Greece is the Word

Greece is the time, is the place, is the motion

Greece is the way we are feeling

Greece is the word.

 

(With fondest apologies to Alan and Barry Gibb)

Okay, so I’m talkin’ a different kind of Greece than the brothers Gibb. Historical Greece, beautiful Greece, poverty-stricken Greece.

This country is all that I expected—the good and even the sad, but also the ugly. Greek history is well known to me, of course (old history teachers never die, they just move on to another era). The Acropolis and its battered Parthenon were exactly as I pictured them, yet surprisingly more beautiful, their location even more spectacular. Yet, Athens is home to fully 50% of all Greek residents; it is overcrowded and peppered with garish graffiti.

My personal Greek odyssey began in Athens, but then we escaped to Delphi, the alleged “navel of the world,” perched on an idyllic hillside, dramatic and inspiring. One could imagine the ceremonial rites of the Oracle and understand the ancients’ sense of spirituality among the cypresses and bright marble edifices.

The journey continued to the Greek islands which were wonderful in expected and unexpected ways. Delos is an uninhabited island of ruined sanctuaries and abandoned habitations. Visiting there was truly like stepping back in time, with only our distantly anchored ship to recall us to the 21^st century.

Mykonos is renown as a arty place for jet-setters, yet I was completely charmed by its narrow alleyways and petit cafes clinging to the sea, it’s patrons sprayed by the mist of errant waves crashing only a body length from their tables.

Fabled Santorini looked like snowy icing atop the cliffs of Thira, precariously crowning the edge of an sleeping subterranean volcano. Beyond the tourist shops and fancy hotels, we found Akrotiri, Greece’s Pompei, to be the likely source of the great myth of Atlantis.

Surprisingly subtle Rhodes was an eclectic mixture of ancient Greece and Rome, dominated by the legacy of Crusaders with their beautiful walls, castles and churches. I was surprised by another revelation: the magnificent Palace of the Grand Masters is an errant reconstruction that reflects Mussolini’s Fascist fantasies during the Italian occupation of the 1930s and 40’s: beautiful, charming, even inspiring--yet seriously flawed.

Patmos was a small island with a small village, embracing the brief yet lasting legacy of St. John and his Revelations. But is in Patmos that we can no longer escape the cold realities of the Greek economy in free fall.

Greece is floundering in their worst recorded recession after six years of “austerity.” Mismanagement by inept Greek politicians and draconian demands of creditor nations and the European Community have had a devastating effect. “The Persians wiped out our famous 300 Spartans 2500 years ago—is there anyone now who will take out our 300-member parliament, please?” said one Greek speaker at a Village Forum I attended.

The once-proud birthplace of democracy is in deepest despair. This protracted depression has resulted in a “brain drain” of professionals and a generation of Greek youth who cannot afford and education, or cannot attain one in shuttered or retrenched Greek institutions. “Most parents who can afford to send their children abroad for education, don’t; they fear their children will never return to our depressed country,” said another speaker.

18-29 year-old Greeks who seek work face an unemployment rate estimated to be as high as 65%. With nearly two out every three young citizens unemployed, there is much anger and crippling despair. Many idle hands have saturated the capital of Athens with graffiti, evidencing their frustration. I shudder to think of this as evidence of a future that might befall even the greatest economy on Earth.