I keep a close eye on Greece for a couple of reasons. First, I have a lot of students and friends from there. Second, I live in the UK and you know all those bad things they are saying about the Greek economy? Well, on a number of measures (national debt level and unemployment level, to name just two, to which I would add personal debt level, which is far, FAR higher here) we are actually worse off. So when you hear about Greece being allowed to fail economically, possibly being forced to accept an IMF restructuring, forced to jettison its already meager public services and cut its already lower than the rest of Western Europe wages... well, I get concerned.
And another concern has just reared its head--a possible use of "EU police" to quell what the Greek police are now openly calling a "revolt" by the population. There's a General Strike on tomorrow, and has been escalating unrest for over a year now.
More below the fold, including what may be one of the worst examples of "irony" I have heard in awhile.
Let's start with the irony.
Last week a man was tear-gassed and arrested for trying to prevent the police from beating and arresting a teenager. In a response to complaints from radio listeners that this was overkill, the exasperated police spokesman revealed that rumours of possible EU military/"police" intervention are true by saying: "if the local police fail at their task, the EU and the Greek government are ready to dispatch a 7,000-strong European police force to repress what might seem like an upcoming revolt. Imagine it! how would it feel if a foreign policeman was beating you up in the streets of Athens?"
OK, that's worrying--the use of the scare-word "revolt," the idea of the EU intervening militarily (OK, call it a "police action" if you must) in a member state. What makes it ironic? The man who was tear-gassed already knows exactly what it's like to be beaten up on the streets of Athens by a foreign force.
That's because the tear-gassed individual was 88-year-old Manolis Glezos. On May 30 1941, Glezos and another brave Greek teenager climbed up the Acropolis in Nazi-occupied Athens and tore down the Swastika that the Nazis had placed there as a marker of their domination. For this the young anti-fascist was hunted, arrested, tortured and sentenced to death, a fate he barely escaped. The Greek experience of occupation by European powers is giving this civil unrest (which may yet become a revolt) a particular edge.
I can't say what tomorrow will bring, but I can say that currently there is a wave of strikes and occupations going on. Even the government's own accounting and printing offices have been occupied by their employees. Life in the capital seems to be rolling to a standstill, and it's not just happening there. There is palpable anger, especially among the mostly low-paid and precariously employed under-30s, about having to tighten their belts even further to pay for a financial crisis they see as caused by speculation (which is definitely going on now, it's been written up in every newspaper and addressed by Merkel and Sarkozy as well as by the governments of Greece, Spain and other economically troubled EU members). The level of police repression is, as usual, breeding increased hostility.
When you've got 88-year-old pissed off enough to give "unarresting" a teenager a go, people are obviously upset and seeing the police and the government as the enemy.
These are worrying developments, and attention should be paid because what happens next is going to be interesting, whatever it may be.