Greeks resigned to accepting austerity drive

Greeks are up in arms about the latest wave of austerity cuts. Communists unfurled banners urging revolt from the Acropolis, thousands marched on the parliament, demonstrations degenerated into pitched battles between riot police and Molotov cocktail hurtling youths. No way will Greeks accept the sacrifices that their Socialist government is asking of them. Right?

Well, that is the picture one gets from the international press over the last week. But having just returned from Athens where I was covering the crisis for an international news organization, that picture seems at best highly distorted. When you speak to Greeks, even many of those who were protesting in the streets, most seem resigned to accepting that the whole country has no choice but to make painful sacrifices to avoid a financial meltdown. Whether talking to people in the public sector or the private sector, that was repeatedly the message that I and my colleagues got.

Of course, the unions are up in arms and managed to mobilise more people than they would usually for the recent demonstrations. But isn’t that what one would expect anyway? Probably about 50,000 people marched in the biggest demonstration on Wednesday, which is not that many in a city of about a million people. As for the violence, Greek demonstrations frequently turn violent and is widely expected and accepted. On the ground, the clashes between police and protesting youths had an almost ritualistic feel to them as though each side had done it so many times before that they knew their roles perfectly like ballet dancers. The youths would taunt the police, who would put up with it to a point, then would push them back with tear gas.

On Wednesday, the violence definitely got out of hand when the Marfin bank caught fire, killing three people by inhalation. But that was because some hot-headed hooligan had the idiotic idea to smash a window and toss a Molotov cocktail. But the sad truth is that Greek protests often involve hooligans using the opportunity of a demonstration to come downtown, smash things up a bit and toss a few Molotov cocktails. With youth unemployment running stubbornly above 30 percent, the youth have a lot of frustration and anger to vent when they don’t happen to be part of the connected classes that know the right people for getting a job. Greece is not alone in this either. Disillusioned youths with few opportunities are the main raw ingredient for pretty much any riots whether they be in Greece, Paris suburbs, LA or Brixton. All they need is a pretext to riot and Greek youths definitely had one last week.

The protests did not stop the Greek parliament from approving the austerity plan with a comfortable majority. It would have been overwhelmingly approved if the conservative New Democracy party that is largely responsible for much of Greece’s current problems had risen above petty politics and backed the plan. Ironically, it was therefore Prime Minister George Papandreou’s Socialists that passed legislation imposing budgetary rigor and economic liberalisation — things their conservative predecessors didn’t dare to do when they were in power.

While Papandreou’s ratings have taken a hit from pushing through an unpopular austerity drive, remarkably he remains more popular than his conservative rival Antoni Samaras. That goes to show that the much of the population has indeed understood that there is no other choice than painful spending cuts and tax hikes, just as Papandreou has repeatedly argued.

Of course, this picture contrasts sharply with what one has seen in the international media lately where one could get the opposite impression that the population is in open revolt against the government. But remember, these days media are battling with each other for your attention and the best way to do that is to focus exclusively on drama at the expense of the broader context. Of course, there was violence in Greece last week, of course there are people who are up in arms against the austerity plan. But that does not reflect the attitude of the broader population. At least not for now. The situation could change and change quickly. But for now Greeks are largely resigned to the fact that their way of life over the last 10 years will have to change.

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