By Nick Malkoutzis (Kathimerini)
-
There are many ways one can look upon Dimitris Christoulas’s decision
to end his life in front of Parliament on Wednesday. Each has a
different interpretation, each has different implications but no matter
which one you choose, they will all fill you with sorrow.
On a
personal level, it is a tragedy that a 77-year-old man should feel so
discouraged by what he saw around him, so appalled by his own financial
misfortune and the prospect of scrounging through garbage to survive
that he should choose to shoot himself in the center of Athens.
One
can feel nothing but despair that an active member of his community
should feel so alone that he should opt to exit society in such a
dramatic way. It tells us of the isolation and hopelessness that many
around us feel. Lest we forget, it brings us face-to-face with the
impact of the crisis and the flawed economic polices it has spawned. We
see more clearly the people who have lost their jobs, businesses, homes
and aspirations. It reminds us that the human cost of the so-called
fiscal adjustment makes debates about the political cost irrelevant.
On
a political level, Christoulas’s act and the suicide note he left in
his pocket will reverberate for some time. His frustration at the
apparent apathy of most Greeks is a sentiment that many can identify
with. Twinges of guilt were felt throughout the country.
His
decision to commit suicide in front of Parliament, the building that has
been the subject of such scorn due to the fecklessness of many of the
politicians that conduct their business there, was as painful a blow
against the country’s political elite that a pensioner growing weaker by
the day could hope to deliver.
A passionate leftist who took part
in protests and attended last summer’s Aganaktizmenoi (Indignant)
gatherings in Syntagma Square -- where he drew his last breath on
Wednesday -- Christoulas made his disillusionment known to the world in
the most tragic way. A man who had reportedly participated in
neighborhood schemes to talk young people out of using drugs and who had
supported the “I won’t pay” movement, finally gave up the fight. He
seems to have felt that in death, and by this particular method of
dying, he could have a much greater impact on public opinion than
through the daily struggle he had engaged in.
"This final act was a
conscious political act, entirely consistent with what he believed and
did in his life,” his daughter Emy Christoula said in a statement.
Hearing
friends and neighbors talk to the media about Christoulas, one gets the
impression he could have led many stimulating conversations or even
arguments about Greece’s economic and political problems. Nobody will
have the opportunity to hear his views anymore. Instead, we are left
with the pieces of the man, pieces that we will all try to put together
to draw some kind of message.
His references to Kalashnikovs,
governments of collaboration and young people hanging traitors in the
same square that he shot himself was the language of a man who had
snapped. But it is also similar to the language that has been adopted by
some media commentators, politicians and anti-austerity protesters. In
the confusion and exasperation of this debilitating crisis, these words
of rage trip off the tongue. There are few Greeks who haven’t been at
least momentarily overcome by a mood of destructive exasperation over
the last couple of years.
However, there is a difference between
feeling this fury and making it a guiding principle. Blind rage,
vigilantism, kicking out at everything and everyone won’t get Greece
anywhere. Targeted anger, the kind that generates determination to
change things for the better, might bring progress.
Christoulas’s
last words were reported to be: “Don’t leave debts to your children.”
This is a much more fitting principle to be guided by as we seek to
change our world. The idea of not passing on to the next generation the
pathogenic sickness of the past few decades should be the goal of every
Greek.
This language implies that removing a handful of people
from the equation would solve Greece’s woes. For starters, Greeks will
have the chance to do this via the ballot box in a few weeks’ time. If
the value of this most ancient of democracies is to be restored, then
voters must use the general elections due to take place next month to
inject some purpose into the system. Rather this than nooses and firing
squads.
But Greece’s problems go deeper than just a few
undesirables. The reason that the next generation is inheriting such
huge debt certainly has much to do with the greed and selfishness of the
country’s political elite. They are qualities that allowed gross
inefficiencies to be papered over by borrowing, a dangerous tendency
that was indulged by Greece’s entry into the euro. The dynamics of the
single currency also compounded Greek debt problems as politicians here
and abroad failed to see the looming dangers. The response to the crisis
at a domestic, European and international level has been woeful and has
made the situation worse.
Greeks must strive to change the most
negative elements of the policies being adopted as part of the country’s
bailouts but even this won’t be enough. If we are not going to be
condemned to repeat this nightmare, though, we have to accept that our
society also has to take its share of the blame and has to find a way to
reinvent itself.
Too many Greeks grew comfortable with a way of
life that was not necessarily exorbitant but was certainly
unsustainable. As has been proved, it was unsustainable economically
because the Greek state spent more than it could afford and to keep up
this expensive habit it became a credit junkie that the international
markets could exploit. But, more importantly, this method of doing
things was unsustainable socially. It created a society with gross
inequalities and allowed too many people to become detached from reality
and the damaging long-term effect this was having on the country.
It
gave us the patron-client relationship, cash for contracts, political
unaccountability, reckless policing, unchecked hirings, unevaluated
civil servants, endless bureaucracy, illegal construction, postdated
checks, closed professions, cartels, middlemen, high prices, poor
service, corruption, tax evasion, impunity and many more pernicious
phenomena. They all played their part in dividing a society in which
some benefited from this fragmentation and others suffered.
While
it is right that a pensioner’s decision to shoot himself in the center
of Athens should shock us, we cannot hide from the fact that Greece has
been committing a slow and painful suicide for some time. Recognizing
this and doing more to combat each and every one of these insidious
tendencies would be the most fitting tribute we could pay to Dimitris
Christoulas.
----------
Related :
GR
FR
DE
ES
IT
RU
EU
No comments :
Post a Comment
Only News