This Article is From Jul 06, 2015

Showing Pride for Rebuking Rest of Europe

Showing Pride for Rebuking Rest of Europe

People celebrate the outcome of the bailout deal referendum at Syntagma Square in Athens, Greece, July 5, 2015.

As news spread of the surprisingly strong victory for the no side in Sunday's referendum on the terms of a European bailout offer, Greeks poured into Syntagma Square, which has been the site of many historic political demonstrations.

In a festive mood, they streamed in from the subways, which have been free since the banks closed last week, by foot and by car, whistling, tooting horns and banging drums. As if by mass telepathy, they knew that Syntagma Square - Constitution Square - was the place to go. It was almost required of them, they said.

Some wrapped themselves in Greek flags, while others sang traditional Greek protest songs - peaceful, happy and proud of their courage in sending a message to the rest of Europe that endless austerity would be a dead end.

There may be almost as many reasons that Greeks voted no as there are Greeks. But if there was a consistent theme among those celebrating, it was that they had taken as much suffering and humiliation as they could stand. Rejecting the endless demands of their European overlords for tax hikes and pension cuts, they said, became a matter of national dignity.

For Anthi Panagiotidou, who eagerly joined the mass of humanity with her daughter, Chrysa, voting no was a simple decision: After five years of austerity, she could not endure any more.

Anthi Panagiotidou lost her job in an architectural firm, and though she eventually found work, it was not at the same level. While rich Greeks send their children abroad for college, she said, she can barely pay for tutoring for her daughter, who is 17, to prepare for the entrance exams that will determine which rank of state-run university she attends, as well as what major she will be allowed to pursue.

Her disabled husband cannot afford physical therapy, she said. What is worse, she said passionately, is that they are not alone.

"There are people without electricity, thousands without health insurance," Panagiotidou said as she welcomed the triumph of the vote against accepting a new bailout that includes more austerity demands.

Greece is like a sinking ship, Panagiotidou said, and perhaps the referendum will force the rest of the world to pay attention.

But the rest of Europe may see those who voted no as irresponsible and shortsighted, expecting the people of other countries to bail them out while they have failed to make loan payments or to adapt to changes, such as ending patronage, early retirement and tax evasion, in exchange for help.

Voters on both the left and the right of the political spectrum who chose no said they were prepared to deal with the consequences. They might become poorer, they said, but they would have nobody to blame but themselves, and even if the country's economy collapses, they prefer to go down fighting.

Some Greeks invoked the historic images of Kougi, a fortress where in 1803 independence fighters blew themselves up rather than surrender to the Ottoman Empire.

It would be better, the "no" voters suggested, for many Greeks to sacrifice their own well-being and for their country to abandon the euro and go to a lower-valued currency of its own than to remain at the mercy of European creditors.

Voters like Panagiotidou said the strength of the no vote was even more astounding after a week of capital controls in which Greeks were forced to wait at ATMs every day for rations of 60 euros, or about $67, and retirees had to stand in line for a small portion of their pensions.

 People were terrified by the bank closings, Panagiotidou said. If the banks had been open, she said, the no vote probably would have been even bigger.

For young people who have come of age during the austerity measures of the last five years, anything seemed better than continuing to bow to the demands of the creditors, the International Monetary Fund, the European Central Bank and the other eurozone nations.

Thalis Doukakis, 25, has been doing odd jobs since he graduated from college with a film degree, he said after voting no in Ilisia, a middle-class neighborhood of Athens. His godmother supports him and his mother, who is a widow and a retired nurse.

He said he understood that the consequences would be painful if Greece resorted to a currency like its previous one, the drachma, but that he believed the outcome would be better in the long run.

"It's better to have three or four worse years with the drachma than all these measures," he said.

Panagiotidou said some Greeks already felt as if they were living in a third world country. In her native Lesbos, an island near Turkey, she said, the public hospital is in such bad shape that people prefer to go to a German hospital in Turkey for even routine care like blood tests and dental work.

In other words, she said, they do not hesitate to support the economy of a country that has been an enemy state. "So the Greeks are being pushed to go to Turkey, unbelievable," she said.

In some ways the Greeks are struggling not only with the current situation but also with elements of their past, their national history, their sense of place in the world.

Ippolitos Papantoniou, 55, a businessman, said Greece was being trampled on because it was a small country and because fellow Europeans considered it expendable in the context of larger geopolitical goals, like teaching other nations that it could be dangerous to challenge the dictates of the eurozone.

"We are a tiny part of the European Union's GDP," Papantoniou said after he voted no. "When they say they can't work with the no, that isn't an economic choice, that is a political choice."

In the days leading up to the referendum, posters urging Greeks to vote no appeared on light poles across Greece, especially in the countryside, where people are poorer and more depleted by austerity.

The posters showed somber faces of Greeks, with the message that to vote no, "Oxi" in Greek, would be a choice for "democracy and dignity."

For the middle class, some of the normal rhythms of life have been disrupted in small but disturbing ways. People complain that because of cash controls, which mean that Greeks may not send money abroad, they are unable even to order a book from Amazon.

Many middle-class people took their cash out of the banks months ago and stashed it at home, under mattresses and in safes. But in the last few days, fearing further devastation in the Greek economy, they have begun counting their euros to determine just how much longer their cash will last. Some fear that it will be gone by summer's end.

A popular joke plays off the idea of a courtship that includes the promise, "I will take you to the best shops." Now the wooing must follow a new script, "I will take you to the best ATMs, sweetheart, where you will have the shortest lines."

For her part, Panagiotidou said her no vote represented not a repudiation of Europe, but a demand for understanding about what austerity had done to her family.

"I cannot commit suicide because the outsiders want it," she said. "I am a European, and I always will be. But a Europe that strangles the people - I don't want her."
© 2015, The New York Times News Service
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