COMMENTARY – Page 24 – Letters from Athens

From Greece –Guest Author — M.L. Kappa

Charles Roger Clanton kindly invited me to write a post for his blog. Do wander over to read his “Reflections based on poetry, music, visual art, book reviews, history of science, first-person history and philosophical essays”. There is something there for everyone!

Charles Clanton Rogers

international Blogging Guest – M.L. Kappa

Summer Festivals

How many people associate a visit to Greece with going to the theatre? It would be interesting to know. But, time it right, and your trip could afford an unforgettable experience. Imagine sitting in the same place as a Greek or Roman did thousands of years ago, to watch a play under a starlit sky – although in those days, plays were held mostly during the day to take advantage of natural light. Some of Greece’s ancient theatres are still used for selected performances every summer. Obviously a lot of those are plays by Aristophanes, Sophocles or Aeschylus, and would be incomprehensible unless you speak Greek. However, a wide variety of high quality shows are put on every July and August during the Summer Festivals.

Author’s “self portrait” M.L. Kappa

Many important theatres were built by the Greeks, in Thoricos and Corinth…

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Autumn’s bounty

While the last of the pomegranates are splitting on branches now covered in bright yellow leaves, the oranges are ripening.

It’s olive picking time.
Soon the newly processed oil will be on our tables, and what better way to appreciate its aromatic flavor than as a dip for fresh, crusty bread. Bread and oil, with maybe an onion added – the poor (Greek) man’s caviar!

The cyclamen have been replaced by pale blue crocuses and tiny green orchids, as well as the first anemones, fooled into flower by the unseasonably warm weather.

We took advantage of this to visit the Haris Estate where, amongst other cute creatures like bantam hens and miniature ponies, they keep alpacas – yes, alpacas in Attica! They hang about, looking woolly and making a high-pitched ‘mmmmmmmm’ sound – really too adorable! I want some!

We also went to a dog show where a friend was exhibiting her champion ridgebacks. There was the usual hilarious array of enthusiasts with their pooches, from a huge white Pyrenean mountain dog to the tiniest, fluffiest, pristine Pomeranian. The dogs were all beautiful (otherwise they wouldn’t be there, I guess), there were lots of kids milling around, music, souvlaki at the canteen. Everyone was enjoying themselves.

It’s still been warm enough to have lunch by the sea – outdoors! Note the kid in a t-shirt. As we ate, someone on a paddle board went by. No wind, so no windsurfers today – but quite a few swimmers. The sea is still warm, warmer than it will be in early June.

As we head into winter, it’s good to make the most of this beautiful weather.

Speaking of poor man’s caviar and looking at the photograph of food, I wanted to mention the guest post, called Postcard from Greece, which my friend Nadya invited me to write for her blog, The Exceptional. I re-blogged it without managing to write a few words – this is the first time I’ve done a re-blog, and I must have hit the wrong button! I wanted to thank Nadya for asking me, and to urge everyone to wander over and take a look at her blog about her life as a PhD student and mom.

Postcard from Greece

magerei

“Postcard” is a monthly column featuring guest bloggers from around the world. Today we received a postcard from M. L. Kappa (Greece) who blogs at athensletters.com. Do check out her exceptional blog about life and times in Greece, it’s highly recommended! If you’ve been wondering how things change and how the Greeks cope with ongoing crisis, M. L. Kappa shares with us the individual and social choices that people make in terms of food. Let’s read her thorough postcard:

Most people love to eat – they like to go out to restaurants and cook at home. Food is a large and enjoyable part of life. But what happens when money becomes short?

In the last five years, two things have affected eating habits in Greece: the trend for fitness and the crisis. We want our food to be healthy, and we need it to be cheap.

Greeks have…

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Battered by the daily news

The morning news make for grim reading at the moment. I take a quick glance through the headlines, my stomach knotting. It’s all a big mess, worldwide. Violence. Terrorism. Domestic murders. Killers on a rampage. Scandals. Corruption. Fighting. Destruction. Climate change. Of course it’s all fact, but sometimes the press seems to enjoy wallowing in it as well. After a summer spent stuck in front of various screens, I avoid turning on the television as much as possible.

In Greece things are still looking bleak. The private sector has mostly borne the weight of the crisis so far, the public sector being traditionally regarded by every government as an untouchable holy cow. It is enough to note that salary reduction in the private sector has reached 20-23%, whereas in the public sector it is barely 12,5% – without even mentioning the fact that most public offices are still employing a large number of people, many of whom do nothing. The increase in unemployment is also much higher in the private sector. Capital controls are still in place, and every new law passed seems to contradict the one before.

While being unemployed is horrible whatever your job, surely having a vibrant market would benefit everyone in the long run. This policy has created a downward spiral: international competitiveness is at an all-time low and every means of getting out of the crisis has been scuppered. A increasingly large number of firms, including shipping companies, are getting out and basing themselves elsewhere, mostly in the Balkan countries and Cyprus. There is also a huge loss of human capital as individuals are emigrating as fast as they can get a job abroad.

Not only are people given zero incentives to stay, but often special opportunities are lost as well. For example, a few weeks ago I read that Jason Bourne’s next adventure, set against the backdrop of the Greek financial crisis, is being shot in the Canary Islands rather than Athens. Why? Because the film’s makers were put off by red tape and a lack of tax breaks.
Last year culture minister Nikos Xydakis had proudly announced that the Bourne film would be made in Athens — claiming the effect on local jobs and trade would be akin to setting up a “small factory”. But afterwards the government failed to make good on promises of tax breaks offered in most countries. So now Spanish advertisements and street signs in Santa Cruz de Tenerife have been covered over with ones in Greek, while a local plaza is doubling as Syntagma, Athens’s central square. Walls have been daubed with graffiti in Greek and locals signed up to stage anti-austerity rallies.
It makes you want to pull your hair out.

And who is doing something about all this? Not our politicians, that’s for sure. As has always been the case in our long and troubled history, they are busy squabbling (still).The government is in above its head – rumors abound they’re not going to last long – and often does not even get the support of its own party; and as for the opposition, they’re having a ridiculous and costly fight over electing a new leader.

Christmas is approaching. I wonder how we will be able to conjure up a seasonal festive spirit this year.

Red Alert

I feel so sorry for the people in Paris who went out to have a drink on a Friday night and lost their lives. I feel for their families and friends. But I feel a lot of anger as well. Have we lost the right to even walk in the street safely anymore? Is this the new face of 21st century Europe?

Is it just me, or is there a dire lack of leadership in the western world? They all meet at vast expense to the taxpayer and a huge carbon footprint (five star hotels, fleets of planes and cars, police escorts…) but – whether about the climate, the refugee crisis or the terrorists – nothing gets done. A total lack of a coherent policy on which everyone agrees. It’s frightening. After each terrible event, people get arrested, words of bravado are flung around, the dead are remembered. But – do we feel something is actually being done to protect us? Not enough, with all due respect. I ask, what is the use of bombing in the Middle East, when most of these terrorists have French, British or Belgian passports?

Greece is now facing the borders being closed, and we’ll be stuck with half a million refugees in a tiny country with a population of 11 million (of which one million are already immigrants, mostly from Eastern Europe). Compared to this, the USA has said it will take 30.000 over the next two years… And who meddled in those countries, creating all those refugees, may I ask? Not Greece, that’s for sure. It’s all about financial interests, oil, the arms industries, etc. And, everywhere, it’s the man in the street who pays. The taxpayer, the citizen who wants nothing but a quiet life, as well as the true refugee who will now be regarded with suspicion by all.

Forgive the rant, but does Europe really need to be dragged into another war?

The tip of the iceberg

Embed from Getty Images

A few days ago I had lunch with a friend who is very involved in the refugee crisis, since she works with the European official in charge. They had come to Greece in order to meet with various members of the Greek government and to visit Lesvos (they had previously stopped by Lampedusa). The things she told me make for scary reading.

Firstly, the measures decided upon – after much debate – are simply not working. The relocation project dependant on ‘hot spots’ being set up to process people is proving ineffective, even as Greece is asking for €480 million to implement it (less than six have been approved so far). The reason is the following:
Refugees must go to the nearest hot spot to be fingerprinted and given identity papers; then they will have to wait until they are sent to the country they are allocated to. This might take months, given the numbers involved and the usual bureaucratic delays. So why would they want to do that when – by other means – they can be in the country of their choice in four days? Nobody wants to stay – and almost nobody stays.

It also appears they have to be persuaded, rather than told, to have their fingerprints taken. It’s their choice – whereas all Greek are obliged to be fingerprinted for their identity cards. A few days ago I read in the papers that – so far – only 15 Syrians have elected to stay. But if people are undocumented, it is very difficult to implement any kind of coherent policy for dealing with them.

Secondly, desperate people do desperate things. There are more and more babies and children coming in, because parents with children get automatic priority. There are more and more unaccompanied minors, sent by families hoping they’re going to a better, safer life. But I don’t need to point out the dangers they face traveling alone, and who knows how many don’t make it – and how many are abused and exploited along the way?
Worst of all, people have started to steal kids because they can use them to get preferential treatment. When they arrive at their destination, they dump them. More money is now being spent on a campaign to try and locate their families.

Only in the last two months, more than 100 children have drowned in the Aegean Sea, while in the last couple of days, 31 kids lost their lives in 7 separate shipwrecks. The mayor of Lesvos has asked that identification of the refugees is done in Turkey, to avoid so many drownings. Meanwhile, the local morgue is full of bodies and there is need for a new burial ground. And for the ultimate irony: an airplane ticket from Turkey to Germany costs around €400. These people are paying well above €1000 to cross over on a floating death trap. Surely there is a moral in this somewhere.

Something else I didn’t know, and which I found quite shocking, is that sending people back home is often not possible, because their own countries WON’T TAKE THEM BACK (I’m not talking about war-torn zones like Syria here.) They prefer their citizens to stay abroad, since that means a lot of foreign currency will be coming in, and it also helps with local unemployment.

It seems every measure taken has a huge downside. The more people are saved, the more come over. In October alone, 218.00 people have crossed the Mediterranean, and of those, 210.000 have ended up in Greece.

We are witnessing the biggest movement in populations in the history of mankind. 60 million people, from Syria and Afghanistan, Gaza, Iraq, Haiti and a dozen African countries have fled endless wars and disastrous governments. And it’s not over yet. The wars are far from ended, ISIS and the Taliban are still preying upon entire populations, religious minorities are being hounded from their homes. The floods and droughts brought on by climate change exacerbate the problem. It would only take one typhoon in the Bay of Bengal to displace millions in Bangladesh.

To top it all, my friend has worked for a long time in Ethiopia – and the scariest thing she told me is the following:

In the next few years, immigration from Africa is set to increase exponentially.
Many of the young African countries are doubling their population every twenty years. Most of their current population is under 30 years old, while their governments are not doing much in terms of job creation and services. We’re talking billions here, a large number of whom will want to come over. Recent studies have shown that in developing countries, more than half wish to move to the west.

All this is bound to lead to a rise of the extreme right in European countries, something which has already started. Tensions are growing – the refugees are at the end of their tether, but so are a lot of the people assisting them, who sometimes feel they are not grateful enough for the help they’re getting. Many are demanding that borders be secured. The Schengen concept is in real danger, even though Angela Merkel is warning that border closures and fences to stop refugees “could cause military conflict” in the Balkans. The face of the world is changing, and most of us have yet to realize it.

I’m sorry to keep harping on about this subject. In spite of everything, some people remain optimistic that the refugees can eventually be absorbed by EE countries. Today, I read that 30 refugees were flown to Luxemberg for resettlement – a drop in the ocean, but still, some kind of start. Others just do their best to help, like Britons Andrew Davies and Wendy Wilcox, who set up Solidarity Symi on the island of Symi, to help the people coming through. I also heard that young men on the islands are going out on jet skis, braving huge waves, to rescue people from shipwrecks.

Meanwhile, winter is approaching, and the refugees will have to face weather a lot of them are not used to, in many cases being obliged to live outdoors. Some parents are already wrapping their kids in rubbish bags to keep them dry…The seas are getting rougher and more dangerous, but the flow is not lessening. It is possible that because of all the talk of frontiers closing, many people feel it’s now or never.

So they take the risk.

New feature: The monthly Q&A

I sometimes feel too many of my posts are depressing, due to the fact the situation in Greece is not particularly cheerful at the moment. I try not to be all gloom and doom, however, because there are many good things happening.
The future still looks dark. Nevertheless, a country’s future is in its people, and especially its young people. Inspired by comments from readers, and hoping to reveal a more positive outlook, I’m planning a new feature for this blog – showcasing individuals who are making the best of things.

Each month there will be a Q&A with someone who is making a life of it, here in Greece. I will try to have a mix of people from all walks of life, different backgrounds, different occupations, mostly the young – and sometimes the not-so-young.
It will be a little bit of research, an attempt to find out what motivates these individuals: what are their hopes, their problems, how they see Greece in the years to come. Did they ever think about leaving, and, if they did, what made them stay? If they’re still thinking about it, what would make them stay?
Watch this space.

Not everyone wants to cheat on their taxes

Irini* is an esthetician. She lost her job at an upmarket salon when it closed down abruptly. The owner, a shady entrepreneur with fingers in a lot of pies, had declared bankruptcy and was subsequently arrested for tax evasion. That was three years ago, and she is still owed a few months salary. Irini found another job immediately, but only part-time. She supplements her meager salary by offering facials at home. She gets paid in cash. She would dearly love to start a little business with a friend, but has yet to find a way to make it affordable.

Roula* is a masseuse, earning good money making house calls (as much as €1,000/week, on good weeks.) She has tried many times to start a proper business, because she wants to be able to declare a steady income so that she can ask for a bank loan in order to buy an apartment. This is unaffordable with the present laws, since she would need to invest a large sum to set up her own space. A sum she does not have. She is a single mother with a son to support, so she has been forced to take a part-time job where she is paid a lot less per hour, just so that she can qualify for some social security.

Myrna* opened a tiny cake shop in an affluent Athens suburb, investing a lot of her own money. Three years later, and although she has acquired a loyal clientèle and as much work as she can manage, if not more, she is still not making a profit. And yet she has to pay a lot of taxes. She might have to close down.

If people like these were given incentives in starting and running small businesses, they could each pay a few thousand in taxes yearly. One million people times one thousand in tax a year? Do the math. The state would get a cool billion, where now it gets nothing. In France, for example, if you have a ‘micro-enterprise’ declaring up to €23,000, you pay around €5,000 in tax. Again, do the math.
There are A LOT of such people in Greece. Proper laws would help with tax evasion, and with unemployment. Instead, thousands of small companies have been forced out of business, and the black economy is thriving. The capital controls, which – despite promises – are still enforced, are not helping the situation.

And another thing, it’s not very easy to make a budget when the laws change every two minutes, and some taxes are applied retroactively.

In another surreal twist, Manolis*, who is a farrier, was preparing his tax declaration form, when he was astonished to discover that the profession of farrier had been struck off the list! Unable to decide how to fill in the form, he went to the tax office where a harassed employee had no idea what he was talking about. He asked to see the person in charge, and was directed to an office where a man lounged behind a desk, drinking coffee.
‘Well, just put the profession closest to yours,’ the man told him, totally uninterested.
‘I shoe horses! So, what shall I put? Cobbler? Ironmonger?’ Manolis was both sarcastic and indignant.
The man looked at him.
‘Did we summon you here?’ he asked.
‘No. I came because I need to know what to do with my tax form.’
‘Oh, for god’s sake, man, what’s your problem? Just put what you like, don’t waste my time.’

Anestis* is a physiotherapist. A lot of his patients are covered by social security, which means they don’t pay him directly – he subsequently gets paid by the state. However, a law came out reducing the price of each treatment retroactively from €15 to €12 (effective since 2012.) In May, he was paid for 2014 – but, of €45,000 he was owed, he only got €15,000. He still has not received the rest, and has no idea when and if he will get any of it. He seems resigned to the fact that it will certainly not be the whole amount. Meanwhile, he’s had to pay €30,000 in taxes – the tax people having refused to offset his credit against his debt.

Now for the flip side of the coin. Something Greeks seem unable to understand is that ‘the State’ is not an abstract entity that gets its money from a higher deity. Cheating the government is cheating your family and neighbors, those who do pay. But people still admire a friend or colleague who’s found a clever way of getting around some taxes, refusing to understand that it’s their own taxes that will pay for the shortfall.

Nobody likes paying taxes. But paying taxes is more painful if you feel the government is robbing you, or if you feel you’re not getting anything in return (roads, schools, etc.). A change in mentality is desperately needed – on both sides.

* All names have been changed

Digging to the Past

Greece is a small country that has seen many brilliant civilizations. Layer upon layer, everywhere you dig, you come upon remnants of one or more of them. Each square foot of earth can hide a treasure.

Despite the lack of funds and personnel, archaeological digs are going on all over Greece. Archaeologists, architects, restorers, and marble artisans are aided by student volunteers from all over the world. Armed with spatulas, brushes, scrapers, sieves, and even dental equipment for delicate jobs, but mostly armed with patience and perseverance, they have toiled all summer under the blazing sun to bring to light artifacts and constructions from Classical Antiquity through the Byzantine years and up to modern times.

Now, more than ever, they have to rely on personal connections as well as local artisans and businesses to be able to overcome financial obstacles and continue with their projects.

The most important of these excavations is the ancient Amphipolis tomb, whose discovery in 2014 in Casta Hill, northern Greece, set the archaeological world on fire. It is still not known who is buried in the grave that dates to the era of Alexander the Great, around 300 B.C. Five human skeletons were found in the grave, statues of two headless and wingless sphinxes, caryatids and an impressive mosaic of Persephone being carried to Hades.

But there are other interesting sites around Greece:

The ruins of a Mycenean palace have been discovered on a 140-hectare site near Sparta. The impressive buildings, built around a large central courtyard and decorated with wall paintings, belong to the second complex to have been erected on the site, since the first appears to have been destroyed by fire around the 15 th or 14th century BC. A large number of clay tablets, bearing writing of the Linear B form, have been preserved – thanks to being baked by another, more recent, fire. They constitute the palace archives and are a precious source of information about the Mycenean religion and language, as well as the social, economic and administrative structures of the area. A multitude of objects and artifacts have also been found, such as cooking utensils, bronze swords, and seals.
In Crete, on Psiloritis mountain, excavations are gradually revealing the luxury and grandeur of the Minoan palace of Zominthos.

In the Cyclades, on the tiny uninhabited island of Despotiko, west of Antiparos, there existed the largest sacred sanctuary after Delos. Many fragments of marble statues and pots have recently come to light.

In Pella, an impressive marble statue was discovered of a bearded man, clad in an animal skin and boots.

On the island of Astypalaia, 5.000-year-old rock drawings have been discovered. They depict boats with oars and fish designs on their prows. They are proof that the Cycladic civilization was very widespread.

On the headland of Molyvoti, an ancient walled city is being excavated, possibly Strymi, which was mentioned by Herodotus. A lot of ceramic pots, urns, jewels, amulets and coins have been found.

And there are also underwater digs. In the sea near the island of Kythira, archeologists are investigating the wreck of the Mentor, Lord Elgin’s ship, which sank after crashing into rocks while carrying 16 boxes of antiquities.

Category: COMMENTARY