Normally this series tries to describe a City at what I have
called a moment of apogee in her history. This time the great moment belongs
only to the author as he was married to his wonderful Greek bride Betty in
Athens on 19 April 1969. The date was of course hugely significant to me and I
take the opportunity to sketch in some recollections of laid-back Athens 47
years ago and contrast it with the often sadly troubled Athens of today.
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| The Parthenon and the Erectheum on the Acropolis, Athens |
The
Athens to which my wedding party of Scottish family and old friends was
introduced was then ruled by by the Colonel’s Regime (“Junta”) which lasted
from 1967 to 1974. The classic military coup
d’etat of 21 April 1967 had appalled Western Europe, who believed democracy
had permanently taken root there since the bad old days of the 1930s. But Greek
politics were deeply corrupt and a drift leftwards had alarmed
ultra-conservative elements in the army who saw themselves as self-appointed
guardians of traditional values. The wounds of the bitter Civil War (1946-49)
had not healed and supporters of the defeated Left had long been excluded from
public office; the hard core of agitators lived in exile in communist Eastern
Europe.
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| Colonels Pattakos, Papadopoulos and Makarezos |
The Colonels suppressed dissent, rounded up leftist
activists, sent them into internal exile and shamefully tortured some
resistors. Maybe as many as 24 civilians were killed in the turmoil associated
with the violent Athens Polytechnic riots of November 1973 (none on campus),
but the Junta’s real sins pale beside those of many other dictatorships. The
regime was authoritarian rather than Fascist.
The Greek life I initially knew was simple, relaxed and
traditional. Supermarkets were unknown, car ownership far from widespread and
the infrastructure urgently needing investment. The local taverna was a focal point of social life: all the family and
relatives would come along - commonly 10 or 12 would sit down to sup animatedly
on a long table. Before eating, the taverna
kitchen pots would be inspected to see what looked appetising. The fare was
often grilled meat or my favoured kokkoretsi
(lamb’s innards tied up with an intestine and spit-roasted) washed down by
gallons of draught cold resinated white wine. The Greeks ate late – an 11pm
kick-off was quite usual: as a young chap I could cope, though it played Old
Harry with the digestion of older visitors!
Greece was delightfully cheap and back-packers abounded in
Athens and the islands. It was a fun place with loud discos to patronise,
nightclubs (bouzoukia) with their
plangent mandolin music, busy outdoor cinemas with the latest escapist movie
from Aliki, Konstandaras or Vlachopoulou and plentiful cafes like Papaspirou,
Floca and Zonars for chats into the wee, small hours. By day one could swim on
the pine-fringed beaches at Schenias or eat seafood at now much missed
Psaropoulos, Glyfada or at Lambros, Vouliagmeni or a dozen fish tavernas at
Microlimano, still going strong. There was not much sophistication but Greece
retained her distinctive Levantine air.
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| The Bouzoukia of Athens |
The Greek curiosity of spirit was irrepressible and reserved
Brits got short shrift. I recall my uptight indignation when I was pressed by a
local to disclose my income to him after all of 15 minutes’ acquaintance! I
tended to keep off politics, always a fraught subject, but typically my dear
father-in-law embraced me when he accepted me as a son-in-law. “I will love you
like my own son”, he tearfully declared, “but if I find you are a communist, I
will kill you!” He meant it, though I felt safe enough: but later he opined
that blameless Clem Attlee was “a famous communist!”
Cities and cityscapes change; inexorably Athens moved on and
became more European. Democracy of a kind was restored by respected Constantine
Karamanlis (New Democracy) and populist Andreas Papandreou (PASOK) did a great
service by welcoming back exiled leftists and opening up government positions
to all. One virtue of the Junta was that Greece was solvent, largely forced
upon her when she was excluded from capital markets. By the 1980s Greece wanted
to catch up with more developed states and started to borrow.
Successive governments introduced welfare the country could
not afford and pampered their favourite special interest groups. Her finances
were an opaque swamp. The political elite betrayed the people with its own
looting. In 2001 Greece joined the Euro on a false prospectus and while the
Greeks confessed their sin in 2004, the EU was too polite to eject her. The
lure of ever more debt intoxicated the Greeks who wallowed in debt like a cat
snuffling catnip.
There were still some good times – the Olympics were
successfully staged in Athens in 2004, and underdogs Greece won the European
football championship in the same year; she even won the Eurovision song
contest in 2005! But Greece was hanging on a debt-fuelled thread and disaster
struck in 2009 followed by 3 massive bail-outs up to 2015. The Greek economy,
unable to devalue as it was shackled to the Euro, had to apply harsh deflation
and is in ruins. Unemployment at 24% has sapped the will of poorer people,
industrial production has nose-dived, benefits have been slashed and any
recovery seems far away.
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| Mount Lycabettus towers over Athens |
Athens and Greece are currently depressed, injured and desperate.
Yet the warm spirit of Greece, which I have loved for 47 years, endures even
though you now need to dig deep to find it. It is of the greatest value to our
world.
SMD
09.07.16
Text Copyright © Sidney Donald 2016
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