I keep writing about the refugees and immigrants arriving in droves upon Greek shores, but there is also outgoing traffic. Many Greeks are leaving the country in the third major wave of emigration to be observed in the last 100 years.
In the 20th and 21st centuries alone, nearly two million (1.764.000) Greeks have moved away. Why? What makes someone leave behind everything they hold dear?
The two major causes are war and poverty. At the moment we are lucky not to be at war; but we are experiencing an unprecedented economic crisis, and more than 420.000 Greeks within the 15-64 age range have left since 2008. Here I would like to point out that we are talking about a population of only around 11 million, of whom one million are immigrants themselves.
In the last 100 years, there have been three instances of mass exodus, all connected with financial crisis expect for the late sixties, where the reasons were predominantly political (to do with the dictatorship of 1967-1974). In the first phase, circa 1903-1917, those who emigrated were largely uneducated men, peasants and workers, who found employment as servants and laborers, mostly in ‘transatlantic’ countries such as the USA, Australia, Canada, and Brazil. The second wave was chiefly made up of young people, unemployed or manual laborers, who found work as factory hands primarily in Germany and Belgium.
The big difference is that today the people who are moving out are young, educated and experienced professionals. Specific countries appear to be absorbing specific types of professionals; for example, finance graduates have gone primarily to the U.K., medical graduates to Germany, computer science graduates to the United States, and engineers to the Middle East. So we are talking about a real brain drain, which is the last thing Greece needs at the moment.
This exodus is not surprising, considering nearly 1 million jobs have been lost in Greece over the last six years, according to an analysis by the Hellenic Statistical Authority.
A study made by Endeavor Greece, an international group that supports entrepreneurship, showed that a stunning 46% of Greeks living in the country are considering relocating.
This is a very disturbing statistic: at a time when the European Union wants Greece to try to pick itself up by its bootstraps and restructure its economy, the brainpower needed for this transformation is leaving.
What would make these people stay? A promise of a future, for one. Decent jobs, an environment where entrepreneurship is valued and promoted, a stable and reasonable tax system. As can be seen in my monthly Q&A, there are young people fighting to stay and make the best of things, but for how long?
What does the future hold? If nothing is done to reverse this trend, Greece could end up as a country where the indigenous population is a minority.
In 2003, when the crisis had started and the financial environment was not at its best, we bought a piece of land and built our new plant, against reason as well as against everyone’s advice. On May 2nd 2005, production started in our new factory, with brand new machinery. We believed in ourselves, and in our work, and we have not regretted it, despite everything. Even in 2012, at the peak of the crisis, we continued to invest; we now have 30 employees, having started with 9. Of course, the psychological and financial cost was great, and the workload was massive; but even today we plan on taking advantage of opportunities offered and to continue investing. Apart from my father and myself, there is a strong team, and I would not like to take all the credit – the strength of our company does not lie in the machinery, but in the people running it. I really believe in the human factor; we are all cogs of one machine, and if we don’t take pride in our work, no success is possible.
However, the day is not only associated with eating, but also features many traditional celebrations held all over Greece. Municipalities organize concerts and other festivities with free food on offer. In the Borough of Athens, Clean Monday is traditionally celebrated on Philopappos, a hill situated southwest of the Acropolis. A beautiful 173-acre park, it is home to many indigenous birds and small animals, and open to all at all times of day or night.
In my childhood, making your own kite was considered a very manly pursuit in some households. Fathers and uncles would carefully choose and cut their own bamboo sticks, split them lengthwise with their penknives and fashion them into a hexagonal frame with string. Over this would go glacé paper in bright colours (often in the colours of the maker’s favourite team), and then ‘ears’ and a tail made out of strips of paper. The trick was for the kite to have good equilibrium so that it would fly straight and true. A few balls of sturdy string would be carefully wound in a figure eight over a stout stick and the kite would be ready to go.
Letters from Athens 