tempted to admit that I would, or I hope I would. So what has happened to me now? Is it just an age thing? Am I too old for this? (I don’t mean for robbing banks, I mean for actively attacking a system that I loathe, the darkness that is befalling our lives.) I keep reading comments like ‘it’s a shame that these young men felt they had to resort to violence to be heard’. ‘Violence does not solve anything’. Well, what does? Apathy? Writing a blog? Sharing articles on facebook? 

I was talking to my father about this and he seemed really sad. We had both recently seen a play, 'The Good Person of Szechwan', and were discussing the point where a character blatantly addressing the audience, urges them to revolt. That really excited me, but my dad was around during violent times in history, he has seen the country torn in two more than once and he’s lived long enough to have seen that it was all in vain. He is waiting patiently for this to pass. ‘We have money to pay the taxes, heat the house, live well, for another year’, he reassures me. It’s his way of trying to instill in me a sense of safety in these very unpredictable and hostile times. And I love him dearly for that. But even so, I can't stop hoping and yearning for a revolution. It's pretty obvious I won't be the one leading it. The twenty-year-olds will. But I swear, I will be right beside them. Because I haven't had my share of violent times and although my faith in almost everything I've ever believed in has had its blows, I am still young and I refuse to be disillusioned. Not just yet.

Η Βαρβάκειος

Τη νύχτα, όταν όλοι έχουν φύγει...

Χριστούγεννα 2012

... Σε μια Αθήνα που μοιάζει να μην τα σηκώνει φέτος τα Χριστούγεννα. Αγγαρεία. Με το στανιό την στόλισαν, αν είναι στολισμοί αυτοί στην πλατεία Συντάγματος, η ξεφτίλα η ίδια, ντροπή, καλύτερα τίποτα παρά αυτό, το νιώθει και η ίδια η πόλη, αφήστε με ήσυχη, είμαι πληγωμένη, τι μου ρίχνετε αυτούς τους γελοίους στολισμούς στη δαρμένη μου πλάτη; Ποιον θέλετε να ξεγελάσουμε παρεά; Μη με ξεφτιλίζετε άλλο. Λίγη ανθρωπιά επιτέλους.

Περπάτησα πολύ στην Αθήνα αυτές τις μέρες αδείας και αργίας. Αλίμονο, όχι για ψώνια, για να δω αγαπημένα πρόσωπα, για να αφιερώσω χρόνο και να δώσω χώρο σε ανθρώπους που δεν ξεπετιούνται με έναν καφέ, με ανθρώπους με τους οποίους η περιπλάνηση μέσα στην πόλη είναι και περιπλάνηση στη μνήμη και στην ψυχή, μέρες που πέρασαν με ρυθμούς που δίνουν χρόνο στο μυαλό να επεξεργαστεί, να συνειδητοποιήσει, να κάνει καινούριες συνάψεις. Μέρες που γίνονταν νύχτες, που κρατούσαν μέχρι τα χαράματα.

Η Αθήνα, με τον μοναχικό αρουραίο να φωτίζεται από το φως του δρόμου, σε μια άδεια Αθηνάς, ανήμερα Χριστούγεννα. Η Αθήνα, με τη μυρωδιά του ωμού κρέατος και τους φιλικούς κρεοπώλεις με τις ματωμένες ποδιές στην Βαρβάκειο. Η Αθήνα, με τα μπρελόκ του Παπαδόπουλου και της Χρυσής Αυγής να κρέμονται ξεδιάντροπα από το καροτσάκι της λαϊκής.

Η Αθήνα, που κρατά καλά κρυμμένα τα μυστικά της Κιάφας, που κρατά στη μνήμη της τα από καιρό σβησμένα μηνύματα στην κολώνα του υπουργείου, η Αθήνα που παρόλη την εξαθλίωσή της, προσφέρει πάλι απλόχερα το σκηνικό για να ξεδιπλωθούν στους δρόμους της τα χρονικά ιστοριών αγάπης, πέρα από κάθε λογική, πέρα από κάθε προσδοκία, με μια μαγεία που δεν έχει καθόλου να κάνει με τα Χριστούγεννα, αλλά με την πίστη ότι δεν είμαστε τρελοί, υπάρχουν νήματα που μας συνδέουν με άλλους ανθρώπους, όσα χρόνια κι αν περάσουν.

Resisting National Depression

Recently I went through a bad bout of anxiety. I am not sure what triggered it exactly, but I'm guessing it was a combination of a new wave of redundancies at work, letters from the bank about my dead step father's outstanding loan, a project I'm working on for a difficult client, the fact that lately I'm older than everyone I meet, and of course, the whole country collapsing before my eyes, not just economically, but much more importantly, socially. 

I was working very long hours and didn't want to go home and succumb to that vicious cycle of sleep, work, sleep, work. So after work, regardless how tired I was, I went out, usually well into the early hours. But I couldn't help waking up after just a few hours of sleep with a heavy feeling on my chest. Trying to fall back asleep made it worse, so I stopped trying and got up at dawn to walk the dog, go for a run, cook, read, do anything to keep me busy. In those three weeks I gradually began getting more and more irritable, which is highly unlike me, and could go from zen to furious bitch in seconds. Finally, last Sunday, I collapsed. 

During that period, I was talking to people about my anxiety and inability to sleep and without exaggeration, everyone I talked to had similar issues. It seems that the whole nation is suffering (among other things) from anxiety and sleep depravation. For sure, my generation does. 

I'm not the only one trying to combat my anxiety by going out every night and dancing like a maniac every chance I get. I'm starting to believe that all the people who fill the bars every night of the week are actually hanging by a thread, just like me. We're going out as if there's no tomorrow, because somewhere inside us we believe just that; rather sooner than later, there will be no tomorrow. 

Yes, dear comrades, I know. Instead of going out and drinking our life away we should get organized and start the revolution. Give us guns or give us a break. This is our last defense against national depression, our final grip on a sense of normality. The boat is sinking, and we want to go down dancing.

I personally think it was the cow. 

The time is nigh

Όλο και πιο συχνά, όλο και πιο αναπάντεχα μέσα στη ροή της ημέρας -τη στιγμή που κατεβάζω το ακουστικό μετά από ένα επαγγελματικό τηλεφώνημα, βάζοντας καφέ στην κούπα, σταματώντας σε κάποιο φανάρι στο δρόμο για το σπίτι- διακατέχομαι από στιγμές διαύγειας; στιγμές διαίσθησης; στιγμές συνειδητοποίησης; ότι σύντομα έρχονται πολύ δύσκολες, πολύ παράξενες, πολύ ανατρεπτικές ημέρες.

Despina Nissiriou Recovering my father's arms (detail), 2012

Και προσπαθώ να κρατηθώ από την καθημερινότητα και τις μικρές χαρές μου -να περπατήσω με τον σκύλο στο βουνό, να πιω ρακές με φίλους μια καθημερινή, να προλάβω ένα ακόμα θερινό σινεμά πριν χαλάσει ο καιρός- όσο απατηλές κι εύθραυστες κι αν μου φαντάζουν τελικά, σα να είναι το τελευταίο προπύργιο πριν την άνευ όρων παράδοση στη ματαιότητα, την κατρακύλα, την αλλοτρίωση, ή την ανεπιστρεπτί ανάληψη κάποιου ενεργού ρόλου στον προσεχή όλεθρο.

Κι αυτό θα περάσει. Κέντησε κάποτε η προγιαγιά.

Αλλά ακόμα δεν έχει αρχίσει...

Wires

Genocide?

I read somewhere, a while ago, that a Greek woman and her daughter sued the Greek government at the european court, for the genocide of its own people. I don't know if it's true, but whenever I mention it to somebody, it brings tears to my eyes.

It's like we're blinded by the debris of out collapsing society and the smoke coming out of our mistakenly sacrificed moral values, and simply can't see that people are dying.

Driving to work, on a sunny day, listening to the radio, a man had just shot himself in Syntagma Square. My blood chilled. Everything felt wrong. You go to work, earn some money, talk a few nonsense with your colleagues, dip into some office intrigues, and then you remember, a man ended his life a few hours ago. Where am I in all this? Why does this feel so big and yet life seems to go on as if nothing happened?

A week later, someone I knew hanged himself. Debts, says the official report. I got so drunk that night. Because he was the father of a little boy I dearly love. And because the mother, who is my oldest friend in the world, would have to tell him. I tried to memorize the funeral, in case he wants to know when he's older. We could tell him, your father was one of the victims of the Big Crisis. Like it was yellow fever, famine, or a war.

About a month after that, a man pushed his elderly, senile, mother off the roof and then jumped, too. He had property he couldn't sell and had no cash left to support himself and his mother.

There are hundreds of such examples, from all over the country.

Add to that the cancer patients, whose medicines the Greek National Health System has stopped providing for free. How long will the poorer ones last? Add to that the patients with terminal diseases in the understaffed institutes that are running out of food and medicines. Add to that the victims of violence.

Doesn't it now begin to sound a little bit like a genocide?