After hours (Εκτός ωραρίου)

I had a slightly surreal experience late on Saturday afternoon in Hania. I had taken my daughter into the town centre to see the Christmas decorations that have been placed on the main squares, and with this opportunity, we also did some window shopping.

Most of the town's decorations have been put up, but the lighting will be launched next weekend. The street lamps are generally well lit with decorations too, so the atmosphere is not so bleak.

We didn't intend to go into any store to buy anything, and it was rather late in the afternoon for the stores to be open, but there were a number of Christmas baubles shops still open. Apart from Christmas decorations, they also usually sell some eye-catching bric-a-brac: bracelets, beads, make-up, souvenirs, inter alia. Most other businesses were either closed or in the process of closing up for the weekend (as you know, it's still never never on a Sunday for most regional stores around Greece).

There were many pretty store windows capturing the commercialised aspect of Christmas, but I chose this one out of the many photos we took on that day, because it characterised Christmas as we are living it today in Hania - most people are these days using wood-fired heaters instead of liquid fuel. Four years ago, the wood-fired heater was a rare sight in the town - now there are a number of stores in the town selling all sorts of models, and plenty of places where you can buy wood. How quickly we learn to adapt.

My daughter wanted to enter it, and I felt like a little shopping therapy myself. It was one of the €1-2 shops that entice people in with their very low prices. My daughter found a set of plastic coloured strings that can be used to make bracelets (€1), and I found a made-in-China souvenir of Crete that I thought looked quite stylish (€1.50): a tea-light candle holder with a raised image of the lighthouse and Firkas castle, with the snow-capped Lefka Ori in the background.

Last week, I complained about the lack of souvenirs on sale honouring the 100-year celebrations of the Union of Crete with Greece. Imagine if the Municipality of Chania had bothered to plan for this in advance, selling souvenirs like this during the summer to our zillions of tourists with a simple addition of the phrase '100 years' tacked onto the 'Chania' part. Planning ahead is a skill that needs to be developed in teh Greek state.

I let the child browse a little longer, then we went to pay at the cashier. 'That's €2.50', said the lady at the till. I took out my purse and found some change. She placed the items in a bag, and then whispered to me, as she lowered her head towards my face: "I have just closed the till, and I'm supposed to be closing the store now, which is why I closed the door. I can't issue you with a receipt, so as you go out, I'd appreciate it if you put your shpping in your handbag, and if someone asks you if you bought anything, just say you didn't."

She was worried about the random checks made by tax officers - you don't always know when/where they will strike, and if you are a woman working alone in a shop, you will probably just admit that you were a tax evader. How quickly we learn, when both our feet are placed in the one shoe. And how dangerous our once-easy jobs have become.

The tax that she evaded paying in my case was minimal, and of course, there was always the option of denying a sale to a customer, although it isn't a particularly Greek way of conducting business. It is difficult to envisage a time when we may in fact do this, without finding an alternative method to achieve our goals. It goes against our creative spirit.

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Solving the world's problems (Του κόσμου τα προβλήματα)

This story was inspired by a brilliant piece I heard on the radio last Saturday as I left the town after doing my chores for the day. A stand-up Greek comic who is also a singer spoke about how tired the modern world makes him, using the punch lines I have also used in this story. I can't remember the name of the singer so I couldn't find this brilliant combination of prose and song on youtube. I hope I do it justice, and you get the picture.

What a shame you can't buy mizithra online. I really dislike going into the town centre these days. All that tinsel and the Christmas lights, the phantasmagorical window displays full of things we don't need, and can't afford anyway. They serve to remind us that the crisis is not an economic one: there must be people who can afford those things in the displays; it is an issue of changing values: we have to learn to prioritise our spending habits instead. While I was looking at the electrified shop windows and the shop owners adding more glittery decorations to their stores, I was accosted by beggars of all sorts, narrating the story of their unemployed life and asking for money to buy some bread and milk for their hungry children. It felt so Dickensian! It all seemed so incongruous! And I felt disgusted!

I thought about writing a letter to the editor of the local paper in my town about this issue. I wanted to write it there and then, to tell him that we need to help these people, and shop owners should help towards solving this issue, because they are wasting money on un-necessities! But I was in the middle of the road, so where could I stop to write the letter? There was a bus stop round the corner - perhaps I could go there and sit down to write it. But it was cold, and I decided to stop and look for a table at a nice cafe... some place where they would make me a nice cappuccino, where I could sip and write at teh same time. So I walked by the bus stop... where there was another pretty window display, some gold-sprayed biscuits placed on what looked like a tub of ice-cream which was actually moulded from plastic and it looked like snow... and I thought how lovely... I could buy my kids some gold spray paint and we could collect all the pine cones from the forest at my workplace, and place them all under the Christmas tree...

As I was in the commercial centre, I set off to find some gold spray paint. I didn't forget about the letter that I wanted to write, but I thought I could do it later in my own time... at home... after I had made myself a hot cuppa... and settled before my computer, to check the daily news... and that always makes me really tired because only no news is good news, and I generally read a lot of news, so of course, it's all bad, and that makes me exhausted. For now, anyway, the letter would have to wait, until I was more relaxed.

Then I went to the laiki. The street market is always an uplifting sight, with the brightly coloured fresh vegetables stacked high in piles, and the gypsies calling out to passersby ''Ολα τσάμπα σήμερα!' (everything is going for free today)...

... and the smell of souvlaki wafting in the air as people walk by, doing their shopping. Just as I approached the laiki, I saw a man walking with a stick, his back scruched like a hunchback, and as people passed him, he'd ask them for money, and when he accosted a woman who was leaving the laiki, she said, 'Oi mate, didn't I give you all my small change when I arrived here?' and he just kept walking, without looking up.

I was reminded of that letter I wanted to write to the editor of the local paper, and I thought what a good thing I hadn't written it before, because now I could add some more substance to it, by making mention of the disabled and helpless, so I looked for some place to sit down and start writing it, right there in the laiki, and I found a corner bench. But I was really really thirsty for some reason, despite the cold weather... probably due to my heavy but snuggly warm (and cheap) Lee Cooper jacket that I bought during my (likewise cheap) London holiday... so I nipped into the supermarket across from the laiki, and bought myself a (glass) bottle of Souroti... and now I was holding my handbag, and the bottle, and I was sipping the bubbly from a straw, and I had no hands free to hold a pen in my hand, never mind the paper, so I thought that's OK... I could write the letter later in my own time... at home... after I had made myself a hot cuppa... and settled before my computer, to check the daily news... which of course always makes me really tired because I read too much news and the news is usually bad, which of course makes me exhausted. For now, anyway, the letter would have to wait... until I was more comfortable.

I wanted to buy some mizithra, so I set off to find my favorite dairy stall, where I asked for 2 kilos of the fresh white soft cheese, but the lady put 2.125 kilos in the bag, and asked if that was OK, and I said that's OK, because we eat a lot of mizithra, and it's cheaper and better at the laiki, and then she asked me if I had tasted her feta, and before I could say no, she had already cut a piece and given it to me, and I said thank you, it's nice (well, it wasn't as good as what I'm used to), and I asked how much the mizithra cost, and she said here, have a piece of my graviera, and I said thank you (that was actually really nice), and then I took out my 20 euros and asked how much the mizithra cost, and she asked me if I preferred kaseri instead of graviera, and before I could say no, she said, here, try some.

After I had eaten the three cheeses, I thanked her, and asked to pay because it was getting cold and raindrops had started falling on my head, so she took my 20 euros and gave me the plastic bag with my mizithra, slipping a pottle of yoghurt into it, and charging me 15 euros, when the mizithra cost only 13 euros and 50 cents. So I said, 'Oi, I didn't ask for that, did I?' and she said I probably didn't know how good it was, which was fair enough, because I hadn't tried the yoghurt, only the 3 cheeses.

When I got back my change, I then made my way to another little bench behind the stall, because I wanted to put my change in my purse, and my purse in my handbag, and hopefully the 2 kilos of mizithra in my bag too, because everything was feeling like a heavy juggling act by then. As I apporached the bench, I saw a man on the other side, looking into the rubbish bin that was conveniently placed next to the bench, and rummaging inside it, as if he was looking for something special. But we all know what old men rummaging in bins want, and I thought the cheese stall holder who was within seeing distance could help him out. But she had her back to him, all the while giving out free samples of feta and graviera and kaseri to the passing trade, and he obviously didn't want to buy anything (he just wanted to eat).

Now this enraged me because now I knew that the letter I wanted to write to the editor was going to be a very long one since I would have to add something about the hungry people looking in the bins for food, so I began walking back to the car, which took me past a gypsy beggar and the same hunchback I had seen at the laiki, who was now upright, and in my hurry, I almost bumped into a man with one leg, but as I crossed the road, I came across a beautiful array of Christmas-themed teapots. They were so pretty, that I stopped and looked at them, and then I rememebred that gold spray I wanted for the pine cones, but I couldn't find a shop close by that sold it. So I just headed for the car and sped back home to the safety of my office, where I could start writing that letter (I hadn't forgotten it).

I made myself a hot cuppa and turned on the computer, and when I got an internet connection, I opened the BBC website, which had a story about rising levels of poverty in the UK, and then I opened up the eKathimerini site, which talked about rising levels of poverty in Greece, and I got so tired just reading those two stories, that I just thought to myself who do I think I am, trying to solve the world's problems. It then occurred to me that the people writing those articles got exhausted writing them too, just like me when I was readign them, and they probably used up all their energy on writing about the problems, so they had no more energy to spend on solving them.

And as I drank my cuppa, I thought I'd better get some dinner on the table before everyone else in the family came back home and found nothing to eat and mother reading the news on the internet. They really don't know how tired I am.

All photos taken on last Saturday.

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Sunday trading (Κυριακάτικη αργία)

"Sunday trading" is the phrase used int he west to denote shops opening up on Sundays. In Greece, we haven't quite got a phrase that can be translated in the same way - it is more likely to hear about the Κυριακάτικη αργία - the "Sunday holiday". So you can understand form this that Sunday trading is regarded as an abomination, according to Greek shop owners and workers. But Sunday trading is regarded as quite 'normal' by most Western countries for at least two decades now. I remember when it was first introduced in New Zealand, and I thought it was a little weird... but now that it's commonplace, I think it's a perfect way to brighten up the drab atmosphere of the ghost town appearance of our commercial centres after the shops close down on Saturday at 2-3pm.

SUNDAY SHOPPING The streets of many cities around the country were busier than usual on Sunday, as shops opened for the first time on Sundays outside the holiday period. The first phase of Sunday opening also kicked off a ten-day sales period. Shop owner unions, who were unhappy with the move, said the more people seemed to be window shopping rather than actual shopping. Nevertheless, Development Minister Kostis Hatzidakis said "our cities are changing image today. The consumers have embraced both the idea of the new sales 10-day periods and the opening of stores on Sunday. Therefore, we did very well in not listening to those fearing what is new. We are following what is taking place in most European countries. Why should it not take place in Greece as well?" Describing the move as "unacceptable and reactionary", main opposition Syriza said that "only big department stores and the multinational chains will benefit from the redistribution of the reduced turnover" cause by its salary and pension cuts. http://www.enetenglish.gr/?i=news.en.home&id=1583

Yesterday was, supposedly, the first Sunday that shops were allowed to open in Greece - but this is a half-truth. In tourist areas, shops are open all day long every day. Then there are the Easter and Christmas Sunday shopping days, to allow people to get more shopping done at more convenient times for them. But when Sunday trading happens simply as a way to allow people to shop when they feel like it, and not for any special reason, people get hoity-toity about it in Greece, with flimsy excuses like "It's the Lord's day" (ask doctors, nurses, policemen, firemen, etc about the Easters and Christmases they've spent on duty), and "Everyone deserves a day of rest" (ask those same shift workers about the day they prefer to have off, so they can get any real personal work done, like take your kids for a medical check-up, do some banking, etc).

Never (trade) on  a Sunday, complete with Melina Mercouri waving to sailors on the wharf.

The business community of Hania declared that they would not open their stores on Sunday, so I am assuming that the shops were closed in the centre, but I heard that supermarkets (which don't fit into the small-medium enterprise framework) would open this Sunday around the country. I had no shopping to do, so I don't know what happened in the areas of Hania where those supermarkets opened. I am sure that quite a bit of harassment took place from the anti groups, as these photos clearly depict, taken in Athens, which always bears the brunt of all forces.

ΚΥΡΙΑΚΗ 3 ΝΟΕΜΒΡΗ: ΔΕΝ ΕΙΝΑΙ ΑΡΓΙΑ; ΝΑ ΓΙΝΕΙ ΑΠΕΡΓΙΑ!!!

Την Κυριακή 3 Νοεμβρίου 2013 ξεκινάει η εφαρμογή του νόμου με τον οποίο η κυβέρνηση ΝΔ - ΠΑΣΟΚ σε συνεργασία με την εργοδοσία επιδιώκουν να καταργήσουν την κυριακάτικη αργία. Ο συγκεκριμένος νόμος προβλέπει την καθιέρωση τεσσάρων εκπτωτικών περιόδων το χρόνο, με την πρώτη Κυριακή κάθε περιόδου να θεωρείται εργάσιμη. Είναι δεδομένο ότι αυτό το μέτρο θα γίνει προσπάθεια να γενικευθεί σε όσο το δυνατόν περισσότερες Κυριακές, άλλωστε ο συγκεκριμένος νόμος ήδη δίνει τη δυνατότητα να ανοίγουν όλες τις Κυριακές του έτους τα εμπορικά καταστήματα μέχρι 250 τ.μ. Η απελευθέρωση του ωραρίου αποτελεί χρόνιο αίτημα του ΣΕΒ. Το νέο αυτό μέτρο οδηγεί στην εξόντωση των εργαζομένων στο εμπόριο καθώς ο ελεύθερός τους χρόνος συρρικνώνεται δραματικά, η εργασία τους εντατικοποιείται ακόμα περισσότερο.

Φυσικά το νέο μέτρο δεν αφορά μόνο τους εργαζόμενους στο εμπόριο. Το επόμενο βήμα για την κυβέρνηση στην συρρίκνωση των αργιών είναι οι κλάδοι που συνδέονται με το εμπόριο, πχ λογιστές, τραπεζοϋπάλληλοι, συμβολαιογράφοι για να μπορέσει να «δουλέψει η οικονομία» και φυσικά στόχος του μεγάλου κεφαλαίου αποτελεί η 7ήμερη εργασία για όλους τους εργαζόμενους

Οι εκπρόσωποι της κυβέρνησης θεωρούν ότι το «πρωτογενές πλεόνασμα» και το «success story» περνάει μέσα από την 7ήμερη εργασία, ο ελληνικός λαός όμως ξέρει ότι τα άδεια καταστήματα πολλαπλασιάζονται επειδή το εισόδημα του έχει μειωθεί από 40 έως 60% από το 2010, από την γιγάντωση της ανεργίας, κι από την διαρκή φοροληστεία που έχουν εξαπολύσεις οι κυβερνήσεις ΝΔ και ΠΑΣΟΚ και δεν μπορεί πλέον να ψωνίζει ούτε τις καθημερινές !

Ως ΑΝΤΑΡΣΥΑ Χανίων

Καλούμε τους εργαζόμενους στο εμπόριο να βάλουν φρένο στην κατάργηση της κυριακάτικης αργίας, στην ελαστικοποίηση του ωραρίου τους, στην συρρίκνωση του ελεύθερου χρόνου τους απεργώντας την Κυριακή 3 Νοέμβρη

Καλούμε τους αυτοαπασχολούμενους στο χώρο του εμπορίου, σε συστράτευση και κοινό αγώνα με τους εμποροϋπαλλήλους. Τους καλούμε να κάνουν πράξη τις αποφάσεις που πήραν το προηγούμενο διάστημα ενάντια στο άνοιγμα των καταστημάτων τις Κυριακές, να αντιδράσουν και να καταδικάσουν στην πράξη την κατάργηση της κυριακάτικης αργίας

Καλούμε το Εργατικό Κέντρο Χανίων να πράξει το αυτονόητο, δηλαδή να κηρύξει απεργία την Κυριακή 3 Νοέμβρη.

Καλούμε τους εργαζόμενους που δεν δουλεύουν εκείνη την μέρα να συμμετέχουν σε απεργιακές φρουρές για να ανατραπεί αυτό το μέτρο. Για να μην χρειαστεί οι ίδιοι να απεργήσουν κάποια επόμενη Κυριακή που θα έχει γενικευτεί το μέτρο

Καλούμε τους Χανιώτες και τις Χανιώτισσες να μην πάνε να ψωνίσουν την Κυριακή 3 Νοέμβρη, να μην στηρίξουν με την στάση τους αυτή την απόφαση.

Υπερασπιζόμαστε την Κυριακή ως υποχρεωτική αργία για όλα τα καταστήματα. Κατάργηση της μερικής απασχόλησης, του ωρομίσθιου, των συμβάσεων ορισμένου χρόνου και όλων των ελαστικών μορφών εργασίας και μετατροπής τους σε 8ωρες συμβάσεις αορίστου χρόνου. Υπογραφή κλαδικής σύμβασης.

ΑΝΤ.ΑΡ.ΣΥ.Α. Χανίων

Ι found this leaflet in my supermarket trolley this morning - the same text is available here - from the "Front of the Greek Anticapitalist Left" (a name that presumably distinguishes them from the 'capitalist left').

In such a hugely democratic country that we were in the past, where simply anything went, and anyone could do what they liked with complete disregard to how others felt, because in those days there were no rules against such behaviour (and if there were any rules, there was little or no monitoring), it seems such a huge breach of rights to prevent someone from doing what they feel like doing. This was made more obvious to me by my son's reaction during a conversation with his dad on Saturday night:
- If they are letting the supermarkets open on Sunday, then small businesses will close down because supermarkets will take away their business (dad said).
- I don't get it dad, if the small businesses are open, then people may choose to go to them too, just like they do already.
- Well, if the supermarkets open, then other smaller businesses will be swayed to open, because they will feel they are losing out on business.
- That makes sense, doesn't it, dad?
- But Sunday should be a rest day for shop workers.
- Any shops that don't want to open can stay shut if they want.
- But they won't - they will be swayed into opening too.
- How can they be swayed to open, dad? They can stay closed if they want to.
- But... they will either be losing profits or losing their day of rest (says dad, a little tongue-tied by now).
- So why do you work on Sundays, dad?
- Well... I'm a taxi driver... I'm not a shop... (and a few more flimsy excuses).
- OK, dad, don't go to work tomorrow then.
So what do you think dad did the next day, which was a Sunday? Did he go to work in his taxi?
(see the comments section for the answer)

I never really saw it as an economic crisis - it's more an identity crisis, where we have to make changes to suit our choices, not just our pockets.

©All Rights Reserved/Organically cooked. No part of this blog may be reproduced and/or copied by any means without prior consent from Maria Verivaki.

Protecting your child

Two members of Golden Dawn were murdered and a third was fighting for his life on Friday night after two men on a motorcycle rode past the neofascist party’s offices in Neo Iraklio, northern Athens, and opened fire on people that were standing outside the building.

You can't protect your children from all dangers and you won't always know where your children are. But as parents, we like to believe we can protect our children from all dangers, and we also want to believe that we have a fair idea of their whereabouts when they are out of the house.

But what if one day your teenager comes back home drunk? What, as a parent, do you assume? What, as a parent, do you do? When my children were toddlers, I remember a cousin telling me that "kids will be kids and they will all get drunk at some point in their life", and I was thinking "shit, i never got drunk when i was a kid, and i never turned up drunk when i came back home, and i don't see why my kids have to come back home drunk." I've kept this story in my head, because of that 'never say never' phrase that niggles in the back of our minds when we say 'never', because I don't want to sound like a tiger mum.

A couple of weeks ago, I read in the local paper that one Saturday evening, 3 teenagers aged 15-16 years old were transferred to the emergency department with symptoms of acute intoxication. One doctor put this ever-increasing phenomenon down to parents' not controlling their children's outings:

"They believe that if the child goes to parties, it will probably get drunk, without considering this to be a major issue. Recently, a mother of a teenager had come to the [young people's] clinic where she explained that her child had been brought home twice in a comatose state and she felt that the child had simply got drunk. She viewed the incident in an entirely frivolous manner. Another mother told [the doctors at the clinic] that as soon as her child obtained his driver's licence, it got drunk. But later, it was caught in the act, and only when she went to get it out of jail did she feel mobilized into doing something about it." http://www.haniotika-nea.gr/anhlikoi-sto-alkool/

I understand from this that parents generally know what their kids are up to - they know that their kids go to parties and they know they are drinking a lot of alcohol. Naturally they won't stop them from going to a party or drinking alcohol - but they don't seem to stop them from getting drunk either. Does drinking alcohol and getting drunk really have to go together? Is it an absolute rite of passage of a young person to get drunk at a party and to be taken to hospital in a comatose state before coming back home after the party? I don't see why this has to happen. It didn't happen to me when I was young, and it shouldn't have to happen to my children, and I am going to try to make sure it doesn't have to happen to my kids either. And I don't see why I can't try to make sure it doesn't happen to them, despite what that cousin told me.

With this in mind, I suppose the parents of the two Golden Dawn members who died of gunshots (to the head and the chest) in yesterday's (most probably) terrorist attack knew that their children (just 22 and 27 years old, as I have been reading in the reports that are now streaming through the mass media about the incident) were going to the regular Golden Dawn Friday night meetings at the party's offices. And I suppose that those parents knew where to find their child if they wanted to get a hold of him (they parents would have comforted themselves by knowing that he has his cellphone). I also suppose that they knew what their child was up to (he's going to a meeting among people of like minds). I suppose they saw their child out the door and they said to him 'keep safe', or some other words to that effect. They wouldn't have expected that on that night, when their child was at a Golden Dawn meeting, their child would die of a gunshot wound to the head or the chest. No one expected that either, except perhaps the police, as this report states - not even the police could have protected us against this attack.

Could the parents have protected their child from being at the wrong place at the wrong time? What did those parents do about keeping him safe in the first place? Could they not have done something more? Did their child have to go to that meeting?

Before that, it was a game. Now, it's war.

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Parade (Παρέλαση)

Parading is very important for Greeks. Most children will remember the times they took part in the school parades to celebrate 25 March and 28 October, Greece's two (so far) national days. My children love to wear their blue and white (usually blue jeans and a white shirt/blouse to take part in the parade. Although I am not a great fan of military parades, my heart was softened by some of this year's sights in Alikianos, a central village close to my children's schools, which suffered heavy losses during WW2. 

This little girl was waiting on the sidelines with her parents. She was carrying a hand-drawn flag which she had probably made at school, with a teacher's guidance, as is the custom in Greek primary schools before such events. She is most likely born in Greece - her parents were speaking Bulgarian - and Greece is the only country she has known. She will make a good Greek citizen when she is older.

These children come from the local village kindergarten. They look well nourished, well dressed, healthy and happy. They have all probably been born in Greece - but they are most likely not all of Greek heritage. 

My kids play in multi-cultural sports groups with mainly Easter European chidlren, but there is also one black child in their group, something that makes me very proud to see, especially now that Greeks are regarded as an extremely racist race, as if everyone is a Golden Dawn supporter, or they all kick Roma children on the street. This black child was the Greek flag bearer at a school in Athens, a privilege you get only if you are one of the best students in the class. 

In the past, it was common - for patriotic reasons - for riots to start up when a child that wasn't of Greek heritage was allowed to carry the flag, but this year, it seems that we have matured.

©All Rights Reserved/Organically cooked. No part of this blog may be reproduced and/or copied by any means without prior consent from Maria Verivaki.

Acting on suspicions

Spying seems to be the topic of the year since the Snowden affair came to light, which helped to uncover a number of other spying activities. Just yesterday, we read about Angela Merkel's phone being hacked by the US:

Germany's chancellor says it is "really not on" for friends to spy on each other, as an EU summit is overshadowed by a row over US surveillance. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-24647602

Spying on a formal basis is regarded as immoral and in many cases illegal, as we've seen lately from the news headlines. It also feels horrible because we feel we have been betrayed. The whole issue is based on a perceived belief that there is some kind of trust between the parties which was broken by one of them. Spying is so easy these days with the use of advanced technology, so most people/organisations are probably aware of this. We all try to cover our tracks in some way to maintain some privacy. It really isn't possible to be completely private: just clicking a 'like' on facebook or commenting on a blog can easily target you - you leave some kind of trace as you pass by, and people can use that information to spy on you.

Spying is not really a Greek trait. Generally speaking, Greeks don't spy. Neither are they a tattle-tale race. In fact, Greeks do things so openly - eg try to evade taxes, drive without a seatbelt/helmet, shout when they talk, etc - that they don't see any reason why someone would need to spy on them to catch them out. They do (or shoudl I say 'did') everything right under your nose, so to speak. One way to illustrate this is with something that happened to me in New Zealand when I was visiting in 2004. A Greek-Kiwi friend wanted to give us a lift somewhere in her car. When she came to pick us up, she noticed that we had our children with us. "Sorry," she said, "I can't put you all in my car. I don't have any child seats, and if someone notices this while we're on the road, you never know how they might react. They may even call the police and give them my licence plate number." No one in Greece who sees kids jumping up and down unrestrained in the back seat of a car (or sitting in their mother's lap in the front passenger seat while their mother isn't wearing a seatbelt) would put this in their heads. But in my Greek-Kiwi friend's mind, her fear was a real one.

That's partly what was behind the Irish cases of suspected child abduction. The interconnected world of Europe and the fast relay of news raised suspicions in the mind of the EU's northernmost extremity after a related incident that happened in the EU's southernmost extremity. (Before that, the only thing Ireland had in common with Greece was bad money management; even though Ryanair flies in and out of a number of Greek towns, there's no direct connection between Greece and Ireland - it's a bloody long way to Tipperary from here). But how did the Irish decide to 'pounce'? It wasn't the same as the Greek case at all. For a start, the Greek police were conducting a search for criminal activity, when they noticed something else that didn't look right. So the decision to remove the child from her parents in the Greek case came from the police officers directly involved in the incident, not from a tip-off from the public, a good number of whom will have seen the very white child surrounded by people much darker than herself on a number of occasions. Greeks don't call the police to resolve other people's problems for a number of reasons, possibly because they feel that the incident is none of their business, and they don't want to be incriminated themselves. Not trusting the police may also be another reason why they don't bother to report such incidents, but this has more to do with the attitude they might (once have) expect(ed) from the police if they were to report an incident that has nothing to do with them and the police were not investigating it in the first place. Greece is not a police state in the sense that other more developed countries are. Γύρευε την δουλειά σου, might have been the police's initial reaction in the past.

The Irish cases of suspected child abductions (which have since turned out to be false accusations) were similar to cases of spying - they were based on tipoffs from the public:

An Irish police inquiry that led to a girl (7) with blonde hair and blue eyes being removed from Roma family in Dublin was prompted when a member of the public, who had seen a news report on the Maria case in Greece, left a message with an Irish news programme. 
http://www.enetenglish.gr/?i=news.en.home&id=1563 

It happened just like my Greek-Kiwi friend explained to me in New Zealand - someone saw something that s/he judged to be illegal, so they decided to tell. In other words, they acted on their own preconceived ideas of what looks good and what looks bad. In the Irish cases, the member of the public sounded a little racist (if you ask me). And (if you ask me again), the police reacted on the basis of a racist assumption. This is not to say that the Greek police did not act on a similar basis - but they did not get tipped off by any member of the public. They had to make a decision on the spot about how to react. Whether their assumptions were deemed racist or not, they uncovered a hot of unacceptable criminal activity: not registering a birth, informal adoptions, lying about the number of children you have, and very significantly, given the way benefit fraud is now viewed in Greece, claiming money from the state that you are not entitled to are all deemed criminal activities, regardless of your culture or race; there are no exceptions on this one. One thing led to another, and now authorities in birth registration offices have been suspended (because they were regarded as not doing their jobs properly), and yet another case of Roma informal adoption (of a 2.5 month old boy) was discovered, this time on the island of Mitilini (and in this case, the 'parents' admitted that they were not the real parents, rather than go through the ridicule that their compatriots did).

Greeks generally don't spy on each other, and they generally don't get involved in other people's business. But there is a visible change here too, all crisis-related once again, which to my mind is so obviously going on, that people are blind if they can't see it (but not blind enough to claim a benefit). It seems that these days, when the authorities detect suspicious activity, they investigate/report it, whereas in the past, they turned a blind eye to it. This started mainly with the cases of benefit fraud. When the government first started seriously investigating the degree of benefit fraud (something everyone 'knew' was going on), it was discovered that certain areas in Greece seemed to show signs of high rates of the same disability among the population, which could not be explained, eg blindness in Zakinthos, which often suggested that a particular specialist doctor was involved, possibly signing people up for a benefit, no doubt taking his/her share too. A woman working in the benefits office realised that someone who was claiming a blindness benefit was actually able to see very well; I can't remember the story exactly, but the man claiming the disability allowance pointed to the exact place on a document which the woman had to stamp so he could continue to get the benefit. She reported this to her superiors, who acted on this information, so one thing led to another, and the fraudster was caught. In the past, either the clerk would not have bothered to report it or the superior would not have acted on anyone's claims. More of the same Γύρευε την δουλειά σου, as mentioned above. Back in those days, people in positions of authority were picking up a comfortable paypacket in a secure job environment: these days, acting on your suspicions when you have a job that involves authority and state funds is one way to show that you are doing your job appropriately and deserve your job, by showing others that you are being worth your salary.

At the moment in Greece, this new idea - acting on your suspicions - is being led by the top: people in authority, like the police and state workers. In the past, it was more common to hear: "The top is corrupt/lazy/dishonest, so why should I be clean/hard-working/honest?" This leads to the question: Will that have a rub-off effect onto the other layers that make up society? I don't see why not; Greece is just catching up with the 'real' world here, and Greeks had a bit of a rude awakening when they were forced to do it overnight. Before the crisis, they were simply procrastinating. Now, it looks like Greece is turning into a Big Brother state. But that was inevitable, if the country wanted to maintain the little dignity it had left. Even in the case of bringing down Golden Dawn, the state had to resort to breaking down the very strict privacy laws of the country. Could Greece remain an exception in these dire times we live in? Acting on suspicions is not a sign of racism or discrimination - it's a sign of the times.

Generally speaking, we don't see ourselves as having something to hide and because of the times we live in, we are aware that our movements are traceable. In other words, you have to be a little stupid to get caught out, or very naive not to realise that this is going on. But there are people among us who do have something to hide... and the person doing the actual spying knows this:

"The first rule of spying is: you never talk about it. Second, you only plant surveillance equipment to confirm what you already know." http://www.theguardian.com/theguardian/shortcuts/2013/oct/18/spy-on-children-gordon-ramsay

And apparently, "there's nothing wrong with spying as long as you suspect foul play" (Little Fockers was playing tonight on ANT1 - I heard that line in the movie). Even my blog has a way to spy on readers too, through statistics counters. Without even trying very hard to discover this information, I have some idea about who is reading what on my blog, as you can see from the table below. (I've removed server names and IP numbers for security reasons, and changed times and dates.) I don't actually know the people personally, but if ever I need to act on suspicions (eg by way of odd/anonymous comments), I know how to track them. (There are also ways to ensure that your computer is not tracked here.) It's the wondrous way the interlinked world works. Being a technology buff, I love it. If it weren't for the internet, my stories would still be unwritten. I've never felt I was living in the wrong era.

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	Page Views: 3 (2 this visit) Entry Page Time: 24 Oct 2013 11:57:09 Visit Length: 8 mins 39 secs Browser: Firefox 24.0 OS: WinXP Resolution: 1024x768		Total Visits: 8 Location: Greece IP Address: (server) (123.4.567.890) [Label IP Address] Referring URL: (No referring link) Entry Page:  www.organicallycooked.com/ Exit Page:  www.organicallycooked.com/2013/10/roma.html#comment-form
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Big brother is watching you...

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