[MGSA-L] Screaming From Inside the Sealed Vault

[June Samaras]

An eloquent cry from Greece

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Screaming From Inside the Sealed Vault

http://www.ducts.org/content/screaming-from-inside-the-sealed-vault/

Amalia Melis

Bad, bad Greece

I have traveled as north as Canada, as east as Japan, as South as
Australia but the diagnosis is the same: Heart Greek, Mind American.
What are the odds that I will find a cure? None. The thread always
leads back to here the only place that makes sense to me: the island
village my family is from: Apikia in Andros.

With this disease ever present, I choose to live in a country that is
undergoing one of the most turbulent changes to its social and
financial makeup. You all know which one I mean: Bad, bad Greece.

Fingers wagged in my face by the Troika (International Monetary Fund,
European Central Bank, European Union), by international journalists,
tourists, concerned family and friends living on the other side of the
Atlantic, leave me self-conscious, embarrassed, determined, but often
doubtful of my sanity. At times I feel like I am screaming from inside
a sealed vault. I cringe at the total incompetence of Greek
politicians I voted for (with heart and soul each time). I am angered
by the lack of vision, lack of spine needed to move forward at a time
when the entire world has finally awakened to the fact that Greece is
indeed in trouble; and with it, my heart.

Daily reports uncover scandal after scandal compounding my battle with
this growing sense of doom in my chest. I have little work as a
freelancer; essays, poems and novels don’t pay. My friends and family
are equally at odds on how to survive, even the lucky ones who still
bring home a paycheck. A good friend works two jobs to make ends meet
when one job was once enough. Her poems drip with bitterness, with
sadness for this land. We look bewildered at each other and ask: do we
pack up, close the door behind us and never return? Do we finally come
to terms with a country that never fully accepted those of us who were
born elsewhere and chose to live here? We delicately unfolded our own
dreams when we got here decades ago, we tried to play by the rules to
make the dreams real only to uncover that the corrupt status quo is
far stronger, far more ruthless than we could ever be. And to think
that I believed if I could make it in New York, I could make it
anywhere. New York, where I was born and raised, was easy to conquer.
I left all that behind to find family roots.

A long time PASOK (Socialist Party) politician and former Minister of
Defense paraded around Athens for years while accusations regarding
millions upon millions of Euros he took in bribes went unnoticed by
the justice department and by his fellow PASOK comrades. Those Euros
were not his to keep. He spent millions of Euros on our behalf for
submarines that are faulty, for major defense purchases that had
nothing to do with protecting this small country. Those irresponsible
choices required that money be taken out of my pocket, my friends’
pockets, any Greek salaried employee’s pocket who paid taxes. Yet,
there is no justice served. This former Minister now sits in jail
awaiting trial, if they get to his case before time runs out to
prosecute him, allowing him to walk free. Each day we read yet another
scandal uncovered, exposed by this politician’s own meticulous record
keeping in his many notebooks so as not to lose one Euro of the
millions he kept stashed in off shore companies all over the world.
Greece continued to bleed but his Party asked for our enlightened
votes over and over. And we gave it to this Party, snubbing the
conservatives who were much longer in the game of grabbing, hiding,
taking. How much was enough for that politician, his family, his
children? How many politicians from PASOK and New Democracy sit in
their mansions laughing while Greece teeters on the edge. So many
scandals layered one on top of the other perpetrated by Socialists,
Conservatives, in the name of Greece, in the name of me.

Yes, I take it personally. I have to fight back. My vote was always my
weapon of choice. The June elections brought about a coalition
government made up of three hallucinating paralyzed soldiers in a
bloody battlefield. My vote used to be gold. It could not be bought or
sold in any of the thousands of pawn shops wanting to buy gold from
Greeks that have sprung up on every corner ever since continuous
austerity measures have been shoved down our collective throats. These
pawn shop owners are salivating, waiting to grab whatever gold
heirloom some desperate Greek will part with or some thief is eager
enough to sell for the quick buck.

In the meantime we continue to reinvent the wheel to get the simplest
things done. Two days ago, I received another letter to pay an
outstanding bill for 1,000 Euros. I paid this tax bill two years ago
and have the receipt. It doesn’t matter if I stand on line in a tax
office again ( I have nothing better to do with my time) or call
countless times to remind some anonymous public sector employee to
look in the drawer way, way in the back for papers long forgotten. I
am lost in a bureaucratic maze composed of a bloated public sector and
I can’t get out. Recently, the government announced that Greeks can
finally pay their taxes online. To get the password however for such a
revolutionary act, I had to physically go to the tax office and wait
on another endless line. You can’t make this up.

Decades ago the Socialists passed a law “regarding ministerial
responsibilities” which roughly translates into no matter what scandal
is uncovered or hinted at during the time whatever Party rules, the
slate is wiped clean as soon as new elections are announced. Now, why
create a law like that if you have nothing in mind for yourself? Same
goes for the Opposition that never repealed that law. The law is
active and healthy to this day. No one, not one politician has stepped
down or gone to jail. We have the results to prove it. Just take a
look at where Greece is today. Speculators are rubbing their hands in
glee waiting like vultures for this country to finally fall on its
face.

Greece has survived the brutality of the Nazis, the wrenching hatred
of Civil War which followed. Parts of Greek society allowed a seven
year military dictatorship to take hold, further tearing the country
apart. Foreign powers were happy to frolic in the same bed with Greek
dictators in the name of lucrative business deals. Greece was given
hope when the Socialists were ushered into power with the winds of
Change–those words brought me here in 1981 as a single young woman
eager to discover the country my family comes from. It was a historic
time when anything was possible. Anything; and the public, from left
wing to right, would have supported that Prime Minister’s vision. That
historic moment echoes inside me still; precisely because it was made
barren, depleted, robbed, rejected, lost, forgotten by the ones whom I
thought knew better.

While the rest of us regroup, cut back on superficial things like
going out to a taverna, travel, extra trips to anywhere, my husband
and I seriously focus on how to keep our eleven year old car running,
how to maintain our home which was bought by paying off two bank loans
to acquire it, school tuition, our teen’s needs and wants. How will we
pay all the new extra taxes added on to other new taxes we have
already paid on everything we own? We are not alone. Our friends are
in the same boat and there is no end in sight to what the near future
might hold for all of us.

I am thankful that I am not hungry. Yet. I still believe I can
contribute to this new situation in Greece by looking for a ray of
light. I might be nuts but I organized and will participate in a group
art exhibit with two established talented artist friends. When I chose
the title for the exhibit “Creativity in a Time of Chaos” little did I
know that on November 7th, our opening night, every single major union
will be on strike paralyzing the country. No metro, no ferries, no
buses, no taxis, no air traffic controllers, no nothing. Yet we will
all be there displaying our art work, each one of us with our own
vision. I make assemblages out of discarded metal and wire pieces I
find in the street. Appropriate for the times we live in?

It all started for me when I was in the process of writing my first
novel which hasn’t found a home yet. I had a strong desire to make
three dimensional pieces that reflected the evolving story in some
way. The process of making these assemblages was never about making
money — it was about grasping the energy coming out of me so I could
make sense of what I have been witnessing, understanding what I hear,
what I am in the process of becoming here in Greece — what my
immigrant story aches to tell.

I know it is a mere drop in the ocean to volunteer at a homeless
shelter in central Athens. Sorting out blankets, used clothes for
women, men and children, passing out yogurt, cans of milk, talking to
those who linger in the yard where weekend feedings are held (500
meals x three shifts), or nodding my head to “if you find a pair of
size 41 shoes can you save them for me, I need shoes, save them for
next Sunday when I come again.” I cannot look these people in the eye
because their hunger, desperation, is too raw, too new, too naked for
me to take in. I don’t know what to say to an elderly Greek man who
tells me he lives alone and he can no longer make it with the cuts to
his social security benefits so now he comes to the homeless shelter
to eat his one meal for the day. That was unheard of a few short years
ago.

Greece always had a safety net; family. Family took in the one on the
verge of homelessness or alcoholism, or mental illness in every
village and town. There was always a seat for that person, a plate of
food, a warm bed. That is what is broken in this country. In my
village on the island it still holds that we take in and provide for
someone down on his luck. Thankfully, I still see this in action.
Family is no longer able to stay afloat in urban centers like Athens
where I live. Social security benefits slashed, health care in
shambles, illegal immigrants who are desperate enough to commit
crimes, have Greeks so frightened they are doing unheard of things
like relying on Golden Dawn Party members and their neo-Fascist ways.
They swarm into poor neighborhoods to “help”, to protect Greeks from
what is turning into a new battlefield between desperate foreigner and
desperate Greek.

These radical social changes unmask Greek politicians’ most tragic
shortcoming: making Greeks so desperate they will reach out for help
given by extremists: neo-Nazis, Stalinists and more. These small
political parties once insignificant are seeing their numbers rise in
polls conducted to feel the pulse of the nation and unfortunately this
new desperation made Golden Dawn legitimate Parliamentary members in
the last elections. That is the ultimate betrayal to Greeks by Greeks:
giving legal voice to extremists.

The monster is out of the cage and it is chasing us all over Greece. A
few months ago it was World Poetry Day. I hand painted my sign with
the words WE WRITE TO EXIST because that was the best way to describe
how I feel. If I don’t write about the drastic changes taking place in
Greece, in my life, I will go mad. I hopped on the Athens Metro ( one
that has magnificent ancient artifacts on display at different metro
stops, no graffiti anywhere-so different from the New York subways I
grew up using), I met my friends, we were with over 500 people who
gathered to peacefully protest the choking austerity measures, to
celebrate the power of words in poetry. There was no tear gas, no
violence and the riot police who watched us seemed bored or relieved.
The crowd made several stops to recite poems on busy Athenian streets
by Ritsos (Lenin Prize poet), Seferis and Elytis (both Nobel Prize
poets) and more.

A poet carried a sign with a line from Elytis : “If you can’t find
Spring, make it.”

I am trying to make it, my friends are trying to make it. We will not
watch the flashing neon signs pointing to the exit ramp: Abandon Ship
NOW. I can’t. I chose to live here. My friends can’t either. They will
compose music to exist, they will write graffiti on walls with words
that hurt, reflect and urge every one of us to wake up. They will
write poems to exist, they will act on stage to exist, paint on canvas
to exist.

Even as I become poorer each day I also become richer. I have crossed
paths with so many creative minds who linger here even against all
odds. Something tells me I should keep plowing ahead by gathering
writers from all over the world to come to Andros each summer to write
and be part of a writing community I created with much love and
dedication. I will continue to open my arms and welcome them to this
country, this island that has inspired so many and will inspire new
stories from the richness that is Greece. Something tells me I should
linger with my daughter to listen to island songs played by my uncle’s
santouri, by our friends’ tsambouna, laouto, violin at our village
feasts. Something tells me I should give my daughter blog posts to
ponder, give her reason to question political choices each of us
makes, that she will one day make. While Greece undergoes growing
pains, looks into the mirror to see its ugly and strong side,
something tells me I must write to exist.

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June Samaras
2020 Old Station Rd
Streetsville,Ontario
Canada L5M 2V1
Tel : 905-542-1877
E-mail : june.samaras at gmail.com