Nobody in his right mind is going to take the side of strife and reckless driving, so such designations are meaningless unless specific efforts are going to be made to achieve what everybody obviously wants.
Yet it seems that Greeks returning from their New Year’s Eve reveillons either stepped into their front doors left-foot-first or failed to shatter the pomegranate on the threshold or forgot to hit their near and dear over the head with a wild onion.
With the highest per capita traffic fatality rate in Europe, Greece this year even broke its own record for highway mayhem. Of course holidays here are longer and more intense than in many other countries, lasting through Saint John’s Day (January 7). This terminated an 18-day period during which exactly six days were spent off the highway and in the work area where, we are told, the country’s low productivity must be substantially increased.
Examples of discord at the opening of the Year of Peace were numerous, too. Although the drachma appears to be becoming less a fiscal than an ornamental unit, it remains the country’s legal tender. Yet throwing it around has become something of a national sport. On Epiphany, at the ceremony of the Blessing of the Waters in Piraeus (and the waters, according to the Tourist Organization, are in great need of blessing since the Achille Lauro incident last year), the prime minister received shower of difranga – two drachma coins. The single drachma coin, like the lepta, seems to have gone the way of the mammoth. This time they were accompanied by nerantzia. Though these bitter oranges can, with effort, be made into a spoon-sweet, nothing sweet today can be extracted from a drachma.
The day before, football fans ran amok in the Olympic Stadium and ripped up 500 seats. This is the new stadium whose train station has been dubbed “Peace”. At the time of its inauguration by Constantine Karamanlis, the then prime minister expressed the hope that it would never be used for football games.
Several days later hooligans of another ilk threw down the cross standing between the graves of King Paul and Queen Federika in the cemetery of the former royal palace at Tatoi. In Attica today, it seems, even the dead are not allowed to rest in peace.
A final, shocking case of ethnic discord, reported in an afternoon daily, claimed that Aliki Vouyouklaki and Zoe Laskari were fighting over the affections of a popular young singer. To appreciate the full seriousness of this charge it is necessary to realize that Aliki is not just a star of stage and screen, for more years than one would wish to count, but the paragon of what every woman in Greece wants to be and what every man in Greece wants her to be. As for Zoe Laskari, suffice it to say that her legs are more famous locally than all the Lions of Delos put together.
Given this sorry catalogue of ethnic woes, it was of little surprise that a poll recently conducted by ICAP reveals that the average citizen is not entirely pleased with the state of his country. But to conclude this survey on a G-minor note would be premature. After all, EEC polls for years now have uncontradictably proved that Greeks are the most optimistic people on the continent. A few set-backs cannot upset such a long and well-documented trend.
With all due credit to ICAP, the end of the old year and the beginning of the new is no time to go about Greece asking questions. Inevitably it is when people brood about the future and sentimentalize about the past. This is quite uncharacteristic. Like Sidney Smith who wisely said that to maintain cheerfulness it was necessary never to think beyond afternoon tea, Greeks are happiest and most productive living in the eternal present. Futhermore it is the time when everyone is gambling, and who wants to be bothered with questions when one’s hand is full of trumps or one’s lap full of roulette chips?
So only one person did win the 75-million-drachma national lottery, when ten million other people, who were absolutely sure they would win it, lost. It’s not the end of the world. In fact, it is only February, and things are already much improved. The government has tripled the highway tolls, bringing a new sobriety to the road. There’s a rumor that it’s also printed lots of new money, which solves the economic problem. If issued in crisp paper bills it can’t be thrown around. This encourages thrift. Everybody’s forgotten about football now that the Greek basketball team is winning international attention. And, finally, to the great relief of all, Aliki and Zoe have proved that they are bosom friends (and, ah, what bosoms!). They are winning their case and donating their court settlements to a worthy and charitable cause.
