Austerity storm clouds darken Greek government's future

After months of official government announcements and newspaper headlines, Greece's latest austerity programme has been made public with anger and disbelief coming from all corners, including the country's usually supine media. The news that salaries,pensions, disability benefits and aid to the unemployed will be included in the the 11.9 billion euro package of cuts is likely to spark off a yet more protests as will the likely 40,000 state sector lay offs .

Police officers were the first to react with demonstrations in Athens after the government said that their wages and bonuses would not be exempt from the budget measures being demanded by creditors in return for another cash injection. The Greek language blogosphere was alive with angry responses from police related blogs angry that pre-election promises had not been kept and promising a series of protests over the decision.

The first hurdle facing Greece's fragile three party coalition government is how to persuade their restive backbenchers to voter for measures their supporters violently disagree with. On the one hand many rank and file MPs from New Democracy, PASOK and Democratic Left have said they are opposed but how much of this is principled protest and how much is just a PR ploy designed to keep voters back home sweet is hard to say. During the last two round of cuts much was made of potential backbench revolt which eventually failed to materialise.




The $64,000 question is how such cuts, if they are passed will be enforced without the support of the police. With resentment against yet more austerity rising after a summer lull, police officers are being used ever more frequently to end protests and labour disputes. If they decide that this is not their public function, as one police leader intimated last night during an interview on MEGA TV then what other means of persuasion does the government have? Even the feared quasi - military MAT riot units cannot be everywhere.

The first test of Greek prime minister Samaras's ability to impose his will on a recalcitrant nation will come in September with the opening of the Thessaloniki International Trade Fair which traditionally marks the start of the new political year. The presence of the prime minister and much of the government is also a signal every year for massive protests and last year's event proved no exception with football fans, taxi drivers and anarchists fighting pitched battles with 8000 police officers outside the fair,

Samaras has already announced that this year's attendance at the fair will be a brief one and will not include the traditional state of the nation address which coincides with the most intense of protests. However, even if the Trade Fair passes off without major incident Greece's political calender will provide plenty more opportunities for police and protesters to make their respective stances known

This is one civil servant who does not have to worry about losing their job in the next round of Greek public spending cuts

Kalo Xeimona - Have a good winter, a photo by Teacher Dude's BBQ on Flickr.

Despite crisis good times still roll for Greek MPs

Antonis Samaras is currently doing the rounds in Europe, attempting to persuade fellow EU leaders that Greece needs two more years to fulfil the obligations required to receive the country's next installment of cash to avoid bankruptcy. Samaras has even personally guaranteed that Germany will be repaid in full, though how intends to do this is another matter, unless there is a secret coda in Steve Job's will that no one has been aware of till now.

On the other hand The PM's attempt to prove the Greece has changed and become a more fiscally responsible country have been undermined by even high ranking members of his own government, who upon being elected to parliament seemingly appointed to state jobs just about every member of their extended family not in jail or the grave. Case in point being New Democracy heavy weight, Vyron Polydoras, who secured a government job for his daughter after Greece's first national elections in May. Polydoras was also involved in a scandal during the Karamanlis administration after he used his position as minister for public order to have them transferred to his own offices.

However, this misuse of parliamentary privilege is not limited to New Democracy as such moves have been made PASOK, Independent Greeks and Golden Dawn MPs, with a total of 150 extra employees being added to the public payroll at a cost of nearly 3,000,000 euros annually.

At first sight such nepotism and pork barrel politics would seem to give fodder to Greece's foes in Europe who argue that Athens refuses top take reforms of its bloated state sector seriously. However, such accusations ignore the fact that these abuses are the preserve of the those at the top of Greece's deeply corrupt political system. For ordinary Greeks, the cuts in spending are very real indeed. A telling example is that while 187,000 people registered as jobless receive unemployment benefit (usually less than 400 euros a month), 734,000 do not. Hardly evidence of profligate welfare spending and for those who remain unemployed for more than 12 months there is little in the way of financial assistance form the State.


The irony of the situation is that during Greece's deeply divisive dual elections in summer much of the European political leadership and the financial establishment across the world exerted as much influence as it could muster to shore up support for New Democracy and Antonis Samaras, and in doing so helped maintain the corrupt political empires that helped Greece get so deeply into debt in the first place. 

SK Rapid Wien supporter calms down fans during face off with Greek riot police

SK Rapid Wien supporter calms down fans during face off with Greek riot police, a photo by Teacher Dude's BBQ on Flickr.

Summer in the city - Thessaloniki

Summer in the city - Thessaloniki, a photo by Teacher Dude's BBQ on Flickr.

As crisis deepens Greece's rulers take racism into the mainstream

With August coming to an end and the temperatures dropping from the low 40s C to low 30s C The northern port city of Thessaloniki shakes off of its summer lethargy as people come back from their annual holidays and the town readies itself for the return of its large student population. However, amidst the renewed hustle and bustle some things haven't changed. Many of the businesses in the centre remain shuttered, their store fronts decorated with graffiti and For Rent signs, the cafes while now busier are far fewer in number and the restaurants mostly remain empty except on the weekend. The only new business is a chain of fast food outlets that does a roaring trade in in 70 cent hot dogs and cheap iced coffees.

On the other hand whether it be in the supermarket lines or in the streets the talk is about how everyone will pay the latest round of bills. The guy pumping petrol complains about the cost of road tax whilst the woman behind me in line frets about how she'll make it through the winter if the government decides to raise the cost of heating oil by 40% as promised. 

And these are the lucky ones. The ones who still have a job and some source of income. For those who were already at the bottom of the pile before the crisis took hold the situation is now dire. No  large supermarket is complete without a gaggle of beggars waiting outside its entrance. The sight of old people and young kids rummaging through waste bins for food or stuff to recycle no longer turns heads, or even draws a comment.

For Greece's most vulnerable the country is rapidly becoming an endless nightmare, not only because of lack of jobs or money but because they are being scapegoated by politicians in power along with their allies in the national media. For immigrants the situation is worst of all. While the foreign media have focused on the open racist rhetoric of the Neo-Nazi Golden Dawn party (which won 7% of the vote in the last national elections) the campaign against non-Greeks is not limited to the party's shaven headed black t-shirted thugs.

With the start of the Xenios Zeus police operation Athens has been using mass round ups of anyone with a dark skin in central Athens to prove that it is tough on undocumented migrants despite condemnation by Amnesty International. With the Samaras government unable to halt economic contraction and faced with a humiliating fait accompli from Berlin, Greece's failing political system is looking for a way out. In this they have found willing allies in the country's ailing mainstream media, owned to large extent by oligarchs determined to make sure that the country remains in the Eurozone, whatever the social cost.

A typical example of the manner in which immigrants are portrayed in Greek news can be seen in the recent case of a 15 year old girl who was beaten and left unconscious after an attack on the Greek island of Paros. With the police under pressure to produce results they arrested a Pakistani hotel employee, who according to official reports confessed to the crime. The fact that he was not allowed access to a lawyer during his time in custody on Paros seems to be considered a minor detail. Later police said that his DNA had been linked to the crime scene. At this point both TV and newspapers decided that trials and verdicts were irrelevant in such a case and talked of "a beast in human form" and "monsters among us".

Such language and tactics draw unfavourable comparisons with the propaganda attempts of the Nazi's in the mid 1930s and are being increasingly used by "respectable" mainstream reporters and politicians who routinely attribute rising crime rates and economic decline to the presence of immigrants.

In a climate where the nightly news bulletins are full of stories blaming the country's growing lawlessness on ruthless foreigners, it is hardly surprising that attacks on immigrants are on the rise, increasing not just in number but also ferocity. 

To make the situation even more intolerable, immigrants have every reason to believe that the police is not a neutral player in this increasingly violent game. During the recent elections some studies suggested the in Athens alone nearly 50% of police offers cast a vote for Golden Dawn, while Indymedia Athens and alternative news sources are full of police either turning a blind eye to racist violence or even abusing foreigners themselves.

The reality is the racism in Greece has, along with poverty become part of the respectable mainstream, simply another tool to be used by an deeply unpopular political elite eager to win back support from an electorate worn down by four years of economic collapse and terrified that everything that worked so hard to achieve over the previous decades will be taken away from them.

The ECB report 2009-2012 (now in cartoon form)

The ECB report 2009-1012 (now in cartoon form), a photo by Teacher Dude's BBQ on Flickr.

Greece on the move as crisis bites deeper.

While for many outside the country, the main symptoms of the current economic crisis are the soup kitchens in central Athens, or perhaps the violent confrontations that light up TV screens from time to time,but there is another quieter, yet just as significant trend sweeping Greece. Thousands upon thousands of Greeks are on the move, leaving the larger cities for the countryside or smaller provincial towns or abandoning the country to try their luck abroad. As with so many other economic and social upheavals the current one has forced people to up sticks and try their luck elsewhere. However, this time there are no endless trails of refugees marching along dusty roads, or convoys of dispossessed Okies with their belonging strapped to the top of a car. Instead it's the steady rhythm of friends, neighbours and colleagues gradually slipping away.

There are no firm figures for the numbers involved and those official statistics that do surface in the media often contradict themselves, nevertheless the truth is that something is changing and I see it with my own eyes every day. In every apartment block in every street no entrance hall is complete without a handful of For Rent or For Sale signs, apartments I pass by on my way to work lay empty for months on end, even though the removal vans seem to be doing a roaring trade.

On a more personal level, many of my friends and acquaintances have left the city. Thomas, who's now in Germany, trying to start a new life, Anne and Makis who have decided to go back to Makis's home town of Alexandroupolis, Panos who is off to Crete to try his hand at farming after losing his job in the latest round of job cuts, and so the list goes on.

And most importantly for me, my own 12 year old daughter, who is now living in central Greece, after her mother's business finally succumb to the crisis., so obliging her to move back to be closer to the her own family and the support they can offer. So instead of being a weekend dad, I've become a fortnightly one, as every two weeks I catch a train to Larissa, and then a coach and then a lift to see her in her new home.

I do not harbour any bitterness to my ex for her decision, she tried everything to find work in Thessaloniki and when that didn't work out she was left with no real choice. Given such unpalatable options, you do what you can to survive.

This weekend though, my daughter is staying with me, or to be more accurate she's staying over at a series of friends, catching up on lost gossip and news from the classmates she left behind. Even then, the story is the same. One has left for England, another is going with her family to Australia, another's family is contemplating moving back to Albania if things do not improve in the near future.

Ironically, my financial situation has stabilised and unlike the last few summers, paying the rent and bills is not something that wakes me up at 4am in a cold sweat. I've even been in the enviable situation of turning down jobs (don't worry, I passed them on to friends in need) in order to take a couple of weeks off but this is something I usually keep to myself as complaining about work when so many around you are desperate for any kind of job seems the height of bad taste.

Those left behind hang on, hoping that things will change soon or praying that their job won't be the next in line. All the while the new government at the behest of Greece's creditors carve yet more slices off the public sector and chase after an ever dwindling tax base. This week it's the turn of higher education as Athens desperately seeks to find another 11.5 billion euros worth of spending cuts and so has announced the closure of at least 30% of the university and polytechnic department, effective immediately.

On the other hand it feels at times like being on a raft in the middle of a storm and all you can do is cling on as tightly as possible and focus on the few inches in front of your face, you do not have the energy to imagine what will happen next so all you do is focus on the immediately around you and forget the rest.

Summer in the city

Summer in the city, a photo by Teacher Dude's BBQ on Flickr.

Alice in Wedding Land

Alice in Wedding Land, a photo by Teacher Dude's BBQ on Flickr.

Pictures from the past

Welcome to Austerity - Our kind of town

Welcome to Austerity - Our kind of town, a photo by Teacher Dude's BBQ on Flickr.

They make a desert and call it salvation.

HSBC - Never underestimate the importance of local knowledge

HSBC - Never underestimate the importance of local knowledge, a photo by Teacher Dude's BBQ on Flickr.

HSBC - Blood money

HSBC - Blood money, a photo by Teacher Dude's BBQ on Flickr.

A Diane Arbus moment

A Diane Arbus moment, a photo by Teacher Dude's BBQ on Flickr.

Fire fighting aircraft getting ready to drop sea water on a forest fire near Thessaloniki, Greece

Fire fighting aircraft getting ready to drop sea water on a forest fire near Thessaloniki, Greece, a photo by Teacher Dude's BBQ on Flickr.

G4S is a subsidiary of the FUBAR Group PLC

G4S is a subsidiary of the FUBAR Group PLC, a photo by Teacher Dude's BBQ on Flickr.

A funny thing happened on the way to the market. Or how I found myself covering a forest fire on my day off.

Fire fighting aircraft dropping sea water on a forest fire near Thessaloniki, Greece, a photo by Teacher Dude's BBQ on Flickr.

Yesterday proved once again that cameras are like credit cards and we should never leave home without them. My original plan was to go into the centre, find a cafe with wifi and catch up with things on the internet and then do some shopping. As it turned out I found myself walking for miles in 40C along a dirt track in search of a forest fire.

 But I get ahead of myself, while tweeting I saw that my friend, Asteris was in the centre as well and went off to catch up on his news and find out how he's spent his time at the Global Voices conference in Nairobi. Later, more friends happened upon us (Thessaloniki is that kind of town, despite having a population of over one million inhabitants).

 In the midst of catching up and discussing what we planned to do for our summer holidays,I noticed a couple of Canadair fire fighting planes circling over the city. Usually, that means there are off to fight forest fire in the north of Greece but on the off chance that something was happening closer to home I asked Asteris (i think he's never offline, even in his sleep) to check out Twitter and as I'd guessed there was a fire raging on the outskirts of the city in the Seix Sou woods.

Quickly grabbing my helmet and my bag I made my way to the site but couldn't get very close ad all the access roads had been closed by the authorities. Instead I ended up parking a mile or so away and trekking towards the smoke. Once again luck was on my side an professional photojournalist was also heading in the same direction and offered me a lift. Also she knew from her job many of the fire fighters on duty so there was no problem about me being stopped or turned away and so I was able to take photographs just a few metres from where the planes and helicopter were dropping seawater on the fire.

The only problem was that my bike was at least a 50 minute hike away and the temperature was still in the high thirties but it was worth it and exhausted, red faced and foot sore I ended another Saturday nobody could have predicted.

How to photograph riots.

With clashes in Spain and especially in Madrid growing in intensity I thought I'd post a few pointers to those photographers who want to cover riots and other such turbulent events. Since 2005 I have recorded, dozens of violent confrontations here in Greece and I hope that these pointers will help keep you safe.

1-NEVER FORGET WHAT'S HAPPENING AROUND YOU. It is easy in the heat of the moment to focus only on what the viewfinder sees and miss dangers around you. Take time out to check on what is happening in your immediate vacinity.

2 - DO NOT TRUST THE POLICE. They are often as dangerous as rocks and bottles thrown. With police officers being called upon to impose unpopular economic and social measures in Europe they are no longer neutral players imposing law and order. Also there is a growing awareness among the authorities that the internet and especially photographs and video are exposing police excesses. This means that you can also become a target if you record such actions. Always be ready to flee if necessary.

3 - WEAR PROTECTIVE GEAR. Helmet, some kind of mask and goggles. This will provide a measure of protection against tear gas and other dangers. But remember such gear also makes you a target for the police as it is also worn sometimes by the most hardcore demonstrators.

4 - NO SHOT IS WORTH BEING HOSPITALISED FOR. Don't take unnecessary risks as an injured photographer is not going to be much use to anyone. There will always be other opportunities.

5 - DON'T ARGUE. If challenged by protesters about taking photos put your camera down and walk away. Riots are highly charged events and not a debating club. If challenged by the police, stand your ground if you can see other photographers/camera operators nearby. Otherwise, run as quickly as possible if you have the chance.

6 - KNOW YOUR GEOGRAPHY. If possible get to know the layout of the area you're photographing as well as possible and that means not just via a map but by walking through it repeatedly.  Always have a choice of exit routes if things get out of control.

7 - TALK TO PEOPLE. Let them know who you are and why you are there.This lessens their suspicions that you're working for the authorities. Touch bases, Chat to people you know at the event and they will pass the word on about who you are. This invisible network has saved my hide on many an occasion.

8 - CHECK SETTINGS BEFORE TROUBLE KICKS OFF NOT DURING IT. The middle of riot is no place to be fiddling with buttons and dials and the like. If the worst comes to the worst, put your camera on Automatic. However, always remember where the sunlight light is coming from.

9 - ALWAYS CARRY SPARE MEMORY CARDS with a few pics of area. If you think you're going to be stopped by police, swap out the card in the camera for a spare and then hide it.


10 - BE RESPONSIBLE when posting pictures afterwards. Don't put in peril the people you were photographing. This is a difficult area to give guidelines about but generally speaking you should not be posting photographs that could be used to convict people. Otherwise you are turning yourself and other photographers into targets in future demonstrations.

All Quiet On The Summer Front

Not much happening on the photography or politics front so I haven't been updating the blog or my Flickr page lately. It's the way it goes, often after a period of intense activity I feel the need to just take time off and relax. Much to my surprise my lessons have continued even into July which means that this summer is the first time in years when the summer has not been accompanied by stomach churning worries over money and bills.

Hard to describe the relief that comes with knowing ahead of time that you'll have enough to meet all your obligations for the coming months. Beyond that time frame I just don't plan or think, as so much in Greece has become utterly unpredictable that making such long term plans is an invitation to unwanted fear and anxiety over events you cannot control.

Instead I'm taking this time to buy things I need for the home that I've put on the back burner in light of more urgent demands. Nothing fancy, things like new plates and cups, a few new lamps to replace the battered ones I have. Suddenly, buying things is not something I do with half a heart, wondering if this month I'll be able to pay the power bill as well.

However, when you've lived under such constant pressure, the fear doesn't melt away overnight. The thought that my current spite of good luck is just a temporary respite is always there at the back off your mind, like a getaway car, keys in the ignition, engine running.

Such feeling are reinforced when you see more and more of your friends lose their jobs, or pack their bags in order to leave the country or the city in search of work. In such a situation you have a sense of guilt that you're doing OK whilst those who are equally deserving of such good fortune are being forced to leave.

After the Fall

After the Fall, a photo by Teacher Dude's BBQ on Flickr.