Discussing the latest in Greece, Amy Goodman from Democracy Now on Tuesday interviewed Maria Margaronis, a London correspondent for The Nation magazine. Margaronis who had just returned to the UK after covering the economic crisis in Greece, said that every social policy in Greece is crumbling, unemployment is sky-rocketing, people are looking through the rubbish to find food to eat, and the health care system has totally deteriorated.
AMY GOODMAN: To discuss the latest in Greece, I’m joined by Maria Margaronis, London correspondent for The Nation magazine. She has just returned from Greece covering the economic crisis there. Describe what is happening in Greece, Maria.
MARIA MARGARONIS: Well, Greece is in the throes of a multiple breakdown, economic breakdown. The economy has been in recession for five years. We now have massive unemployment, homelessness among not only poorer people but also middle-class people who never would have expected to find themselves out on the streets but are losing their jobs. Unemployment among young people is about 50 percent. Those who can are leaving the country to find work elsewhere. And it’s—the scenes on the street in Athens are like nothing anyone has seen, I would say, since the 1940s: people queuing for food at soup kitchens, graffiti everywhere—
AMY GOODMAN: What about health care right now, how people are getting access to healthcare, Maria?
MARIA MARGARONIS: Healthcare is also in a very difficult situation, because when you lose your job in Greece, you also lose your health care, so that, for example, last week I went to see a clinic that’s been set up by the Athens Doctors Association to treat people who have lost their health care in that way and which is being staffed by unemployed doctors. Some doctors who are working, they’re volunteering, but also young doctors who have graduated but, because there’s a complete freeze on hiring in the public sector, can’t get a job in the public health system. I spoke to one young pediatrician who has a graduate degree in child development from Denver, Colorado, who’s working there for free and who told me that a number of families are now not vaccinating their children because they can’t afford to pay for the vaccines. So, we’re on the verge of a health disaster in Greece, as well.
AMY GOODMAN: Talk about the position of the Greek government, the power of the protesters, and whether there’s any sense that this can be turned around.
MARIA MARGARONIS: OK. The Greek government voted—it’s a coalition government between—it used to be the three parties: the two main parties—the center-right and the center-left—with a far-right party called LAOS. Now, LAOS pulled out before the last austerity vote, because its popularity was dropping as a result of supporting the austerity measures. And we have a caretaker prime minister, Lucas Papademos, who is a former banker from the European Central Bank, who is an appointed prime minister. The vote on—during the vote on Sunday, a third of MPs voted against the new measures—that is, for default, effectively—which is quite an extraordinary number. And as a result, a number of MPs were expelled from the two main parties. So there’s a rejigging of the political system going on now. There’s general rage in Greece with the old politicians for having brought the country to this point. And there’s a real lack of new blood in Parliament, people who people trust to be able to turn things around. The protests are also a complex scene, because what you see on the street in Athens, both in October and now in—on Sunday, is a complete cross-section of people from all walks of life, all ages—pensioners, working people, unemployed people, students, everybody. There’s also the large group now of hooded black-clad protesters who also are a complex scene. There’s a quite a strong anarchist movement in Greece. Some of them belong to the more violent tendencies of that. There’s also some far-right involvement, possibly. And a lot of people are certain that there are some of these protesters who actually are working with the police to cause trouble. So, a huge demonstration of, I would say, well over 100,000 people in Athens on Sunday. The first thing that happened is that the police set to with tear gas to clear people from Syntagma Square, which is in front of Parliament, because that’s where all the TV cameras of the foreign stations are lined up on the top floors of the grand hotels. And the policy in the last demonstrations has been to get people out of the square, so that, you know, the demonstration isn’t seen. And then unbelievable street battles began between the police, with tear gas and truncheons and boots, and the hooded protesters, throwing firebombs and Molotov cocktails and marble shards. And 45 buildings in Athens were set alight. It’s a miracle that nobody was killed. And Athens now looks like a devastated war zone. There’s no—I spoke to a friend who was at those protests, and she described a feeling of real despair, that there’s no vision, there’s no sense of a way out for Greece, apart from default, which is also an extremely painful option, unless the E.U. and the ECB and the IMF change their policy, realize that austerity isn’t working, is never going to work, and that the plan that they’ve now set in motion is only going to lead Greece to default further on down the line.
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