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To walk down Athinas avenue, at night, from downtown Athens until Omonia square, up north, is to witness some of the worst sides of the economic crisis that is scrapping the country. Beneath the marquees , lie visibly sick people covering themselves with whatever they can to spend the night. The tradesman tries to sell tear gas masks, while the rent signs multiply on the buildings around, some sprayed with neo-Nazi symbols.
The area is a sort of Athens’ “cracolândia” (“city of crack”, an area in Sao Paulo known for its history of intense drug trafficking and prostitution) , which, according to its inhabitants, keeps growing. The collapse of the Greek health is not only seen on the dozens of drug addicts using syringes under dim street lights, or on the group of homeless people that sleep on dark squares, where the light bulbs already burned out and wasn´t replaced: it’s also on the numbers of suicides , some directly related to unemployment, that surpasses 25% of the population — more than double the Brazilian figures.
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Athens is visibly crumbling, and its numbers can say why. The country’s GDP (Gross Domestic Product) shrank almost 20% in four years, a recession level comparable to what the United States suffered after the stock market crash of 1929. The “Great Greek Depression”, as did the American, almost a century ago, is starting to generate immigration booms and to empty the country.
Areti Komata, owner of the travel agency Komatas Tours, specialized in bus tickets to Albany, the country that received the largest number of Greek immigrants, sees the change on their ticket sales. “People are losing their jobs and can´t afford to pay their rents. The go back to Albany, to the house they have. Buy one-way tickets”, she said to Opera Mundi. “Not to mention the [neo-Nazi party] Golden Dawn, which is not the main reason why people leave the country, but it is responsible for some of the immigrants who leave”.
For those who stay, there’s little or no optimism at all. Ten years from now, Greece will still have a deficit of at least 120% of the GDP, according to the IMF’s (International Monetary Fund) projections, whose memos motivate the anger of the country’s anti-austerity left. IMF’s “recommendations” impose strict rules to restructure the Greek state, that involve privatizations and cuts on jobs and retirement pensions and the increase of rates.
Today, according to Eurostat (the statistics division of the European Union), 3.4 million Greek are risking “poverty or social exclusion”, in other words, 30% of the population. The country was once a promising investment field, especially around the Olympics, in 2004, but now is on top of the risk list, alongside Bulgaria and Romania.
Moreover, the tourism in Greece, that comprehends almost 20% of its total income, is decreasing. In Athens, the city tour buses were empty on November’s heat when only few foreigners were visiting the Acropolis, the country’s most important monument. The images of the protests on Syntagma Square scared the visitors away, who used to have the country as a winter destination because of its warm weather.
Solidarity
To minimize the drama of misery, solidarity groups are being created in several sectors, plugging the holes left by the deficient state. They are movements that try to recycle the informal economy as an alternative to the slow austerity economic flow, in “disobedience” to the troika’s rules, formed by the European Commission, the IMF and the European Central Bank. Their positive results are seen by activists as an “answer” to the reputation of “corrupt and lazy” that the population got as soon as the crisis exploded.
The first-aid stations of Athens’ hospitals are not working at full capacity anymore. They take turns to attend the city’s demand. To make matters worse, according to the country’s laws, if one is unemployed for more than two years, one has to pay for a fee to use the health services.
As an answer, some doctors, like those who volunteer during the protest on Syntagma Square, created first-aid centers that don´t charge for medical care. It’s common to see expensive medications being offered on Twitter accounts.
“The crisis is creating the solidarity spaces. There are the first-aid centers, as well as other initiatives. On the countryside, people are cutting the middlemen and creating a direct trade business, for instance, to buy and sell vegetables”, told Cristos Giovanopoulos, who works for the Greek’s Solidarity Campaign. “The potatoes that are not sold on the market are returned and distributed”.
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According to Giovanopoulos, the creation of this kind of business was important to show that Greece has, contrary to was said, food sovereignty. “One of the biggest arguments to maintain the euro was that Greece would starve from lack of food. This is not true”, he stressed.
“Social solidarity” alternatives also appeared when the Greek state welfare disappeared. Besides the health centers, there are solidarity schools, led by unemployed teachers, in which knowledge is shared to overcome Greek’s deficient public school system. “Those nonparty initiatives hardly make it to the news. The Golden Dawn [extreme-right neo-Nazi party], that makes its clientelism opportunistic, gets much more attentions”, regretted Giovanopoulos.
Forecast for 2013
In mid-November, the Greek parliament approved by a thin majority the country’s budget for 2013. The total cut, obeying troika’s commands, was of 9,4 billion euros, which will probably affect directly the public services. The most optimistic forecast is that, in a year, the country’s economy continues to shrink, but the unemployment remains stable at 25%.
The maintenance of the country on the Eurozone is not guaranteed. Between speculations. Citigroup issued a statement saying that there is a 60% change of Greece leaving the block in 2013. The economist’s arguments go from the fragile coalition of the prime-minister Antonis Samars, from the center-right party New Democracy, to the worsening of the economic performance of Portugal, Spain and Italy.
The group believes that unemployment in Greece will reach 29.7% in 2013, the GDP will shrink more 7,4% and the GPD’s debt will go up to 192,8 %. It sees a scenario of social convulsion and a possible return do drachma. According to the statistics agency BIS, Greece’s main creditors are private investors and banks from France, Germany, the United Kingdom and Holland.