Life and Debt: A Greek Tragedy Panorama


Life and Debt: A Greek Tragedy

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Tonight on Panorama, the human face of a European tragedy. Where

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austerity means pharmacists run out of medicine.

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I cannot sleep. I don't know if it is my fault and how I can solve the

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problem. Where middle-class families rely on

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charity to feed their children. Where fear of immigration is being

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stoked by the far - right. I'm scared. They hate me.

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Who are they? The Pakistan... week's election result, may have

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saved the Euro for now. This is a victory for all of Europe.

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But can the Greeks trust their leaders to get it right this time?

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Those who have brought us to where we are today cannot be the vision

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Aries tomorrow. If not, how much longer with the

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people's patience hold out? We have nothing. No jobs no work. We have

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-- rise up and fight. In the run-up to the June election

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I went to Greece to find out how the people are coping with a crisis

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that threatens to destroy their once comfortable existence.

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I had been coming here for the past 20 years, ever since my son

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Christopher moved here. Hi dad.

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Back in the days when life was good. We have seen this country change

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almost beyond recognition. That is for rent. That is for rent.

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Kotstopholous has gone out of business. Half of them are empty or

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for rent. Rethis? Are they.

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Since joining the Euro, Greece has enjoyed a most spectacular boom

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since joining the Euro. Now it is suffering from an even more

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spectacular bust. It is just decimated.

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Some of the fruits of the wild and unchecked optimism are still

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unchecked, because the rich have held on to their wealth and some

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are very rich indeed. It's the rest who have suffered.

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Especially in the past four years. Their political leaders had

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delivered the message that they could have it all, without too much

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effort. They believed them. It was William Beveridge who

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identified the five giant evils that threaten a nation, want,

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disease, squallior, idleness, ignorance. That was 70 years ago.

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That nation was Great Britain. Those same giant evils threaten

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this nation today. When Christopher came here to work

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in a brand new Orchestra in the early nineties, it seemed that the

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giants had been slain. How much more enticing for a young man was

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the prospect of a good life in the sun with a guaranteed job, than

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dowdy old Britain, still recovering from a recession? Now he and his

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wife, Peppy, fear for the future of his young family. His salary has

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been slashed and the Orchestra is fighting to survive. She works as a

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lawyer but never knows which clients will pay and which will not.

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Things were still good when we all ziegted eight years ago to build a

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house here, but now when I return and catch up with old friends...

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Hello! The mood has changed. My neighbours know what it to blame.

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Here in Greece in the last 30 years, the half of the people go to live

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in Athens. An easy life with easy money.

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So, we stroped to produce and to export -- so we stopped production.

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We stopped thinking like Greeks. We want to do holidays all of the year

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like the tourists. We want easy work. Like this. What has to be

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done to get Greece out of trouble? The problem in Greece is that we

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need jobs. We need to work. We have to pay taxes.

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We have very, very big problems. Are you worried? I work too much.

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Very worried. Definitely. It is a big problem.

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Before Greece joined the European Union, 17% of its people worked in

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farming and fishing. Now it is 3%. Exports have fallen, imports have

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risen. The population of Athens doubled in two generations and the

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country has forgotten how to earn its keep. My neighbour, Nikos has

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to support two grown up children in Athens as they are unemployed. For

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most of his life he was a ship's engineer, with a good pension. He

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was enjoying his retire whment I first met him. Now he is struggling.

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Once he fished for the pleasure of it, now it is for need.

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A good pension... I was on the ships for 3 years to earn a pension

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that I could live on. I had about 1,000 Euros a month. He a good life.

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Now they have cut my pension by 300 Euros. I have two children in

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Athens, don't they need to eat? They are now unemployed.

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How are you managing to find the money? I couldn't manage. I bought

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that little boat to catch the fish to eat. How will I live? Nikos is

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not alone. On average pensions have been cut 30%. It is estimated that

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40% of Greeks could soon be living in poverty. Imagine that in

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Britain? 24 million people on the breadline? Greek culture, classic

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literature is suffused with morality tales, the most famous of

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them all, of course, King Midas, whose one great wish was that

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everything he touched would turn to gold. As every other school child

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know it is worked brilliantly for a while, then he came to grief.

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In many ways, the story of Greece is a modern morality tale. This

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small country could have have had a modest economy, but Greece cooked

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the books in its desperation to join the Euro and the E U-turned a

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blind eye. When all of that cheap borrowing

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was thrust at them, the Greeks grabbed it and spent it but when

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the bills started to come in, they Greece is a country that knows

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about suffering. The Nazi occupation was perhaps the

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most brutal in Europe. At least 200,000 people starved to death,

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many more were murdered. With the allied victory there came not peace,

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but savage Civil War. Nationalist forces supported by the allies

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defeated the communist, but then... After two decades, the army took

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over. A ruthless military dictatorship ruled until 1974, when

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the people overthrew the generals and opted for democracy.

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And now there is a new enemy, austerity does not pick and choose

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its victims. You sense that some people are beginning to lose the

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will to fight. But not all.

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Something extraordinary is happening here. All over the

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country volunteer organisations are springing up to help the people in

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the most desperate need. Stepping in where the state has

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failed. This may look like any other small

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coner -- corner shop, but it is not. The goods are given to families who

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cannot afford the basic necessities. Melina was 14 when she told her

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mother, Roubini Terzaki to set up a charity for the most needy. That

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was four years ago. Today, there are 4,500 people.

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Every day there are about 60 or 70 families in need.

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New families? Yes. They are asking for your help?

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That is a bad surprise. In a sense, I suppose, that there

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is a citizens' army being formed of volunteers who are saying that the

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state has let us down so we will get together and do it oufs? When

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your house is -- and do it ourselves? When your house is on

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fire you don't stay desperate, you do something. That is what we do.

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The operation is expanding by the day, it has to. Unemployment in

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Greece is now at 20 percent, benefits now stop after a year.

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More and more once middle-class families are falling into poverty.

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This apartment is home to a book- keeper who has been unemployed

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since her firm went bust. Her husband is a builder who has had

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hardly any work in the past two years.

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They are thousands of Euros in debt. Were it not for the charity their

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three children would go hungry. Moments of fun like this are rare,

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but the hep is not just welcomed, it is essential.

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You have small children, how important is all of this to you?

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How would you manage without all of this?

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TRANSLATION: I don't know. We are going through a tough time. My

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husband is out of work, I'm out of work. We only have my mother's

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pension of 400 Euros a month. It is not enough.

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Today I had no food to cook. I didn't know how I was going to feed

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the children. It's very hard.

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What is the worst thing about being as poor as you are now?

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TRANSLATION: It's put a strain on the relationship with my husband.

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We are like two strangers. TRANSLATION: I remember life under

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the generals. This is worse. These are not good times to live in.

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Before there was work, times were different.

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Sometimes Maria has to send her children to school without food and

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Greece does not do free school dinners. In the poorest areas the

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teachers talk of children fainting in the classroom as they are not

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getting enough to eat, but it is when the children get sick that the

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real horror of the spending cuts kicks in. Opposite this children's

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hospital, Konstantina Gavrou runs a pharmacy, but the national fund

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that supplies the pharmacists is failing. They are losing the battle

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to buy the drugs that the patients desperately need.

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It really is the case that children's hospital on the other

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side of the square from here, there are parents who are being given

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drugs for their children with cancer and they have to share them

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with other parents whose children have cancer?

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TRANSLATION: The parents of these children across the street open a

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packet of medication and hand them out. This is not candy, this is

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medicine. Now I blame myself. I don't actually serve the people, I

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just add to their misery. How will this problem be resolved?

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The Greek government cannot allow many people to die because they

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don't get the drugs? Surely? TRANSLATION: We are paying large

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interest payments while children at school don't have books, now they

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have no medicines, something is not right.

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What Foreign Secretary does this have on you as somebody who has

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been a pharmacist for some years now, made your life as a

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pharmacist? Actually this I can say in English... I cannot sleep.

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During the night I'm feeling terrible.

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I don't know if it is my fault and how I can solve this problem, but

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when I wake up in the morning I realise that this is not from me

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but I have to find a solution as a Dina Kriara works in the pharmacy

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dispensing medicines. But there's a vicious irony here. She herself has

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a potentially fatal heart problem and despite being surrounded by

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drugs, she struggles to obtain the ones she needs. TRANSLATION: Even

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as we speak, I haven't had my medications for this month. I can't

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live without them. I need them. you frightened? Yes, I am very

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Pharmacies without medicines, schools without books and families

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without food. Greece is failing against these fundamental measures

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of civilisation. Will this really be the country in which my

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grandchildren will grow up? Where some say it's even worse than it

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was under the generals? How can The public coffers are empty, yet

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vast private wealth remains evident here. But just try getting the rich

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If the myth of Midas serves as one useful metaphor for what's happened

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to Greece, the myth of Sisyphus might serve as another. He's the

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bloke, you'll remember, who was given the job of rolling the

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boulder up the hill and every time he got anywhere near the top, it

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rolled right back down again. Diomidis Spinellis can relate to

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that. He's a professor of software engineering and he was asked by the

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Greek government to help get people to pay their taxes. He designed a

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system to identify potential evaders, particularly among the

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very rich. When I started in 2009, I was extremely optimistic. I saw a

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number of low-hanging fruit I thought I can just grab them and

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it's a done deal. Because you see people, for instance, having flashy

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cars. Why shouldn't they have a flashy tax return, indicating that

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they are doing their bit to help the state? But when Spinellis told

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the government and the tax offices what was going on, nothing happened.

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Exasperated, he designed a second programme to monitor the tax

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collectors themselves. They didn't like that. Some wanted to guard the

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corrupt culture of kickbacks with which they feathered their own

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nests. Spinellis was sued by the tax collectors' union. If the tax

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collectors themselves don't accept that things are so badly wrong and

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must be changed, how will it ever be changed? By the end of my term I

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was considering that the exisiting system cannot be changed gradually

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in such a way. It would have been better to create a new tax

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collection authority. So you wanted an earthquake in effect. You wanted

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to blow the whole thing up and start again and what we've seen is

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a tremor. I think an earthquake is needed in order to bring the system

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under control. It would bring a great amount of revenue, in the

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order of 10 billion euros. In other words, it would make a significant

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contribution to ending the crisis that Greece is in now. Yes, it

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:17:25.:17:25.

would. But it's not happening. Seeing the way Greece has been

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governed by the two main parties over the years reminds me of the

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way some of the worst local councils in Britain were run when I

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was a young reporter. But this is a country with an ancient history,

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strategically important, whose future matters to all of us. Can it

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One man who benefitted from the Greek boom is Konstantine Michalos.

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He's an influential businessmen and now President of the Chambers of

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Commerce. Where is the evidence that the Greek people are prepared

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to say, "OK, we will do things differently from now on?" First of

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all, let's get one thing right. This is not a Greek crisis and I

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think that this has been proved very clearly over the last few

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months when we've seen economic powers such as Italy or Spain...

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It's not exclusively a Greek crisis, I will grant you that, but you are

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in an enormous mess. Yes, I will agree that Greece is responsible

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for its own internal affairs. We didn't use the European funds in

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the correct way. It was squandered and there was corruption and all

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the rest of it, so my question remains. How do you change that

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mentality, what is the evidence that it's changing? By changing the

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political system in Greece. You cannot possibly convince the Greek

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people with politicians that are the main reason, the cause that has

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brought us where we are today. who are totally discredited.

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Precisely, because those who have brought us to where we are today

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cannot possibly be expected to be But after last weekend's general

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election, it's the old guard running the show once again. New

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Democracy and Pasok in coalition, the very parties who got Greece

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into this mess over the past four decades. This is a victory for all

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Europe. I will make sure that the sacrifices of the Greek people will

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bring the country back to But how much more sacrifice will

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Greece tolerate? Of those who voted, most were against the austerity

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package. There's now a powerful opposition in parliament. The left-

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wing grouping called SYRIZA swore to rip up the bail out plan. They

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came a close second. And on the extreme right, Golden Dawn cemented

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the gains they made last time with a worrying 7% of the popular vote.

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At this rally, Afghan immigrants are protesting against what they

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They feel they've been made a political scapegoat for the

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country's troubles. But when Golden Dawn invited us to film them before

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the election, they tried to sell us Things had got so bad, they said,

:20:29.:20:39.
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that little old ladies asked to be I'm scared. They hit me, they pinch.

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Who are they? Pakistan. Not Greek people. No, no, never. It's not a

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Greek. And this people, it's all right, when I want to go to the

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bank they come with me. I don't worry. The Golden Dawn MP, Giani

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Vouldis, boasted to me that it took his men to rid this neighbourhood

:21:02.:21:12.
:21:12.:21:14.

TRANSLATION: They asked for Golden Dawn's help so we helped.

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Eventually there were fewer immigrants and with police

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assisting in the end, we cleared the square out. What about

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Pakistanis or Indians or Africans who have come to live in Greece

:21:26.:21:36.
:21:36.:21:41.

legally? TRANSLATION: There aren't any legal ones, or very few. They

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pretend they come from countries with internal problems like war,

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persecution and they stay here creating ghettos. Do you regard

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fascism as an evil doctrine? things that Hitler did, if we're

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talking about here in Greece, of course they were bad. On the other

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hand, history's always written by the winners. You don't believe that

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Hitler created the ultimate crime against the Jewish people, the

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crime of genocide? I don't know. You don't know? I don't know, but

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everyone has the right to Golden Dawn's emergence, in this of

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all countries, where Nazi occupation survives in living

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memory, is alarming, but for every choreographed PR stunt like the one

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I saw, there's been a high-profile media blunder. Like when one of

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their MPs assaulted a woman on national television and went on the

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:22:58.:22:59.

This party now hold 18 seats in the It's not only the far right that's

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benefitted from this crisis. People distrust conventional politics and

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the danger is that violence like these street scenes from last

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:23:15.:23:18.

The people of Athens are well used to the sight of riot police on

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their streets. These are a pretty permanent fixture on the border of

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Athens' Exarcheia neighbourhood, where ordinary police officers no

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longer patrol because they're nervous of stirring up trouble. I

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met with a group of young activists here last week. What happened at

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the election is precisely what they told me they would not tolerate.

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With half of all under 25s out of work, what they want is revolution.

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All revolutions are almost always preceded by violence. At what point

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are young people in Greece going to take to the streets? TRANSLATION:

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400 euro salaries and unemployment are acts of violence. Under these

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terms, we advocate an uprising. This is a crisis of capitalism

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itself. It's a crisis of that system of producing and consuming

:24:15.:24:18.

and I believe that most young people, they try to think of

:24:18.:24:28.
:24:28.:24:28.

Anger at measures that young people feel have robbed them of their

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future may well fuel more unrest. And things are not going to get

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better. A fifth of all public sector workers are set to be laid

:24:37.:24:45.

off - the equivalent of a million So are you saying that this in a

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way is the lost generation in Greece? For sure. Of course our

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generation is a generation that have nothing. There are no futures,

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no jobs, no work, no universities, no public health, nothing. You have

:25:08.:25:13.

just to rise up and fight for some things that we need for living. For

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The spirit of resistance has never died in Greece. If one man embodies

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that spirit, it is Manolis Glezos, a national hero who can't walk the

:25:26.:25:36.
:25:36.:25:37.

He's the man who risked his life tearing down the swastika from the

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Acropolis in 1943, who fought in the civil war, who was locked up by

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the military junta, who was elected to the European parliament, and who

:25:43.:25:53.
:25:53.:25:56.

is still fighting, still And still in tune with the people

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of Greece in his loathing of what everyone here calls the troika, the

:25:59.:26:05.

EU, the European Central Bank and the IMF. They are seen as the

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oppressors. And at the heart of the troika is, of course, the old enemy,

:26:09.:26:19.
:26:19.:26:21.

Germany. I met Mr Glezos before the TRANSLATION: Of course today

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there's no occupation. Are German soldiers here? No. But the German

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mentality prevails. The Greek people are not responsible for the

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crisis. It was caused by the financial system. The Greeks didn't

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fuel it, yet they were forced by the troika and its agents to stump

:26:47.:26:49.

up, to cut pensions, benefits and salaries, all that they've gained

:26:49.:26:59.
:26:59.:27:09.

so far. But many people on the outside, in Germany, in Britain and

:27:09.:27:12.

many other countries, look at Greece and say it is at least

:27:12.:27:15.

partly the fault of the Greek people because they haven't paid

:27:15.:27:22.

their taxes. They wanted the good life without paying the bills.

:27:22.:27:26.

Greek people pay their taxes. It's big capital that doesn't pay tax,

:27:26.:27:29.

the bankers don't pay tax, the financial institutions don't pay

:27:29.:27:39.
:27:39.:27:42.

This country has suffered three great crises just in my life time.

:27:42.:27:47.

Nazi occupation, civil war, military dictatorship. It overcame

:27:47.:27:49.

all that, embraced democracy and for the last generation, it's

:27:49.:27:56.

enjoyed a period of unprecedented stability and prosperity. The

:27:56.:28:03.

danger of this present crisis is Greece has a new government

:28:03.:28:08.

committed to austerity. It believes there is no alternative. As the

:28:08.:28:11.

cuts bite ever deeper, the people of Greece may take a different view

:28:11.:28:21.

and if they do, it will have Next week, Panorama goes undercover

:28:21.:28:24.

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