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Have some respect — also for the Greeks, please!
By Ingeborg Beugel
Source: Roarmag.org
May 14, 2015
As a former correspondent in Greece I am still regularly invited to radio and TV shows in the Netherlands, or to give lectures or talks about the Greek debt crisis somewhere in the country. The latter are usually organized by some kind of foundation or organization of “Hellenophiles.” In addition to Dutch lovers of Greek culture and parents of children who are married to Greeks and who live somewhere in Hellas, those in attendance often include Greeks (and their partners) living in the Netherlands.
Lately, more than ever, I find myself presented at these type of gatherings with deeply unpleasant anecdotes. The stories of Dutch citizens refusing to pay their bills after eating and drinking at Greek tavernas because “they’ve already given enough money to the Greeks by now” have been circulating for some years, and even made it into the national newspapers. But now I find myself being approached by concerned mothers and fathers of half-Greek children who tell me that their daughters or sons have come home from school angry, sometimes even in tears, because their economics teacher, for instance, would unabashedly depict the Greeks as lazy, unreliable, tax-dodging profiteers who can’t be trusted to live up to their agreements and who are threatening the very survival of the EU, and because the teacher would profess, with full conviction, that kicking Greece out of the eurozone is the only solution — the faster the better.
When those half-Greek kids oppose such contentions in class, recounting the stories of their family members in Greece who barely have enough money to buy food, trying to explain that Greece has in fact been extremely “reliable” for the past five years in terms of sticking to the bailout agreements — only to find the public debt rising and the economy reduced to shambles — they were simply laughed at and publicly humiliated. After class, such rituals would often be repeated at the schoolyard. And things are getting worse, they say.
Ever since Syriza won the Greek elections in January, ever since the “messenger boys from Brussels” (the old parties ND and PASOK) disappeared from the Greek political scene, ever since the media developed its obsession with the striking new Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis, ever since the new Greek government desperately began trying to do something – however piecemeal it may be — to soften Merkel’s stance and to overturn the catastrophic austerity measures and reforms of the Troika (EU, ECB and IMF), it has become commonplace to openly and shamelessly despise and humiliate Greek people.
Lately, more than ever, I find myself presented at these type of gatherings with deeply unpleasant anecdotes. The stories of Dutch citizens refusing to pay their bills after eating and drinking at Greek tavernas because “they’ve already given enough money to the Greeks by now” have been circulating for some years, and even made it into the national newspapers. But now I find myself being approached by concerned mothers and fathers of half-Greek children who tell me that their daughters or sons have come home from school angry, sometimes even in tears, because their economics teacher, for instance, would unabashedly depict the Greeks as lazy, unreliable, tax-dodging profiteers who can’t be trusted to live up to their agreements and who are threatening the very survival of the EU, and because the teacher would profess, with full conviction, that kicking Greece out of the eurozone is the only solution — the faster the better.
When those half-Greek kids oppose such contentions in class, recounting the stories of their family members in Greece who barely have enough money to buy food, trying to explain that Greece has in fact been extremely “reliable” for the past five years in terms of sticking to the bailout agreements — only to find the public debt rising and the economy reduced to shambles — they were simply laughed at and publicly humiliated. After class, such rituals would often be repeated at the schoolyard. And things are getting worse, they say.
Ever since Syriza won the Greek elections in January, ever since the “messenger boys from Brussels” (the old parties ND and PASOK) disappeared from the Greek political scene, ever since the media developed its obsession with the striking new Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis, ever since the new Greek government desperately began trying to do something – however piecemeal it may be — to soften Merkel’s stance and to overturn the catastrophic austerity measures and reforms of the Troika (EU, ECB and IMF), it has become commonplace to openly and shamelessly despise and humiliate Greek people.
Full article: https://zcomm.org/znetarticle/have-some-respect-also-for-the-greeks-please/
Assholes.
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