And it’s quite intentional that I repeat an image similar to
that in my previous post.
January 26th saw a beautifully bright, early morning –
a golden dawn, really – to herald in
our new political era – and the shameful situation of having a 3rd-position
party, the neo-fascist Golden Dawn, more than half of whose members have currently
served sixteen months in prison without being charged.
In that, the previous
coalition government really played their hand badly, believing this threat
could be quietly left on the back burner – out of sight, out of mind. Under the
radar, however, the party members proved to be excellent strategists and
greatly upped their profile in the elections – oops!
The full party name is a
real mouthful: Synaspismos tis Rizospastikis Aristeras, or the Coalition of the
Radical Left. Syriza, lacking two
seats for a majority, has formed a coalition government with the strange
bed-fellows of the right-wing Independent Greeks, the common ground being their
resolute stand against the austerity program. Earlier on, Syriza made many bold
pronouncements, some of which put the fear of death in some of the populace. A
friend, a bank employee, said there was such a run on large cash withdrawals last
Friday that one customer insisted on taking home 40,000 euros .... in twenties
– as the bank had no large notes left!
Which got us thinking:
a) How on earth did he
manage to lug that load home?
b) To what extent will
house break-ins increase over the next few days??
This time around there has
been less panic-mongering before the nation went to the polls and the party policy
conveyed seems to have been reined in somewhat from the earlier extreme statements, so
people have decided it’s time for a change. This is further underlined by the
fact that for the first time in over 90 years – repeat over 90 years! – the
name Papandreou does not feature in the government – gasp!
Tsipras
was sworn in as Prime Minister in an open-neck shirt since he has
vowed not to wear a tie until a new economic deal for Greece has been negotiated.
He took a civil oath of office rather than the usual religious one normally officiated
by the Archbishop – well, we have to allow him the odd act of iconoclasm!
What team Tsipras is going to be able to negotiate with the EU and
how it can bring the banks to some kind of cooperative line remain to be seen.
But in his inaugural speech our new Prime Minister sounded surprisingly like
Andreas Papandreou of 1981: he even claimed he would bring the sun back to
Greece – interesting image, given that was PASOK’s emblem!
One of the first posts known to be filled was by fellow-blogger, Yanis Varoufakis, now Minister of
Finance. He has adopted a pragmatic
approach and made reassurances that Greece will not leave the euro-zone. He
describes himself as an ‘accidental economist’, is willing to pick up the
Herculean task of trying to save our economy, quotes lyrics from the Eagles’
song and the poetry of Dylan Thomas – so from me he gets nothing but :respect!
Another recent event, though not so globally relevant, was that
our great-nephew celebrated his second birthday. Petros is a wonderful little
guy - mad about trains - and it was good to see him now of the age where he can
enjoy his wee celebration. Question: how many people can you see in the picture
going ‘phoo’ to help extinguish his candles??
This week I’ve missed my regular spa and art classes where it was
I’m sure that I contracted the mild cold that has inevitably developed into my
usual full-blown sinusitis. Thanks
to that I missed celebrating Burns’ Day ( as I did two years ago for the same
reason) ‘celebrating with a few morsels of spinach pancake and gallons of tea
with honey and lemon – hardly appropriate fare. I called a pal who had also
been smitten- only with her it’s her asthma
that flares up. This time her bout is so bad she’s on corticosteroids. Our
vocal tones were so impaired it was like participating in a two-way obscene
phone-call. What was worse we were trying to make light of our plight and were
killing ourselves laughing - or that was what it sounded like.
Anyway, I’ve been mooching around the house retching and
wretching, depriving myself and H of hours of uninterrupted sleep, going
through tissues by the boxful. Doesn’t look as if I will be in a rush to get
out and about as snow is being forecast in the next few days so I will continue
being relatively inert – there is
something enjoyably indulgent about having free days – no obligation,
whatsoever.
Moving on to matters of a more linguistic nature, but still with a
sliver of civics: a new term has been coined for the mooted departure of Greece
from the euro-zone:Grexit. So
without anything really pressing to do, and being a crossword addict, I began
to think of words I could coin from words with the initial GR consonant cluster,
using it in the sense of the country to generate semantically-enhanced lexis.
So far I like :
Grailing : that’s a noun-turned-adjective, a purloined part of speech,
describing our economy.
Grattitude: the in-yer-face brio of some of our new
politicians – I’m thinking particularly of the new Parliamentary Speaker (good
job!!), Zoe Konstantopoulou, a lady
lawyer who will certainly keep order in the House. Her predecessor welcomed her
to her new post with a bouquet of flowers. Lovely gesture, but I don’t think
the lady is for softening!
Incidentally, since her lawyer father was a
politician, perhaps we’re seeing a new political dynasty in the making??
Grappling : the autumn activity of collecting fruit.
Grateful : the state of having fallen victim to the globally renowned over-generosity
that is Hellenic hospitality.
Grapefruit : this
one, rather paradoxically, refers to bananas from Crete, our main production area.
Any more ideas gratefully received!!
So as Billy Connolly
once said – though not of the Greek political situation - ‘Here we are – where
are we??’
Once the politico-sleb fuss has abated, we
will eagerly await to see how far Zoe’s party will carry out promises made :
- To crack down on the influential oligarchs
- To root out corruption
- To reform our problematic state.
It’s time we
had the chance to feel some hope and, if they begin to make inroads, we’ll be
fully behind them. We congratulate them on their success and wish them the very
best of luck.
In the meantime, till we recover fully and
regain our strength, to use another political term, we’re going to hunker down,
keep warm and snug, and .........sssnnoooooozzzzeee!
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