Exploring Greece’s Debt Crisis through the Lens of its Citizens: Peristeri, Athens
Peristeri is a lower-income suburban municipality in Athens, in which the crisis is felt more heavily. In contrast to Glyfada, 70.28% of the citizens in Peristeri voted "No" in the recent referendum. The possibility of the country defaulting as a result of the "No" vote seemed more desirable than the implementation of more austerity measures in exchange for debt relief. However, it is not only the poor who voted "No", but rather 61.3% of the country, including former finance minister Yanis Varoufakis who expressed that he would “rather cut off his arm than sign a deal that extends or intensifies the country’s debt".
Among the Greek citizens whom I interviewed in Peristeri, many of them have lost their jobs as a result of the crisis and are thinking of immigrating. I quote: "Σήμερα , η Ελλάδα είναι για κλάματα. Όλοι φεύγουν. Εάν μπορούσε η Ακρόπολη, θα έφευγε και αυτή". "Today, Greece is a country to cry over. Everyone is leaving. If the Acropolis was able to, it would leave too".
Graffiti that reads: "I'm suffering" or "I'm tortured"
Considering Greek is not my mother tongue, my Canadian accent often revealed that I was a “foreigner”. When I would inform people that I am Canadian, they would always ask how life was in “America”, and commonly refer to me as the “Americana” (the American), which I eventually stopped trying to correct. Most of the people I encountered would listen to me speak about my life in Canada (university degree, part-time job, fluency in three languages, etc) with a hopeful look on their face. They shared with me their own dreams of leaving Greece someday and starting a better life for themselves and for their families in “the Americas”, meaning Canada and the United States. These conversations reminded me of another film I studied in my Modern Greek Culture and Society course, entitled America, America. The film begins in the 1890s, shortly after the economic crisis of 1893. The cruelty of the Turkish authorities drove the main character, Stavros, to emigrate to America, "the land of opportunity". A parallel can be drawn to the current debt crisis taking place, forcing over 200,000 Greek citizens to leave the country in hopes for a better life.
This young man is holding up a sign which shares that he has ended up on the street and is in need of help.
As a result of the debt crisis, a graffiti culture has developed in Greece, especially in downtown Athens, near the Greek Parliament building. It appears as though citizens have turned to this particular form of art to express their thoughts and concerns surrounding the crisis. They have also demonstrated their sense of humor through the use of puns and other play on words.
Graffiti that reads: "Then with tanks, now with banks".
Moreover, during my stay in Greece, I visited my grandmother whom I accompanied to the various appointments she had with accountants, lawyers, and bank clerks. My very first impression in these institutions was that the workers were lazy and rude. I was capable of listening in on the conversations that clients had with their own lawyers and accountants because of the extreme lack of privacy which shed light on the low levels of respect. The chaos taking place in these establishments allowed me to appreciate the orderliness of our offices in Canada that we often take for granted.
The phrase "Then with tanks, now with banks", as written in the photograph above, expresses a comparison between the current Greek debt crisis and the 1967 cout d'état. In 1967, the Greek government was overthrown and replaced by a military dictatorship. According to former finance minister Yanis Varoufakis, "In the coup d’état the choice of weapon used in order to bring down democracy then was the tanks. Well, this time it was the banks. The banks were used by foreign powers to take over the government. The difference is that this time they’re taking over all public property".