Greeks brace themselves for Referendum Day in the 'Neighbourhood of the Gods'
As Greeks go to the polls, Colin Freeman speaks to Athenians about their feelings for the future
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A woman gives the V signs to a No supporter with placards outside the Parliament in Syntagma Square Photo: D Legakis/Athena Picture Agency
6:00AM BST 05 Jul 2015
Nicknamed the "Neighbourhood of
the Gods" because of the nearby Acropolis, the Plaka district of
downtown Athens shows ancient and modern Greece alike.
Lining the streets to the 2,500 year old citadel are restaurants
selling moussaka, while down the side alleys are the villas of local
shipping magnates.
And
anxiously scanning their newspapers are crowds of local Greeks,
wondering quite they have done to offend Plaka's mythical residents.
Given that Sunday's referendum is ostensibly just about the terms
of Greece's EU bail-out deal, their fears that the cradle of European
civilisation is now about to face all-out turmoil might seem somewhat
melodramatic.
But nobody is under any illusions about the stakes: a No vote will not just pitch the country towards leaving the EU, but re-open the very kind of divisions that the EU was set up heal.
A man sits on a stool outside his shop in Plaka, Athens, Greece
"I will vote 'Yes', as I want us to stay in Europe," said Adania Economea, 42, the owner of the Verandah cafe in Plaka. "But it is terrible that this is separating us all into 'Yes' and 'No' camps.
"My 80-year-old mother has been telling me about the years of the civil war in Greece, which I can now imagine as she described. We are not at that stage yet, of course, but I fear things could get very difficult."
Greece's 1946-49 civil war, which claimed 150,000 lives, pitched government forces backed by Britain and America against communist insurgents backed by neighbouring Albania, Bulgaria and Yugoslavia. It is now mostly a distant memory, but as one of the first "Cold Wars", it set the tone for much of Greece's turbulent Left-Right politics, and goes some way to explaining why Greece is not quite the cheerful, sunny paradise that British tourists know and love.
Adania Economea, the owner of the Verandah cafe in Plaka
True, nobody expects the outcome of Sunday's vote to end in armed conflict, but there is still no shortage of dire predictions either way.
The "No" camp believe that a Yes vote will mean continued humiliation, and argue that a Grexit now - no matter how painful - will be at least mean long-term gain.
The "Yes" camp, meanwhile, believe a "No" will mean all-out disaster, allowing radicals in the ruling Syriza party to turn Greece into a European version of the Chavista regime in Venezuela, with which it already has close "solidarity" links. The already bloated public sector will get ever greater, the debts will remain, and ordinary, hardworking Greeks will remain unfairly stuck with the label of being feckless, lazy spendthrifts.
"We need to look at what quality of democracy we will end up with," said Kyriakos Mitsotakis, a senior MP in the centre-right New Democracy party. "Some people think Greece will end up as neo-Chavista, semi-authoritarian regime that will have more resemblance to Venezuela than a European country."
Admittedly, the "Neighbourhood of the Gods" was still attracting tourists on Saturday afternoon, for whom the sole inconvenience of the crisis so far has been long queues at ATMs thanks to the banks' freeze.
But while locals maintain a cheerful face for foreign holidaymakers - even German ones - there was no disguising the unease on the "Street of Pan", where Ms Economea has her cafe. Indeed, as the God of wild animals, Pan gives his name to the modern word "panic", which is a fair description of the mood across town.
Kimaratos Panagiotis
"People are waiting for war," said Kimaratos Panagiotis, a butcher chopping up lamb legs in the local meat market. "Business is double what it was, as the rumours are going around that we are going to run out of meat."
The rumour, he pointed out, was not true. Yet such are the jitters at the moment that there have been similar runs on all kinds of other goods, from petrol and tinned milk though to spaghetti and rice. Stores, meanwhile, are having difficulties importing supplies because of last week's closure of all banks. They are due to open again this week, but such is the uncertainty about exactly what will happen post-referendum that nobody is quite sure whether they will or not.
True, for some, the situation is already so lousy that they no longer care. "Since last week, the ATMs have stopped us withdrawing more than 60 euros a day, but these days I no longer earn that in a single day anyway," said Theodora Theodoropoulou, a teacher who, like most public servants, has had her pay cut by 40 per cent.
A euro equals swastika graffiti by an Alpha Bank cashpoint in Athens
"If we vote 'No' and then leave the Eurozone, at least we will have control of our own destiny again. I can't believe that some of those Greeks who have suffered just like I have are likely to be voting "Yes".
"They have just been listening to the propaganda in the media, which says we are going to becoming like Africa if we leave the Eurozone."
Lest anyone doubt the pain that Greeks have endured, Ms Theodoropoulou points to how often her daily Metro commute is now held up by people throwing themselves under trains. Suicides have gone up by around 35 per cent since the imposition of austerity measures in 2011.
But in the view of the "Yes" camp, voting 'No' will amount to a collective act of suicide in itself. "We are one step away from a decision that will drag Greece back by years," said George Chatziggianahis, a master’s student who attended the "Yes" rally in Athens on Friday night. "The people who think that a "No" vote will not lead to Greece getting kicked out of the Eurozone are believing in a false utopia. We will have mayhem."
That mayhem, he warns, might not just be economic. Sandwiched between the Balkans on one side and the Levant on the other, Greece finds itself in an increasingly tough neighbourhood, and can ill afford to fend for itself against the threat of militant Islam in Syria and illegal migration across the Mediterranean, for which it is now a major transit point. "The atmosphere here is one of anxiety and depression," Mr Chatziggianahis added. "Yet why? There is no reason for all this division."
An old house which now belongs to a shipping magnate opposite the ancient ruins of the Roman Market in Plaka district
Certainly, as the country that first gave the world democracy, Greeks might be expected to be uniformly eager about voting directly on their future. Instead, the atmosphere is reminisicent of the tensions in Scotland during its independence referendum, which likewise set family and friend apart. It may be something to do with the fact that on this occasion, Greeks know that whatever the outcome, they will have only each other to blame rather than their government.
By Monday, though, Greece's 11 million people will have had their say, from super-rich shipping tycoons through to men like Dennis Saki, who was begging for money on The Street of Pan on Saturday.
"I would vote 'Yes', because right now I can't even get a job mopping floors," he said. "All the cafe owners round here get their grandmothers to do the cleaning, because they can't afford staff. Greece is going down the hill, and look at me - I'm 54, and I'm begging."
end quote from:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/greece/11718604/Greeks-brace-themselves-for-Referendum-Day-in-the-Neighbourhood-of-the-Gods.html
"I will vote 'Yes', as I want us to stay in Europe," said Adania Economea, 42, the owner of the Verandah cafe in Plaka. "But it is terrible that this is separating us all into 'Yes' and 'No' camps.
"My 80-year-old mother has been telling me about the years of the civil war in Greece, which I can now imagine as she described. We are not at that stage yet, of course, but I fear things could get very difficult."
Greece's 1946-49 civil war, which claimed 150,000 lives, pitched government forces backed by Britain and America against communist insurgents backed by neighbouring Albania, Bulgaria and Yugoslavia. It is now mostly a distant memory, but as one of the first "Cold Wars", it set the tone for much of Greece's turbulent Left-Right politics, and goes some way to explaining why Greece is not quite the cheerful, sunny paradise that British tourists know and love.
Adania Economea, the owner of the Verandah cafe in Plaka
True, nobody expects the outcome of Sunday's vote to end in armed conflict, but there is still no shortage of dire predictions either way.
The "No" camp believe that a Yes vote will mean continued humiliation, and argue that a Grexit now - no matter how painful - will be at least mean long-term gain.
The "Yes" camp, meanwhile, believe a "No" will mean all-out disaster, allowing radicals in the ruling Syriza party to turn Greece into a European version of the Chavista regime in Venezuela, with which it already has close "solidarity" links. The already bloated public sector will get ever greater, the debts will remain, and ordinary, hardworking Greeks will remain unfairly stuck with the label of being feckless, lazy spendthrifts.
"We need to look at what quality of democracy we will end up with," said Kyriakos Mitsotakis, a senior MP in the centre-right New Democracy party. "Some people think Greece will end up as neo-Chavista, semi-authoritarian regime that will have more resemblance to Venezuela than a European country."
Admittedly, the "Neighbourhood of the Gods" was still attracting tourists on Saturday afternoon, for whom the sole inconvenience of the crisis so far has been long queues at ATMs thanks to the banks' freeze.
But while locals maintain a cheerful face for foreign holidaymakers - even German ones - there was no disguising the unease on the "Street of Pan", where Ms Economea has her cafe. Indeed, as the God of wild animals, Pan gives his name to the modern word "panic", which is a fair description of the mood across town.
Kimaratos Panagiotis
"People are waiting for war," said Kimaratos Panagiotis, a butcher chopping up lamb legs in the local meat market. "Business is double what it was, as the rumours are going around that we are going to run out of meat."
The rumour, he pointed out, was not true. Yet such are the jitters at the moment that there have been similar runs on all kinds of other goods, from petrol and tinned milk though to spaghetti and rice. Stores, meanwhile, are having difficulties importing supplies because of last week's closure of all banks. They are due to open again this week, but such is the uncertainty about exactly what will happen post-referendum that nobody is quite sure whether they will or not.
True, for some, the situation is already so lousy that they no longer care. "Since last week, the ATMs have stopped us withdrawing more than 60 euros a day, but these days I no longer earn that in a single day anyway," said Theodora Theodoropoulou, a teacher who, like most public servants, has had her pay cut by 40 per cent.
A euro equals swastika graffiti by an Alpha Bank cashpoint in Athens
"If we vote 'No' and then leave the Eurozone, at least we will have control of our own destiny again. I can't believe that some of those Greeks who have suffered just like I have are likely to be voting "Yes".
"They have just been listening to the propaganda in the media, which says we are going to becoming like Africa if we leave the Eurozone."
Lest anyone doubt the pain that Greeks have endured, Ms Theodoropoulou points to how often her daily Metro commute is now held up by people throwing themselves under trains. Suicides have gone up by around 35 per cent since the imposition of austerity measures in 2011.
But in the view of the "Yes" camp, voting 'No' will amount to a collective act of suicide in itself. "We are one step away from a decision that will drag Greece back by years," said George Chatziggianahis, a master’s student who attended the "Yes" rally in Athens on Friday night. "The people who think that a "No" vote will not lead to Greece getting kicked out of the Eurozone are believing in a false utopia. We will have mayhem."
That mayhem, he warns, might not just be economic. Sandwiched between the Balkans on one side and the Levant on the other, Greece finds itself in an increasingly tough neighbourhood, and can ill afford to fend for itself against the threat of militant Islam in Syria and illegal migration across the Mediterranean, for which it is now a major transit point. "The atmosphere here is one of anxiety and depression," Mr Chatziggianahis added. "Yet why? There is no reason for all this division."
An old house which now belongs to a shipping magnate opposite the ancient ruins of the Roman Market in Plaka district
Certainly, as the country that first gave the world democracy, Greeks might be expected to be uniformly eager about voting directly on their future. Instead, the atmosphere is reminisicent of the tensions in Scotland during its independence referendum, which likewise set family and friend apart. It may be something to do with the fact that on this occasion, Greeks know that whatever the outcome, they will have only each other to blame rather than their government.
By Monday, though, Greece's 11 million people will have had their say, from super-rich shipping tycoons through to men like Dennis Saki, who was begging for money on The Street of Pan on Saturday.
"I would vote 'Yes', because right now I can't even get a job mopping floors," he said. "All the cafe owners round here get their grandmothers to do the cleaning, because they can't afford staff. Greece is going down the hill, and look at me - I'm 54, and I'm begging."
end quote from:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/greece/11718604/Greeks-brace-themselves-for-Referendum-Day-in-the-Neighbourhood-of-the-Gods.html
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