It’s amazing what people will put up with from the governments they elect. It must be the secret of democracy’s uncanny strength whose 2500 birthday we have been celebrating here in its cradle, Athens, this year. Leaders of other forms of government are easier to handle. People chop heads off kings, shoot tsars, hang dictators upside down, feed emperors poisoned mushrooms, and suffocate princes of the blood, but what can one do with the likes of the Prime Minister?
He has said the country may go broke servicing its 55 billion dollar public debt unless drastic measures are taken. He has fired thousands of public workers and raised the price of fuel and basic service such as water and electricity by 300 percent in a desperate effort to raise revenue. Now he’s selling off all our beautiful islands to pay the bills.
Even horrid Col. Papadopoulos had the kindness to set our bones in plaster casts since we were so morally weak, but now we can’t even afford gypsum. It upsets our balance of payments.
In the old days when things weren’t going well at home (which was most of the time) at least everything was alright abroad. Now our neighbors are getting restless. President Ozal says the Dodecanese are really Turkish, Premier Demirel says Greece is trying to conquer Cyprus the way it did Crete (!?), Skopje covets the gold that Mr Andronikos has found in the Vergina tombs, the Serbo-Croat war is preventing Greek trucks from reaching Europe, and runaway Albanians are taking away local jobs by accepting a wage of 3000 drachmas a day (and no taxes!).
Now to add insult to injury, the government is complaining that Greeks are not making enough babies. Bad enough that it’s got deep into our wallets; now they want to get into our bedrooms and start giving orders.
“Give birth or we’re lost!” banner-headlined Eleftherotypia one day when there was no 17 November terrorist proclamation to print. Greece’s rate of population increases only by 0.2 percent annually; that of Turkey by 2.0, ten times higher. In the last decade the rate of population increase dropped 86.6 percent, and by the year 2020, according to official statistics the population will plummet from 10.0 to 8.5 million.
Before spreading innuendos, the government might do well to examine its own policy. It should have noted last month amongst the millions who went on strike and marched in downtown Athens to protest all these austerities, there was a determined group of people in sunglasses carrying electric guitars, synthesizers and heavy metal accompaniments.
These overworked disco entertainers were squinting as they marched down Stadiou because they so rarely see the sun. The reason? ND has lifted all restrictions on the early closing of clubs and bars and they no longer have to shut down at 3 am. They can go on till dawn, or just around the clock.
The reason? Money, money, of course. Those Europeans with their quaint pub restrictions flock down to Greece to spend their abundance on a bit of noctural, life-enhancing gaiety. But the entertainers themselves are not so happy about the sweat-shop hours.
Take the life of an average Greek today: Bank clerk in the morning; construction worker in the afternoon. DJing all night; and weekends spend fiddling with the receipt roll in his spouse’s shop’s costly, official cash-register. How can one have the energy left to make babies?
Dmocracy always furnishes a way out. There is an opposition. There is a way out of it all. Every sheriff of Nottingham has his Robin Hood, and last month he reappeared. While the prime minister was telling everyone to belt-tighten, there were at twilight on November 15 stirrings in the Forest of Pedion Areos, and out sprang Andreas and his merrie green men with Maid Mimi by his side and heaters behind to warm the posterior of the People’s Choice while he exhorted them to greater things. Wielding their mighty bows-and-arrows Douglas Fairbanks, Errol Flynn and Kevin Costner altogether could never musterd a crowd like Andreas. Waving seas of green plastic flags and blowing kiddies’ horns, they filled Alexandras Avenue to the east and Patission to the south. Robin was hale and hearty, and any Friar Tucks and Little Johns in PASOK who have ideas about power-sharing better think of something else.
But, sadly, this spectacle looked very much a thing of the past; medieval in fact. Yet it’s wonderful that old Hollywood still has a place in real life somewhere; and that there are studio people who can still afford it. They said they brought busloads down from Boeotia and shiploads up from Crete (and paid supporters, some said, 7000 drachma each, not including transportation, of course).
The Sheriff is hellbound to get Greece into Europe, and in a single gear, but Robin Hood has other ideas. “Elections now!” he shouted. Rob the rich and give to the poor. In other words, when we’re back in office we’ll get our hands on all that nice EC-loan money, spread it around, and have a high old time.
“The most beautiful thing about Greece,” wrote Marguerite Yourcenar, “is that it partakes of both East and West. It is two worlds at the same time.” Whatever is said about, it its opposite is equally true.
