It’s March in Attica. The air is warm and the sea is calm as I look out over the water to the mainland. At nine-thirty the cafe is already redolent with the musky smells of a kiosk’s back shelf and strong coffee. The voices are already loud, forceful and in full flow.
Pallid faces with doleful eyes cough up a half century of tar and swallow it again. On one side of the room a huddle of black haired men pour over the next games in England’s Championship division, debating who to place their money on. The TV is showing a stream of the latest clashes between migrants on the northern borders, and boat loads discarding their life jackets on southern beaches.
A scornful nod towards the glowing box in the corner turns everyone’s attention to the latest images. Contemplative silence erupts. Breaths are collectively forced through nostrils before Yiannis stands, his animated gestures punctuating a steady stream of exasperation. The same conversation as yesterday morning, and the morning before follows.
With work scarce, the men of the island congregate in their masses in the coffee shops that line the harbour to stave off boredom. Ten, fifteen years ago, even at this time of the year, the streets would be trundled by tourists looking to escape the painful grey skies of entrenched winter. Now one boat may turn up a week, and only if the seas are too rough for tours to reach Greece’s better known beauty spots.
On the island of Poros there’s a shared malaise that’s evident even in the way its inhabitants ride their scooters down town. With sunshine beaming on their faces, sunglasses hide their despondency, but their hunched backs and limp waves do nothing to hide a rife sense of defeat.
————————————
Greece’s economic struggles aren’t recent news, the country has been in the throes of collapse for over a decade now. A turpentine concoction of internal corruption and external predation saw the country’s economy plummet catastrophically. Continual, aggressive austerity has only further poisoned the blood stream.
Eerily reminiscent of the wartime power vacuum created by the failings of King George II, this has seen a rise in both the far right and far left. The Golden Dawn party’s support, converse to the general opinion, grew in the elections of September 2015, accruing 379,581 votes and cementing 18 seats out of 300 in Hellenic Parliament. As of 2014 there were also 3 representatives of the party on the European council.
Likewise, the left wing populists Syriza surprised most of the world by ousting The New Democracy in the elections of 2015. Yet more astounding was their reelection after Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras’ resignation later that year, seen globally as a farcical demonstration of Greece’s political ineptitude.
From the outside this could be a story lifted from the pages of The Decameron, though the overarching story, much like that of Boccaccio’s tome, is riddled with a disease that has rotted the country at the core.
—————————————
The ever-echoed phrase comparing tax avoidance to a national sport isn’t as far from the mark as one might hope it would be. Here on the island everything’s paid in cash for fear that the banks will steal the little they have. It’s this practice that has certainly done Greece no favours as far as the eyes watching it are concerned. Nor, indeed, has it helped their own economy.
Blame, as with most things in Greece, traces its way back to the Ottoman occupation. During this time tax avoidance was seen as two fingers to the establishment, who were levying weighty taxes against the Christians. By crushing those who didn’t conform, and showing tolerance to those who paid tribute, the sultanate cultivated a cyclonic climate of bribery. The provincial governors had to pay through the nose to maintain peace, and in turn milked the citizens of all they could.
This is a practice that has found itself intertwined in the circadian rhythm of Greek socio-economics, and bribery, the reaping of Greece’s resources and the sale of its government has been going on for as long as modern Greece has existed.
Though little is done about it.
A couple of years ago Akis Tsochatzopoulos, who oversaw Greece’s largest ever defence procurement, was sentenced to 20 years in jail. Found guilty of laundering money though off-shore businesses, Akis was found to have been bribed €50 million to contract the purchase of Russian missiles and German submarines. The submarines themselves were never finished, and, as a consequence, Greece sought legal action against ThyssenKrupp Marine Systems for compromising their position within Nato and the failure to supply the final product.
Stories like this definitively prove to be the exception rather than the rule, and of the 2,000 or so alleged Greek tax evaders brought to light by the Lagarde List, only a handful have ever been chased up, with even less facing legal repercussions.
Though to see Greece – to watch its people – you’d be hard pressed to think of it as a country truly flailing. Glyfada is teeming with life on any given week night. Athens is still a rank pit, centrifugally spewing life out from the Parthenon. The waters of the Aegean are still home to some of the most resplendent fleets owned by the billionaires of the world.
Yet Greek boats themselves are registered in far flung places like Panama to avoid taxes. Mega yachts worth millions of pounds, ferrying tracksuit wearing, moustachioed, middle aged men and young brunettes display a cheaply bought flag of a distant nation like some kind of pedantic joke.
When the Greek who runs a kiosk sees this ship pass by through the tiny gap in their stifling cupboard, the question that’s asked is, “why should I be the one to pay?” To which the foreign tax payer will undoubtedly respond, “you don’t have to be as bad as them!”
This, however, belies the fact that importune tax evasion is a malignant issue endemic to Greece, one that has a track record spanning centuries, and a solution that would require tumultuous economic and political reform, unilaterally implemented across all 226 of its inhabited islands.
Of course, there are those who want to be part of the solution rather then the problem. But, rather cruelly, business owners who will fill in accurate tax returns can often find themselves being discredited and fined. In many cases the tax official will claim that they’ve lied on their return, leading to many Greeks drastically underestimating their incomes to account for this eventuality.
Anger and distrust are at their most vehement when it comes the tax man himself. To believe in him is to surrender yourself to the wan faced, gluttonous mouth of corruption itself, and the hope is that he’s already engorged his liver on someone else’s earnings.
——————————————
Further stoking the fires of the malcontent is a sense of distrust for everything un-Greek. The Hellenic people are a proud race who see themselves as victims of predacious external influence. Their position as a gateway between Europe and the Middle East has deemed their land and their seas to be of important strategic value, and has been hotly contested.
The British recognised this in the 1800’s when they supported Greece’s War of Independence from the Ottoman Empire, and subsequently during both World Wars. The Germans, too, recognised the value of occupying Greece. This is no more evident than in the sanctioning of Unternehmen Merkur, the largest airborne attack in military history, which sought control of Crete in 1941, and their occupation lasted until the end of the war in May 1945.
It’s hard not to see parallels between German wartime occupation and the current position Greece is in with the Troika. There’s not one Greek who wouldn’t compare the current pillaging of their country to what was committed under the Third Reich. They’ve, they say, just replaced the flag and their methods; the purpose is the same.
During the time of the Axis occupation, Britain enforced a blockade on Greece to ensure that no resources could find themselves in the hands of their occupiers. This, along with the Third Reich’s denial of responsibility to feed the citizens of the nations it occupied, and desire to bleed the country of all its resources, eventually lead to the Great Famine. Far from the public eye, this was the most significant European famine in terms of mortality in recent history, and lead to the starvation of at least 300,000 Greeks (~ 4% of the total population).
Farmers would have their cattle slaughtered, milk pilfered and crops stolen to feed the occupying forces. Fishermen’s boats were confiscated and the wheat supplied by neutral nations was claimed to be German wheat, taken instead to feed the Nazi army. The situation was so dire that the bodies of deceased relatives were thrown into the streets rather than be sent for official burial, for fear that their bread cards would be invalidated. Buried in their hundreds in mass graves, whole families were extinguished whilst the Axis powers fuelled their soldiers’ plundering of resources and execution of Greek Jews.
With bellies full, the Reich’s rapaciousness was practically ceaseless for the duration of the war. The puppet government instilled in Greece had its arm twisted into paying for the cost of the occupation and, in turn, inflation rocketed. Basics such as eggs cost 75 cents each, butter $18 and bread $4 a pound. Expensive when you have money, inconceivable when you don’t.
Meanwhile, German money stayed firmly put in its banks whilst the country profited off of Greek resources, leading to huge imbalances in the Greek National Bank. Unwilling to let Greece completely default, the Germans forced their ‘collaboration’ government to treat these imbalances as interest-free loans of 476 million Reichsmarks, which should be repaid after the war.
As peacetime finally came to the shores of the Aegean, the country was a desiccated husk, strung out and drying in the sun. Somewhere between 7-11% of the population was dead – a percentage only topped by Poland and Yugoslavia in Europe – ninety percent of its ports, railways and roads were now shards of stone and mangled steel, its industry almost completely totalled and at least a quarter of its forests and natural resources AWOL.
In post-war reparations the Germans paid 115 million Marks.
Arguments have been made throughout the years that a great deal more is owed, but the supposed ‘down payment’ of the above is said to be the total that Greece were to accept. This is, of course, according to the Germans, who have since signed an agreement with the Allied countries declaring that all matters concerning the Second World War are now closed.
Eyebrows should be raised.
If you speak to the average Greek about the Parthenon Marbles, the majority demand that they’re returned. It’s their history and culture that was stoled by the British. Speak to them about war reparations and you’re greeted by that wholly Greek rhetoric of admonishment. You’re told to listen, sit. You’re looked firmly in the eye and explained all of the above in heavily weighted words and dejected shakes of the head. You’re asked if you understand, and then you’re told that those bastards will never pay.
Then you’re told how the German’s are just the same now. How the European Union has been developed by Germany in order to cement its position of power globally, and develop its industry. How falsified accounts were submitted and the Germans have been complicit in the Greek financial collapse from the beginning. The argument, as with most of Greek culture, is attractive, emotive and dramatic.
Myth and mysticism still underpin the Greek conscious. Orthodox Christianity still holds a venerated chamber in the hearts of its people, who will slow their cars and cross themselves three times every time they pass a church. The presence of the old gods is still felt in the ruins of temples which dot the countryside, and the achievements of the ancients are still extolled as the gift the Hellenic Republic gave the world.
Such marvels of humanity can’t be ignored and, frankly, ought not to be. But this becomes troubling when the shadow of the past eclipses the present. The dewey eyes with which the Greeks will still proclaim ownership of the invention of democracy are compounded with the tears they shed when they look at the current state of things.
—————————————
It’s eleven thirty now and the cafe’s air is thick with smoke. A couple of the older gentlemen have wandered off to be replaced by a couple more. The clack of worry beads breaks the silence as the men watch the shimmering water hum.
Another mournful nod towards the television and Yiannis is up on his feet again resubmitting his statements from earlier, elucidated now by normalised levels of caffeine and nicotine.
He explains how he has no money, no work. There are no prospects for him or his family. The schools are failing; education is getting worse and limiting the prospects for his children. Seething Germans are still squeezing what they can from the economy, the government is run by a make shift troop of cronies and the hospitals are haemorrhaging doctors.
His open palms are flat out, his bottom lip jutting, imploring a solution from today’s congregation:
“We can’t look after ourselves, and now they expect us to look after them!? Who do they think we are here?!”
With words punctuated like the clack of a stenographer’s typewriter, he laments the European Union once more (their plan to shut the whole corridor out of Greece is now in full effect). Migrants seeking a life in the northern states are currently interned in Greece, finding shelter under disused lorries, in port terminals, make shift camps, beneath the stars. Wherever they can.
“They’re dying here and destroying our country. Why do they [the EU] want us to suffer? Why do they want to destroy us? Because our country is too beautiful? We’ve had enough problems with them [the Muslims] in the past, we don’t need them here again!
“If we can’t get rid of them now, we need to find a way to stop them coming in the first place. But what do we do? We can’t put fences around the islands – we can’t patrol the whole sea.”
“So,” he starts. He has the air about him of someone who’s reluctant to say what he feels he must. Worried how opinions of him might sway.
“…we need to start shooting them in the boats.”
Nikos laughs into his hands whilst Yiannis’ eyes scan the cafe for recognition.
A voice keen on kicking the nest slaps the air,
“Who’s going to shoot them?”
His reply is frank.
“The soldiers.”
“You’re going to tell the soldiers to go out there and shoot boat loads of men, women and children?”
“If they’re told to do it, it’s their job.”
His head shakes affirmatively, his eyes are wide open.
“You’d send your son to go and kill them? Your boy to take the lives of these innocent people? Why don’t you go and do it?”
To which, declaratively, he can only reply, “why me?”
And silence falls. All eyes are on the stream of migrants filing out of boats into the port of Piraeus.
He sits back down, coughs up the tar excited by his speech, takes a sip of water and swallows it again, lighting another cigarette.
Greek rhetoric is one of denial, complaint, refusal and, finally, submission. A mourning for the lack of power they have over their destinies.
The prevailing emotion is that, no matter what you do, things won’t change. The modern world is a different place, a far cry from the revolutionary, progressive times of the past. Things have become too systemised, controlling nations too strong, too rich and too domineering for there to be a change.
The enduring, surmounting words fall from the lip without a second thought are, “Γιατί εγώ;”.
And so the Cycladian cycle continues.