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?

If you don't, you risk more

The state of things

What could I have done differently to prevent this?

I have been watching my country sink in the abyss for almost ten years. Like a huge accident happening in slow motion before my eyes and I'm not lifting one finger to stop it.

1997, England: I was watching those cheap ads about loans on television. 'Every one else has said no? Come to us!' I was thinking, how nice, that in Greece we have own our homes, we don't use credit cards, we don't get bank loans. Once, an English girl from uni bragged about how much higher the standard of living in England was, compared to that of Greece. Silly girl, I muttered. I hadn't imagined poverty and misery in a European country before going to the UK. Homeless men and women on almost every corner. Racism. Muggings. Stabbings. Squalid student houses. Filthy streets. Break ins. Crappy constructions. University students who couldn't even spell. Men peeing in alleys. Vomit on the pavements. Alcoholism. Teen pregnancy. Greece, at that time, was a safe and happy place compared to England. Everything that mattered was cheap: food, rent, petrol.

2004, Greece: Even if many of us didn't want the 2004 Olympics, we nevertheless felt a sense of pride at the opening ceremony of the games, we found ourselves in a hype by the totally unexpected win of the UEFA Cup, and thought we were really on a roll when we won the 2005 Eurovision song contest (yeah, I know...).

From 1996 until 2004 I had been visiting Greece only for short periods of time. Every time I returned, another myth of mine was shattered. Suddenly everyone could and did have a credit card. In fact they had several credit cards and weren't afraid to use them. Banks enticed people into all kinds of loans: loan to buy a house, a car, loan to renovate a house, loan for you business, heating petrol loan, holiday loan, extra cash loan. Suddenly, the streets were filled with big black blocks on wheels. Hummer, Cayenne, Lexus, which cost as much as an apartment and probably cost to run as much as the rent of that apartment. Not so suddenly,  the ghettoisation of certain areas in the city centre had begun.Whole neighborhoods became no-go zones, because of muggings, the drug dealing, the drug using, the prostitutes and their pimps.

2004 was also the year that I left England to come back to Greece.

The price of a ticket for the metro went up to 0,80 euros in 2006. It is now 1,40  euros and in compliance with the new terms that we signed, it will go to 1.75 euros within a year, an increase of almost 120% since 2006. The price of petrol has more than doubled in the last three years. And since we joined the euro, the prices of all basic goods have gone and keep going up.

2012, Greece: Pay cuts, pension cuts, more increases in utility bills, direct and indirect taxes, cuts in money spent on health and education, to the degree of hospitals shutting down, merging with other hospitals, schools also merging with other schools, thus increasing the number of students per classroom. And let's not talk about how many people were fired from their jobs in the last year and how many businesses went bust. And let's not talk about the increase of homelessness, people looking in the garbage for things they can sell or eat, the increase of violent street crimes and the spiral increase in suicides, either.

But you know all these, don't you? And of course you know that Greeks work the longest hours in the EU. Of course you do. Because you are an informed citizen of the world. And you wouldn't label a people lazy without having done your homework first. You wouldn't laugh at what is happening to Greece now, because you are a human being and you don't find the suffering of others entertaining. You wouldn't just say, 'they lied in order to join the monetary union', as if that justifies the terms on which we are made to borrow money now. When other countries have larger debts than ours. You wouldn't say that. And surely you would be outraged at the suggestions that we should sell our islands. And because you are not ignorant, surely you don't sleep very comfortably at night, a part of you knowing that your country might be next and that you might find yourself asking the exact same question: What I could have done differently to prevent this?

The presses have stopped.

When the new coalition government was formed, I stopped following the news. I was deeply shaken and disgusted by the fact that there were now far right extremists in the government, with a percentage in the last election of 5.63%. Ridiculously high anyway, but under no circumstances high enough to justify them being in government, even if it is a well known fact that at times of social turmoil some people affiliate themselves with the nationalists (oh, why be kind, when fascists is what they are). The extreme right, from here on referred to as the fascists, hadn't had any active role in parliament, other than occupying the occasional seat, and talking the occasional nonsense, since the fall of the junta, in 1975. That was before I was born, but lucky me, in my lifetime I was granted the privilege to see them as ministers and vice ministers. Scary and ludicrous at the same time.

Shortly after the new government picked up where the previous had left off, signing all the ridiculous terms the troika posed, and, as I said I stopped following the news, the newspaper I used to read the online version of, at the office, while having my morning coffee, went bankrupt. In the olden days, the closure of ελευθεροτυπία would have constituted major news. It wasn't just any newspaper and it's not a coincidence that it was founded in 1975. Until the end, it was where some of the more radical voices were allowed to express their views. On a much more personal level, it provided a common pool of information for me and my sister who lives abroad, with a daily exchange of links to articles that we would discuss at length during our weekend phone call. Refusing to believe that what had appeared to be a strike was actually the end of ελευθεροτυπία, I keep returning to their home page with my coffee in hand, only to be met by the same frozen news of December, 21st: the homeless die 30 years early, a lack of ethics in politics, what films to expect in 2012. Since then, as the situation around us becomes grimmer and grimmer, as we become utterly helpless and hopeless, I get a sense of comfort, knowing that somewhere is always December 21st 2011, there is still some hope for an uprising, and I can pretend to care about the imminent release of Men in Black 3.