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Tonight on Panorama, the human face of a European tragedy. Where | :00:14. | :00:17. | |
austerity means pharmacists run out of medicine. | :00:17. | :00:23. | |
I cannot sleep. I don't know if it is my fault and how I can solve the | :00:23. | :00:32. | |
problem. Where middle-class families rely on | :00:32. | :00:42. | |
charity to feed their children. Where fear of immigration is being | :00:42. | :00:48. | |
stoked by the far - right. I'm scared. They hate me. | :00:48. | :00:55. | |
Who are they? The Pakistan... week's election result, may have | :00:55. | :01:00. | |
saved the Euro for now. This is a victory for all of Europe. | :01:00. | :01:05. | |
But can the Greeks trust their leaders to get it right this time? | :01:05. | :01:09. | |
Those who have brought us to where we are today cannot be the vision | :01:09. | :01:12. | |
Aries tomorrow. If not, how much longer with the | :01:12. | :01:16. | |
people's patience hold out? We have nothing. No jobs no work. We have | :01:17. | :01:26. | |
:01:27. | :01:30. | ||
-- rise up and fight. In the run-up to the June election | :01:30. | :01:35. | |
I went to Greece to find out how the people are coping with a crisis | :01:35. | :01:38. | |
that threatens to destroy their once comfortable existence. | :01:38. | :01:44. | |
I had been coming here for the past 20 years, ever since my son | :01:44. | :01:46. | |
Christopher moved here. Hi dad. | :01:46. | :01:52. | |
Back in the days when life was good. We have seen this country change | :01:52. | :01:56. | |
almost beyond recognition. That is for rent. That is for rent. | :01:56. | :02:00. | |
Kotstopholous has gone out of business. Half of them are empty or | :02:00. | :02:08. | |
for rent. Rethis? Are they. | :02:08. | :02:13. | |
Since joining the Euro, Greece has enjoyed a most spectacular boom | :02:13. | :02:18. | |
since joining the Euro. Now it is suffering from an even more | :02:18. | :02:22. | |
spectacular bust. It is just decimated. | :02:22. | :02:29. | |
Some of the fruits of the wild and unchecked optimism are still | :02:29. | :02:32. | |
unchecked, because the rich have held on to their wealth and some | :02:32. | :02:36. | |
are very rich indeed. It's the rest who have suffered. | :02:36. | :02:40. | |
Especially in the past four years. Their political leaders had | :02:40. | :02:44. | |
delivered the message that they could have it all, without too much | :02:44. | :02:54. | |
:02:54. | :02:56. | ||
effort. They believed them. It was William Beveridge who | :02:56. | :03:00. | |
identified the five giant evils that threaten a nation, want, | :03:00. | :03:05. | |
disease, squallior, idleness, ignorance. That was 70 years ago. | :03:06. | :03:12. | |
That nation was Great Britain. Those same giant evils threaten | :03:12. | :03:20. | |
this nation today. When Christopher came here to work | :03:20. | :03:24. | |
in a brand new Orchestra in the early nineties, it seemed that the | :03:24. | :03:28. | |
giants had been slain. How much more enticing for a young man was | :03:28. | :03:33. | |
the prospect of a good life in the sun with a guaranteed job, than | :03:33. | :03:38. | |
dowdy old Britain, still recovering from a recession? Now he and his | :03:38. | :03:42. | |
wife, Peppy, fear for the future of his young family. His salary has | :03:43. | :03:47. | |
been slashed and the Orchestra is fighting to survive. She works as a | :03:47. | :03:51. | |
lawyer but never knows which clients will pay and which will not. | :03:51. | :03:56. | |
Things were still good when we all ziegted eight years ago to build a | :03:56. | :04:02. | |
house here, but now when I return and catch up with old friends... | :04:02. | :04:09. | |
Hello! The mood has changed. My neighbours know what it to blame. | :04:09. | :04:14. | |
Here in Greece in the last 30 years, the half of the people go to live | :04:14. | :04:18. | |
in Athens. An easy life with easy money. | :04:18. | :04:28. | |
:04:28. | :04:28. | ||
So, we stroped to produce and to export -- so we stopped production. | :04:28. | :04:33. | |
We stopped thinking like Greeks. We want to do holidays all of the year | :04:34. | :04:40. | |
like the tourists. We want easy work. Like this. What has to be | :04:40. | :04:45. | |
done to get Greece out of trouble? The problem in Greece is that we | :04:45. | :04:51. | |
need jobs. We need to work. We have to pay taxes. | :04:51. | :04:57. | |
We have very, very big problems. Are you worried? I work too much. | :04:57. | :05:01. | |
Very worried. Definitely. It is a big problem. | :05:01. | :05:05. | |
Before Greece joined the European Union, 17% of its people worked in | :05:05. | :05:13. | |
farming and fishing. Now it is 3%. Exports have fallen, imports have | :05:13. | :05:17. | |
risen. The population of Athens doubled in two generations and the | :05:17. | :05:22. | |
country has forgotten how to earn its keep. My neighbour, Nikos has | :05:22. | :05:25. | |
to support two grown up children in Athens as they are unemployed. For | :05:25. | :05:31. | |
most of his life he was a ship's engineer, with a good pension. He | :05:31. | :05:35. | |
was enjoying his retire whment I first met him. Now he is struggling. | :05:36. | :05:41. | |
Once he fished for the pleasure of it, now it is for need. | :05:41. | :05:48. | |
A good pension... I was on the ships for 3 years to earn a pension | :05:48. | :05:55. | |
that I could live on. I had about 1,000 Euros a month. He a good life. | :05:55. | :06:01. | |
Now they have cut my pension by 300 Euros. I have two children in | :06:01. | :06:06. | |
Athens, don't they need to eat? They are now unemployed. | :06:06. | :06:12. | |
How are you managing to find the money? I couldn't manage. I bought | :06:12. | :06:22. | |
that little boat to catch the fish to eat. How will I live? Nikos is | :06:22. | :06:27. | |
not alone. On average pensions have been cut 30%. It is estimated that | :06:27. | :06:32. | |
40% of Greeks could soon be living in poverty. Imagine that in | :06:32. | :06:38. | |
Britain? 24 million people on the breadline? Greek culture, classic | :06:38. | :06:42. | |
literature is suffused with morality tales, the most famous of | :06:42. | :06:49. | |
them all, of course, King Midas, whose one great wish was that | :06:49. | :06:53. | |
everything he touched would turn to gold. As every other school child | :06:54. | :06:58. | |
know it is worked brilliantly for a while, then he came to grief. | :06:58. | :07:05. | |
In many ways, the story of Greece is a modern morality tale. This | :07:05. | :07:10. | |
small country could have have had a modest economy, but Greece cooked | :07:10. | :07:14. | |
the books in its desperation to join the Euro and the E U-turned a | :07:14. | :07:19. | |
blind eye. When all of that cheap borrowing | :07:19. | :07:23. | |
was thrust at them, the Greeks grabbed it and spent it but when | :07:23. | :07:33. | |
:07:33. | :07:36. | ||
the bills started to come in, they Greece is a country that knows | :07:36. | :07:42. | |
about suffering. The Nazi occupation was perhaps the | :07:42. | :07:47. | |
most brutal in Europe. At least 200,000 people starved to death, | :07:47. | :07:53. | |
many more were murdered. With the allied victory there came not peace, | :07:53. | :07:56. | |
but savage Civil War. Nationalist forces supported by the allies | :07:56. | :08:01. | |
defeated the communist, but then... After two decades, the army took | :08:01. | :08:08. | |
over. A ruthless military dictatorship ruled until 1974, when | :08:08. | :08:12. | |
the people overthrew the generals and opted for democracy. | :08:12. | :08:18. | |
And now there is a new enemy, austerity does not pick and choose | :08:18. | :08:21. | |
its victims. You sense that some people are beginning to lose the | :08:21. | :08:26. | |
will to fight. But not all. | :08:27. | :08:30. | |
Something extraordinary is happening here. All over the | :08:30. | :08:34. | |
country volunteer organisations are springing up to help the people in | :08:34. | :08:39. | |
the most desperate need. Stepping in where the state has | :08:39. | :08:45. | |
failed. This may look like any other small | :08:46. | :08:51. | |
coner -- corner shop, but it is not. The goods are given to families who | :08:51. | :09:01. | |
:09:01. | :09:02. | ||
cannot afford the basic necessities. Melina was 14 when she told her | :09:02. | :09:06. | |
mother, Roubini Terzaki to set up a charity for the most needy. That | :09:06. | :09:11. | |
was four years ago. Today, there are 4,500 people. | :09:11. | :09:15. | |
Every day there are about 60 or 70 families in need. | :09:15. | :09:19. | |
New families? Yes. They are asking for your help? | :09:19. | :09:23. | |
That is a bad surprise. In a sense, I suppose, that there | :09:23. | :09:27. | |
is a citizens' army being formed of volunteers who are saying that the | :09:27. | :09:33. | |
state has let us down so we will get together and do it oufs? When | :09:33. | :09:38. | |
your house is -- and do it ourselves? When your house is on | :09:38. | :09:44. | |
fire you don't stay desperate, you do something. That is what we do. | :09:44. | :09:49. | |
The operation is expanding by the day, it has to. Unemployment in | :09:49. | :09:54. | |
Greece is now at 20 percent, benefits now stop after a year. | :09:54. | :09:58. | |
More and more once middle-class families are falling into poverty. | :09:58. | :10:03. | |
This apartment is home to a book- keeper who has been unemployed | :10:03. | :10:07. | |
since her firm went bust. Her husband is a builder who has had | :10:07. | :10:11. | |
hardly any work in the past two years. | :10:11. | :10:17. | |
They are thousands of Euros in debt. Were it not for the charity their | :10:17. | :10:21. | |
three children would go hungry. Moments of fun like this are rare, | :10:21. | :10:27. | |
but the hep is not just welcomed, it is essential. | :10:27. | :10:31. | |
You have small children, how important is all of this to you? | :10:31. | :10:37. | |
How would you manage without all of this? | :10:37. | :10:41. | |
TRANSLATION: I don't know. We are going through a tough time. My | :10:41. | :10:47. | |
husband is out of work, I'm out of work. We only have my mother's | :10:47. | :10:54. | |
pension of 400 Euros a month. It is not enough. | :10:54. | :10:59. | |
Today I had no food to cook. I didn't know how I was going to feed | :10:59. | :11:06. | |
the children. It's very hard. | :11:06. | :11:11. | |
What is the worst thing about being as poor as you are now? | :11:11. | :11:17. | |
TRANSLATION: It's put a strain on the relationship with my husband. | :11:17. | :11:27. | |
:11:27. | :11:42. | ||
We are like two strangers. TRANSLATION: I remember life under | :11:42. | :11:51. | |
the generals. This is worse. These are not good times to live in. | :11:51. | :12:01. | |
:12:01. | :12:02. | ||
Before there was work, times were different. | :12:02. | :12:06. | |
Sometimes Maria has to send her children to school without food and | :12:06. | :12:10. | |
Greece does not do free school dinners. In the poorest areas the | :12:10. | :12:14. | |
teachers talk of children fainting in the classroom as they are not | :12:15. | :12:18. | |
getting enough to eat, but it is when the children get sick that the | :12:18. | :12:23. | |
real horror of the spending cuts kicks in. Opposite this children's | :12:23. | :12:28. | |
hospital, Konstantina Gavrou runs a pharmacy, but the national fund | :12:28. | :12:32. | |
that supplies the pharmacists is failing. They are losing the battle | :12:32. | :12:37. | |
to buy the drugs that the patients desperately need. | :12:37. | :12:40. | |
It really is the case that children's hospital on the other | :12:40. | :12:45. | |
side of the square from here, there are parents who are being given | :12:45. | :12:49. | |
drugs for their children with cancer and they have to share them | :12:49. | :12:54. | |
with other parents whose children have cancer? | :12:54. | :13:00. | |
TRANSLATION: The parents of these children across the street open a | :13:00. | :13:04. | |
packet of medication and hand them out. This is not candy, this is | :13:04. | :13:09. | |
medicine. Now I blame myself. I don't actually serve the people, I | :13:09. | :13:13. | |
just add to their misery. How will this problem be resolved? | :13:13. | :13:17. | |
The Greek government cannot allow many people to die because they | :13:17. | :13:24. | |
don't get the drugs? Surely? TRANSLATION: We are paying large | :13:24. | :13:28. | |
interest payments while children at school don't have books, now they | :13:28. | :13:33. | |
have no medicines, something is not right. | :13:33. | :13:39. | |
What Foreign Secretary does this have on you as somebody who has | :13:39. | :13:43. | |
been a pharmacist for some years now, made your life as a | :13:43. | :13:50. | |
pharmacist? Actually this I can say in English... I cannot sleep. | :13:50. | :13:53. | |
During the night I'm feeling terrible. | :13:53. | :13:59. | |
I don't know if it is my fault and how I can solve this problem, but | :13:59. | :14:04. | |
when I wake up in the morning I realise that this is not from me | :14:04. | :14:10. | |
but I have to find a solution as a Dina Kriara works in the pharmacy | :14:10. | :14:12. | |
dispensing medicines. But there's a vicious irony here. She herself has | :14:12. | :14:15. | |
a potentially fatal heart problem and despite being surrounded by | :14:15. | :14:21. | |
drugs, she struggles to obtain the ones she needs. TRANSLATION: Even | :14:21. | :14:25. | |
as we speak, I haven't had my medications for this month. I can't | :14:25. | :14:35. | |
:14:35. | :14:35. | ||
live without them. I need them. you frightened? Yes, I am very | :14:35. | :14:41. | |
Pharmacies without medicines, schools without books and families | :14:41. | :14:46. | |
without food. Greece is failing against these fundamental measures | :14:46. | :14:52. | |
of civilisation. Will this really be the country in which my | :14:52. | :14:57. | |
grandchildren will grow up? Where some say it's even worse than it | :14:57. | :15:04. | |
was under the generals? How can The public coffers are empty, yet | :15:04. | :15:10. | |
vast private wealth remains evident here. But just try getting the rich | :15:10. | :15:19. | |
If the myth of Midas serves as one useful metaphor for what's happened | :15:19. | :15:25. | |
to Greece, the myth of Sisyphus might serve as another. He's the | :15:25. | :15:27. | |
bloke, you'll remember, who was given the job of rolling the | :15:27. | :15:31. | |
boulder up the hill and every time he got anywhere near the top, it | :15:31. | :15:35. | |
rolled right back down again. Diomidis Spinellis can relate to | :15:35. | :15:40. | |
that. He's a professor of software engineering and he was asked by the | :15:40. | :15:45. | |
Greek government to help get people to pay their taxes. He designed a | :15:45. | :15:47. | |
system to identify potential evaders, particularly among the | :15:47. | :15:55. | |
very rich. When I started in 2009, I was extremely optimistic. I saw a | :15:55. | :15:58. | |
number of low-hanging fruit I thought I can just grab them and | :15:58. | :16:02. | |
it's a done deal. Because you see people, for instance, having flashy | :16:02. | :16:06. | |
cars. Why shouldn't they have a flashy tax return, indicating that | :16:06. | :16:09. | |
they are doing their bit to help the state? But when Spinellis told | :16:09. | :16:13. | |
the government and the tax offices what was going on, nothing happened. | :16:13. | :16:15. | |
Exasperated, he designed a second programme to monitor the tax | :16:15. | :16:25. | |
collectors themselves. They didn't like that. Some wanted to guard the | :16:25. | :16:27. | |
corrupt culture of kickbacks with which they feathered their own | :16:27. | :16:33. | |
nests. Spinellis was sued by the tax collectors' union. If the tax | :16:33. | :16:35. | |
collectors themselves don't accept that things are so badly wrong and | :16:35. | :16:42. | |
must be changed, how will it ever be changed? By the end of my term I | :16:42. | :16:45. | |
was considering that the exisiting system cannot be changed gradually | :16:45. | :16:50. | |
in such a way. It would have been better to create a new tax | :16:50. | :16:55. | |
collection authority. So you wanted an earthquake in effect. You wanted | :16:55. | :16:58. | |
to blow the whole thing up and start again and what we've seen is | :16:58. | :17:03. | |
a tremor. I think an earthquake is needed in order to bring the system | :17:03. | :17:07. | |
under control. It would bring a great amount of revenue, in the | :17:07. | :17:11. | |
order of 10 billion euros. In other words, it would make a significant | :17:11. | :17:15. | |
contribution to ending the crisis that Greece is in now. Yes, it | :17:15. | :17:25. | |
:17:25. | :17:25. | ||
would. But it's not happening. Seeing the way Greece has been | :17:25. | :17:28. | |
governed by the two main parties over the years reminds me of the | :17:28. | :17:32. | |
way some of the worst local councils in Britain were run when I | :17:32. | :17:36. | |
was a young reporter. But this is a country with an ancient history, | :17:36. | :17:40. | |
strategically important, whose future matters to all of us. Can it | :17:40. | :17:48. | |
One man who benefitted from the Greek boom is Konstantine Michalos. | :17:48. | :17:50. | |
He's an influential businessmen and now President of the Chambers of | :17:50. | :17:57. | |
Commerce. Where is the evidence that the Greek people are prepared | :17:57. | :18:01. | |
to say, "OK, we will do things differently from now on?" First of | :18:01. | :18:05. | |
all, let's get one thing right. This is not a Greek crisis and I | :18:05. | :18:08. | |
think that this has been proved very clearly over the last few | :18:08. | :18:13. | |
months when we've seen economic powers such as Italy or Spain... | :18:13. | :18:16. | |
It's not exclusively a Greek crisis, I will grant you that, but you are | :18:16. | :18:21. | |
in an enormous mess. Yes, I will agree that Greece is responsible | :18:21. | :18:28. | |
for its own internal affairs. We didn't use the European funds in | :18:28. | :18:32. | |
the correct way. It was squandered and there was corruption and all | :18:32. | :18:36. | |
the rest of it, so my question remains. How do you change that | :18:36. | :18:39. | |
mentality, what is the evidence that it's changing? By changing the | :18:39. | :18:42. | |
political system in Greece. You cannot possibly convince the Greek | :18:42. | :18:45. | |
people with politicians that are the main reason, the cause that has | :18:45. | :18:51. | |
brought us where we are today. who are totally discredited. | :18:51. | :18:54. | |
Precisely, because those who have brought us to where we are today | :18:54. | :19:02. | |
cannot possibly be expected to be But after last weekend's general | :19:02. | :19:06. | |
election, it's the old guard running the show once again. New | :19:06. | :19:09. | |
Democracy and Pasok in coalition, the very parties who got Greece | :19:09. | :19:16. | |
into this mess over the past four decades. This is a victory for all | :19:16. | :19:21. | |
Europe. I will make sure that the sacrifices of the Greek people will | :19:21. | :19:28. | |
bring the country back to But how much more sacrifice will | :19:28. | :19:32. | |
Greece tolerate? Of those who voted, most were against the austerity | :19:32. | :19:37. | |
package. There's now a powerful opposition in parliament. The left- | :19:37. | :19:41. | |
wing grouping called SYRIZA swore to rip up the bail out plan. They | :19:41. | :19:46. | |
came a close second. And on the extreme right, Golden Dawn cemented | :19:46. | :19:51. | |
the gains they made last time with a worrying 7% of the popular vote. | :19:51. | :20:01. | |
At this rally, Afghan immigrants are protesting against what they | :20:01. | :20:09. | |
They feel they've been made a political scapegoat for the | :20:09. | :20:14. | |
country's troubles. But when Golden Dawn invited us to film them before | :20:14. | :20:24. | |
:20:24. | :20:29. | ||
the election, they tried to sell us Things had got so bad, they said, | :20:29. | :20:39. | |
:20:39. | :20:40. | ||
that little old ladies asked to be I'm scared. They hit me, they pinch. | :20:40. | :20:47. | |
Who are they? Pakistan. Not Greek people. No, no, never. It's not a | :20:47. | :20:52. | |
Greek. And this people, it's all right, when I want to go to the | :20:52. | :20:59. | |
bank they come with me. I don't worry. The Golden Dawn MP, Giani | :20:59. | :21:02. | |
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. | :21:14. | :21:16. | |
Eventually there were fewer immigrants and with police | :21:16. | :21:23. | |
assisting in the end, we cleared the square out. What about | :21:24. | :21:26. | |
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 | :21:41. | :21:43. | |
pretend they come from countries with internal problems like war, | :21:43. | :21:53. | |
persecution and they stay here creating ghettos. Do you regard | :21:53. | :22:01. | |
fascism as an evil doctrine? things that Hitler did, if we're | :22:01. | :22:06. | |
talking about here in Greece, of course they were bad. On the other | :22:06. | :22:10. | |
hand, history's always written by the winners. You don't believe that | :22:10. | :22:12. | |
Hitler created the ultimate crime against the Jewish people, the | :22:13. | :22:22. | |
crime of genocide? I don't know. You don't know? I don't know, but | :22:22. | :22:31. | |
everyone has the right to Golden Dawn's emergence, in this of | :22:31. | :22:33. | |
all countries, where Nazi occupation survives in living | :22:33. | :22:36. | |
memory, is alarming, but for every choreographed PR stunt like the one | :22:36. | :22:45. | |
I saw, there's been a high-profile media blunder. Like when one of | :22:45. | :22:48. | |
their MPs assaulted a woman on national television and went on the | :22:48. | :22:58. | |
:22:58. | :22:59. | ||
This party now hold 18 seats in the It's not only the far right that's | :22:59. | :23:02. | |
benefitted from this crisis. People distrust conventional politics and | :23:02. | :23:05. | |
the danger is that violence like these street scenes from last | :23:05. | :23:15. | |
:23:15. | :23:18. | ||
The people of Athens are well used to the sight of riot police on | :23:18. | :23:23. | |
their streets. These are a pretty permanent fixture on the border of | :23:23. | :23:25. | |
Athens' Exarcheia neighbourhood, where ordinary police officers no | :23:25. | :23:31. | |
longer patrol because they're nervous of stirring up trouble. I | :23:31. | :23:35. | |
met with a group of young activists here last week. What happened at | :23:35. | :23:39. | |
the election is precisely what they told me they would not tolerate. | :23:39. | :23:45. | |
With half of all under 25s out of work, what they want is revolution. | :23:45. | :23:50. | |
All revolutions are almost always preceded by violence. At what point | :23:50. | :23:59. | |
are young people in Greece going to take to the streets? TRANSLATION: | :23:59. | :24:07. | |
400 euro salaries and unemployment are acts of violence. Under these | :24:07. | :24:10. | |
terms, we advocate an uprising. This is a crisis of capitalism | :24:10. | :24:15. | |
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 | :24:28. | :24:33. | |
future may well fuel more unrest. And things are not going to get | :24:33. | :24:37. | |
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 | :24:45. | :24:54. | |
way is the lost generation in Greece? For sure. Of course our | :24:54. | :25:01. | |
generation is a generation that have nothing. There are no futures, | :25:01. | :25:08. | |
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 | :25:13. | :25:23. | |
The spirit of resistance has never died in Greece. If one man embodies | :25:23. | :25:26. | |
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 | :25:37. | :25:40. | |
Acropolis in 1943, who fought in the civil war, who was locked up by | :25:40. | :25:43. | |
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 | :25:56. | :25:59. | |
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 | :26:05. | :26:09. | |
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 | :26:21. | :26:28. | |
there's no occupation. Are German soldiers here? No. But the German | :26:28. | :26:36. | |
mentality prevails. The Greek people are not responsible for the | :26:36. | :26:43. | |
crisis. It was caused by the financial system. The Greeks didn't | :26:43. | :26:47. | |
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. |