In spite of the profoundly dulled senses that come as a
result of a day of international travel, Greece takes hold of you the very
moment you arrive at the Eleftherios Venizelos International Airport.
The airport, just about 20 kilometers above the sprawling
megalopolis of Athens, opened on March 29, 2001, and it is named for a freedom
fighter, revolutionary, statesman and charismatic leader from the early 1900s,
who died in 1936...
I had the honor of visiting a monument in his honor near his
hometown in Therisos gorge near Chania in Crete on January 7, and his gravesite
memorial in Akrotiri, which is also near Chania, the next day.
This was my first trip to Greece… I traveled to Greece with
a group of McDaniel College students and faculty members. It was more of an
academic experience as opposed to a vacation, if you will.
Nevertheless, this article and several more that I
researched and pre-wrote while in Greece should not be considered reporting –
or the profile of a country – but rather a collection of thoughts and vignettes
that lie more in the tradition of a travelogue.
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While
Greece
wraps up a six-month effort to secure a new bailout payment, and
Washington continues to fail to understand the
seriousness of its fiscal responsibilities, the world’s financial markets
wobbled earlier in the week when it saw the ghost of
Italy’s former Prime Minister
Silvio Berlusconi.
http://www.thetentacle.com/ShowArticle.cfm?mydocid=5512
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Athens, Greece, January 12 – Demonstrators once again took
to the streets in central Athens Saturday afternoon, in another of a long
series of strikes, demonstrations and acts of civil disobedience that have
rocked Greece since a worldwide economic downturn officially got underway in
December 2007.
It was four years ago – in 2009 – that
Greece
kicked-off the year by announcing its budget deficit would be 12.9% of GDP,
more than four times the European Union's 3% limit.
Greece was first admitted into the
EU in 1981, and in 2001 it joined the Eurozone…
http://www.thetentacle.com/ShowArticle.cfm?mydocid=5566
[…]
Various recent news accounts indicate that unemployment
approaches 25 percent in Greece.
Pensions have been reduced and salaries slashed anywhere from 30 to 60 percent.
Meanwhile last Saturday began with
signs
posted in the Metro that read: “Notice to Passengers. On Saturday 12/1/13,
stations, Penepistimio, Syntagma, will remain closed from 10:00 for safety
reason…”
Since 2010, Syntagma
Square has served as a barometer for rising civil
discontent over Greece’s
ever-worsening economic crisis. In the past it has been the most popular locale
for mass protests and tent-city like occupations, some of which have turned
unexpectedly violent in which police have responded en masse with batons,
shields and tear gas...
On
Saturday, I witnessed more than 5,000 or 6,000 demonstrators marching past
the
National Archaeological Museum,
in a dense, well-organized and loud processional that chanted a Greek chorus of
anti-government slogans in a carefully choreographed cat-and-mouse theatrical
routine with a full accompaniment of motorcycle police and a phalanx of
paramilitary shock riot-police.
