Let's vote.

In a parallel universe, when we were given the memorandum five years ago, the Greek people were asked by our government what we should do. All aspects of it were thoroughly discussed. By the time we had to cast our vote, every citizen knew of the risks of voting for a YES we sign or a NO we’d rather not. 

In that parallel universe, people thought long and hard. They wondered, how is it possible to ever get out of debt by borrowing more money? How is growth possible, when salaries and pensions are cut? What if we sign this agreement now and then the troika comes back with more severe demands? What will happen when the taxes keep rising, the prices of houses keep falling and in the end it will all be sold off for a quarter of its value, just to pay for those taxes? 

In that parallel universe we were worried about the pensioners even if we were not pensioners ourselves, we were worried about the teachers and the nurses and the cleaners and we protested along with them, because they were treated unfairly, even though at the time we weren’t doing so bad ourselves. We studied what had happened in other countries with similar problems. We started to suspect there was a bigger plan in place. We were to be boiled like frogs. Slowly, so by the time we realized it, it would be too late to react, we would have given away all of our freedoms.

But as I said, in that parallel universe we held a referendum. And because we weren’t just thinking for ourselves, but of our neighbour’s children and also of our grandparents who fought and suffered for us to live in a democracy, we voted NO. We did suffer, it was a very difficult time for all of us, but five years on and the worst is over. There is hope of growth in the horizon, we can just about start making out somewhere in the distance the end of the tunnel. And it looks like we might actually be alive to see it. 

In this universe where no one ever asks us anything, this opportunity has finally come. We are being asked to vote in a referendum about the long term future of our country. 

And even if it is five years late, it’s not too late.  

25 January, 2015

It’s been a week since the new government was elected and I am still having some difficulty putting my thoughts and feelings in order, much less in writing. This is the best that I can do for the time being:

Before the elections I felt scared. I knew that Syriza, for the first time in history, would get the majority vote of the Greek people. Syriza is the only party I have ever voted for, not because I am a κομματόσκυλο (literally “partydog”) but because in the past the most I could hope, for was for them to have as strong a presence in Parliament as possible, so that they could act as the moral opposition to what I perceived as unjust laws that were being passed by the previous governments. Also, I’m a leftie.

This time, however, was different because of the responsibility of voting for what would become the ruling party. I would be held responsible if they didn’t keep their promises, if they turned out to be corrupt, if they didn’t know what to do once they were in power (which was the public’s prevailing opinion until recently).

When Alexis Tsipras gave his first speech on the night of the elections, I cringed. At first it was his body language that brought back memories of Andreas Papandreou speaking to the masses in the 80s, not an association any of us wanted to make. This was made worse by his reference to symbols like the “sun”, which brought on more unwelcome associations: the logo of the PASOK party, its hollow rhetoric.

I went to bed weary and in the morning, as I read the news about the Syriza – Independent Greeks coalition, I felt even worse.

Then they swore in and as I was eager to see who is who, I read the CVs of all those who were given a position in the new government. I was impressed. They immediately started announcing the changes that would be made. Children born and raised in Greece by foreign parents would be given citizenship. The bars that had been raised outside the Parliament ever since the first riots almost five years ago, were removed. The hideously expensive cars driven by former politicians would be sold off. The privatizations of the Greek power company and Piraeus harbor were halted. And to top it off, Economics Minister Varoufakis refused to negotiate with the troika.

I should have been counting how many times my eyes have watered in the past week. I find myself renewing webpages like a news junkie. I want to know what the government is saying, what they are doing, who they are seeing. I had never, ever in my whole life, been interested in what politicians do. Syriza has made an informed citizen out of me and I’m not the only one. There is a whole disinterested, politician-hating generation out there that is being reformed.  

I don’t know how things will turn out. Life might get harder before the mess we’re in starts getting untangled. But I feel alive again. I don’t feel despair. I don’t feel ashamed, powerless, helpless. Like I don’t matter.

What the hell. I’ll go on and say it. For the first time in my life, I feel proud of my people.

And you don't get what you need, either.

“Life is a constant struggle”, my grandfather told me when I was 8 years old. I have no idea what he meant exactly, but the phrase has been hanging over my head like the blade of a guillotine ever since. I am not allowed to forget its existence or it will fall on my neck. The problem is, I could never figure out what it was I was supposed to struggle for.

The Greek word he used, “αγώνας”, is also used for sports. Therefore, I assumed that life according to my grandfather was a football match, where you run up and down a field, chasing a ball and some people are on your team and others are against you and you could be running up and down the field all your life and never score a goal. Now, in my mid thirties, I am slowly coming to the terrifying realization that not only can this football match be completely pointless, but it can also turn out to be utterly and mercilessly boring.

I’m bored of seeing me running up and down a football field and I’m so very bored of being in the game. I don’t want my life to be a constant struggle. I want it to be a long walk across the world with the man I love. Or at the very least, a walk around the block with someone who can keep me stimulated.

“You can’t always get what you want” Mick said, but I wasn’t listening.