Greece My Country My People - Chapter 1 - The Shame & The Humiliation

Greece – My Country My People

18 May 2010

I start this blog with a heavy heart and a great deal of sadness in my soul.

But I have also started this blog because I firmly believe in My Country My People … I know our resilience, our strength against all odds, our determination and ability to overcome anything – The Greeks have proved it time and again in History – We have defeated armies and nations 10 times larger than ourselves, we have endured invasions from many foreign invaders, and we have driven them out …. every time …. without ever losing our sense and understanding of who we are …. Therefore I also write this blog with a sense of hope and a sense of excitement for the future of My Country My People.

I have a heavy heart because I see my country, my people in a state of shock, walking around in a daze … “what just hit us? Who just slapped us in the face? Why is this happening, everything was going just dandy? How can Greece be bankrupt, how can we have no money to carry on living like we have for the last 20-30 years?”

I have sadness in my soul because in just a few months of the austerity measures imposed by our government, the European community and the World Bank, we have seen riots in Athens where a mother and unborn child and two other employees of Marfin/Egnatia Bank were murdered. Some of the protestors (the thug element) broke the windows, set the bank alight with Molotov cocktails and barred firemen from rescuing the people trapped inside despite their cries and pleas for help …. the four people suffocated to death. They were victims because the protestors laid the blame for their personal and national economic woes firmly with the banks (the Agents of the Capitalist World Order!) and Government.

I have sadness in my soul because last week a young man in Vrisses village (10 kms from where I live) hung himself at home because he couldn’t see the light at the end of the economic tunnel – he leaves a wife and kids to pick up the pieces. This week another man in Chania committed suicide for the same reasons …. and the austerity measures have not even gathered any momentum. – These are only the stories that have touched me personally, there must be many many more that I have not heard about at all.!

I see and smell fear and panic in My Country My People – many friends, colleagues and acquaintances – builders, architects, engineers, lawyers, estate agents, store owners etc have seen their business turnover slump by 50-70% without any prospect of improvement – how does one survive this sort of tragedy – with family to support, bonds, loans, credit cards to repay. Within a few months families are facing the prospect of becoming suddenly poor – from earning E2500 - E3000 to earning E500 – E600 or even zero – maybe stand in the queue for some dole money…


SO WHAT IS THIS BLOG ALL ABOUT?
This blog is about one simple Greek trying to make sense of all that is happening, and to try and forge a future for himself and his country based on his past experience, knowledge, and messages from our Spiritual and Guardian Angels – because I firmly believe in My Country My People and the Paradise that I now call home ….

This BLOG is a message of hope to my Country My People, that we, as individuals, and as a Nation, are invincible if we so choose, and that the future is what we make of it ourselves …. NOT what others try to impose on us …

My hope is that this BLOG becomes more than just a message of hope (ie my egotistical release of personal drivel), but also becomes a motivator for greatness, and even more importantly, becomes a catalyst for finding practical solutions for the present and the future ….. Therefore I appeal to anyone who has an idea, a plan, a job, that will help a fellow human being to look positively into the future with their heads held high, to use this blog to make a connection, to share ideas, and even make business, social, and other alliances to help each other to build a great and powerful Greek nation.


To press on …. my view that My Country is a Paradise on Earth is not purely my own blinkered patriotic spin story …. There are many (hundreds of thousands) of non- Greek people who have emigrated and now call Greece home – Germans, French English, Italians, Dutch, other Europeans, people from the Balkan states, African neighbours - ie people who have left their own land and heritage to make a life amongst the Greeks.

However, the Conspiracy Theory part of me also confirms this fact – that there are others out there who want to “OWN” (not share) this Paradise – (as have many in the past) ….. and my message to them is to beware because “Hell hath no fury like a Greek Scorned” …… and the Greeks have been scorned !!!!!!!!

We have just been “ceremoniously” bedecked with an Economic Albatross, an almost unbearable millstone whose objective at worst is to eliminate (crush) the Greek nation, and at best to humiliate and subjugate it and to steal our Paradise!!! It seems that our major European “friends and partners” (bosses?) were not prepared to resolve the Greek (subjects?) economic problems behind closed doors, quietly and with dignity, but with a public whipping to teach the Greeks a lesson, and to warn the other minor European partners (subjects?) what to expect if their turn came too!.

– Therefore the ceremony to hand us our Albatross lasted over a month – there was a media frenzy, lights, camera, action – the bull ring was set, all the media were present – TV, newspapers, reuters, bloomberg’s and the internet. The gamblers (the forex and bond dealers, the banks, the investment houses) were also there, they set up their stalls and the betting started.

The whole world came to watch the fight, (the result was a foregone conclusion anyway), but what the hell, it would be good to see the taunting, the humiliation, the blood and the gore! Even our European friends who have worse economic woes were in the grandstand to watch and oooh and aaah (and scribble down notes frantically to avoid the same fate). Only one offered a helping hand (a softer punch to the Greeks?), (Sarcozy?) … then again I don’t understand the dirty game of politics and power so I don’t know who is helping who and why!!!). The final sword stroke that would put us out of our misery was driven in jointly by our own partner (Matriarch) Merkel and the IMF. But this Bull refuses to lie down and die ….. it will surpass this injury and hand back the Albatross to whence it came’

At this point the old line “Beware Greeks bearing gifts” has been turned 180 degrees and now reads “Greeks, beware anyone bringing gifts” …. we had fallen into our own trap!!!!! The “gifts” of easy loans, grants, easy access to credit (eg personal loans, credit cards, leasing, hire purchase etc), lax risk assessment and credit control slowly but surely reeled the unwary and willing Greeks into this economic enslavement system and hence to the bullring for the whipping…..


In my next Chapter ... So who is to Blame???? How did we get into this position?