[MGSA-L] Paralysis in Athens

June Samaras june.samaras at gmail.com
Sat Jun 9 11:27:21 PDT 2012


http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/07/opinion/postcards-from-greece.html?_r=2&ref=opinion

Paralysis in Athens
By RANDALL FULLER
Published: June 6, 2012

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editor, Andrew Rosenthal, follow @andyrNYT.

“WHAT are we waiting for, assembled in the forum?” asked the Greek
poet Constantine Cavafy in 1904. “Why do the Senators sit and pass no
laws?”

Less than two weeks before Greece holds another round of national
elections, Cavafy’s famous poem “Waiting for the Barbarians,” has
renewed force and urgency in Athens. The elections, scheduled for June
17, will decide Greece’s fate in the euro zone and perhaps even its
long-term future as a viable state. But with an excruciating choice to
be made between draconian austerity measures and a departure from
Europe’s shared currency, the birthplace of democracy is paralyzed
with indecision and poised to descend into chaos and economic
catastrophe.

Evidence of a state tottering on the edge of complete dysfunction is
apparent everywhere in Athens. Traffic signals work sporadically; a
sign giving the shortened hours of one of the world’s great museums,
the National Archaeological Museum, is haphazardly taped to the door;
police officers in riot gear patrol the perimeters of the
universities, where a growing population of anarchists, disaffected
young people and drug addicts congregate in communal hopelessness.

“Greeks have worry beads up to here,” one Athenian told me in the
shadow of the Acropolis, measuring to the top of her head. “We don’t
know what’s going to happen tomorrow.”

The most visible sign of these dire, uncertain times is the
proliferation of graffiti over almost every vertical space in the
city. Athens has long cherished a tradition of political commentary
and street art, but the recent financial crisis has spurred the young
to express their discontent with nihilistic intensity.

“Wake Up!” is a ubiquitous tag in the city. “Welcome to the
Civilization of Fear” reads another. One airbrushed scene portrays an
Athens bus — not long ago a symbol of Greece’s commitment to improving
its civic infrastructure while reducing pollution — about to run off
the road or crash into an oncoming vehicle.

If the young bear the harshest burden of the economic crisis — 48
percent of Greeks below age 24 are unemployed — they do so with a mix
of denial, frantic exuberance and a debilitating sense of the absurd.
A flash mob recently appeared in Syntagma Square, not to protest the
lack of jobs or the political gridlock but to dance to ’N Sync’s “Bye
Bye Bye.” Nearby, another graffiti slogan seemed to capture the mood:
“Dancing All the Time, Feeling All the Rage.”

Throughout Athens I asked people of all ages what it was like to live
in Greece at the moment. “Hell,” one woman told me. “Terrible,
terrible,” said a waiter at a tavern on the Plaka.

A Greek friend sighed and admitted that he would leave the country
immediately if he could: “There is no good solution to the current
crisis. Austerity will damage us for years to come, and so will the
return of the drachma. Either way it will get much worse before it
gets better.”

On a warm, lovely Saturday night two weeks before the election, the
immensely appealing Greek pop star León was finishing a sound check at
an outdoor space in the trendy Gazi neighborhood. Strumming a ukulele,
León sang what could easily stand as an anthem for this perilous
moment in Athens and the rest of Greece:

Tell me what to do when everything is changing,

Tell me what to do when you can’t step on the same river twice.

If Cavafy’s poem blamed national inaction and a too-easy fatalism on a
long and tortuous history of invasion from without, León seemed intent
on exploring ways to survive this period of gloom and impasse from
within. “The master of the ship, the leader of your mind ... you don’t
need them anymore,” he sang.

Then the tune, a folkish number titled “Someday (Somewhere, Maybe
Somebody),” blossomed into an infectious chorus. León’s band, an
eight-piece group of men and women playing electric guitars and the
more traditional accordion, leaned in and sang together.

In this place where tragedy was invented, the song was joyful and
sadly cathartic. The chorus had no words, but it nevertheless
contained an invitation to join in the achingly beautiful melody. I
still can’t get it out of my head.

Randall Fuller is a professor of English at the University of Tulsa.


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



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