This from "The Automatic Earth" -- please follow link to original
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http://theautomaticearth.com/Finance/350-greek-tragedies-in-athens-in-june-alone.html
You know, we can write and read and research all we want, and till
we're deep dark blue in the face, about Angela Merkel and Tim Geithner
and Mario Draghi or Monti and Greek heroes Samaras and Venizelos, about
what they say and do from day to day, driven by political pressure and
mundane issues such as bond yields. And we will continue to write, read
and research these things; that's not going to stop.
But as soon as any of us take a step back and try to see things from
another perspective than that of the proverbial and iconic child with
her nose pressed against the display window of the candy store, there's
none of us with a grain of self-respect left who can maintain that what
we see unfold is about Angela, Timothy and the Mario's. And that is what
we will increasingly, and I mean all of us, need to add to our writing
and reading: We will have failed miserably if we haven't paid attention
to the people most affected by what rabbits the various leaderships
decide to conjure up out of their high hats.
And not just because if misery in the streets reaches a critical mass,
that will be where the direction of politics will be decided. It's not a
macro picture. We ourselves are not a macro picture; we all of us live
human micro lives. We therefore need to pay attention to the plight of
the victims of the crisis, because they are people like us, because they
can function as a mirror to who we are, and strive to be, and as a
mirror for our futures. It is no use to be well-off yourself if you
don't have a functioning society to be well-off in. And don't worry, I
don't expect the majority of you to understand. I fully expect most
people to hit the wall running.
Money has no value in and of itself; it derives that value from the
world it rolls in. Take away that world, and you take away the value.
Yes, financial markets are doing relatively well, and if they don't,
central banks will throw more of your cash at the banks. The problem is
that they don't throw that cash at the people. Many of whom could really
do with some. According to the present paradigm, banks are more
important than people, and people, if I understand it well, can only be
saved if banks are saved first (with the people's money). This paradigm
is the sort of insanity only economists and bankers can come up with.
The life of a person, whether rich or poor, is infinitely more important
than the life of a bank. No contest. You would think.
What got me started on all of this is a great - great in its sadness -
little tale from today's Spiegel, by Barbara Hardinghaus and Julia
Amalia Heyer, on what happens with real people. Either we deal with
issues such as this, or we don't. And if we don't, the issues will deal
with us. Down the line, whatever happens to others happens to us too. We
are after all social animals, that's not something we can alter at
will. But we still try hard, don't we?
Greece has always had one of the lowest suicide rates in Europe, but
its economic crisis has triggered a disturbing increase in the number
of people killing themselves. Are the deaths the result of personal
desperation or are people making a political statement with the only
thing they have left to sacrifice?
On July 16, a businessman and father of three hanged himself in his
shop on the island of Crete. A 49-year-old man from Patras was found by
his son. He had also hanged himself. On July 25, a 79-year-old man on
the southern Peloponnese peninsula hanged himself with a cable tied to
an olive tree. On August 3, a 31-year-old man shot himself to death at
his home near Olympia. On August 5, a 15-year-old boy hanged himself in
Pieria. And, on August 6, a 60-year-old former footballer self-immolated
in Chalcis.
These are also reports from Greece, reports that, at first glance,
seem to have nothing to do with the economy. They come together to form a
grim statistic, raising questions of what is triggering the suicides
and whether the high incidence is merely a coincidence.
Or do people see suicide as a way out of the crisis that has taken
hold of their country and their lives? Are they bowing out before things
get even worse? Germany and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) are
opposed to a new bailout package for Athens. The country faces a
shortfall of at least €40 billion ($49 billion). Greece could very well
be officially bankrupt by the fall.
Greece, a country whose Orthodox Church does not condone suicide,
has always had one of the lowest suicide rates in Europe. But now, there were 350 suicide attempts and 50 deaths in Athens in June alone.
Most of the suicides were among members of the middle class and, in
many cases, the act itself was carried out in public, almost as if it
were a theatrical performance.
Desperate for Dignity
On April 4, shortly after 9 a.m., a 77-year-old pharmacist shot
himself to death on Syntagma Square in downtown Athens. Dimitris
Christoulas, a short man, stood against one of the large trees on the
square, held a pistol to his temple and pulled the trigger.
"My father was a political person, a fighter," says his daughter,
Emmy Christoulas. Weeks after her father's death, she is sitting in her
living room in Chalandri, a northern suburb of Athens. She is a slim
42-year-old wearing oversized jeans, her short black hair streaked with
gray.
Her father was politically active, a member of the "We Won't Pay"
movement. He repeatedly called for an international review of Greece's
national debt because he was convinced that it wasn't the fault of the
people. He had come to beleaguered downtown Athens every day last summer
to take part in rallies and to lend a hand, usually in the Red Cross
tent.
When he went to Syntagma Square for the last time, on April 4, he
sent his daughter a text message consisting of one short sentence: "This
is the end." Then he switched off his cell phone. "It was at exactly
8:31 a.m.," says Emmy, pulling a cigarillo from a crumpled pack. When
she was unable to reach her father by phone after receiving the text
message, she and two friends drove to his apartment.
She heard a news report on the radio that someone had shot and
killed himself under a tree on Syntagma Square. "First the text message,
and then that report," she says. "I was sure it was him."
Since her father's death, Emmy Christoulas has taken the subway to
the square, nine stops from her apartment, many times. She visits the
memorial to her father two or three times a week, usually in the
evening. When she does, she stands a short distance away from the tree.
It's become quiet in the square, where a band is playing and the
sound of guitar music is wafting through the warm air. Christoulas
crosses her arms over her chest and looks at the people who stop at the
memorial. It consists of wreaths and a few stuffed animals leaning
against the tree, as well as notes pinned to the trunk. "Don't walk like
a robot! Open your spirit!" one note written in red letters on a piece
of cardboard reads. The lines that Dimitris Christoulas wrote in a
suicide note are engraved into a marble plaque.
The government has annihilated all traces for my survival, which
was based on a very dignified pension that I alone paid into for 35
years with no help from the state. I see no other solution than this
dignified end to my life so that I don't find myself fishing through
garbage cans for my sustenance.
The words "Dimitris' gesture cannot be repeated" are written on a
piece of paper above the plaque. But his gesture is repeating itself on
an almost daily basis. The newspaper Ta Nea describes the mood among
Greeks as a "society on the verge of a nervous breakdown." [..]
On the morning of April 4, Dimitris Christoulas put on his
light-colored trench coat, stuck his pistol in one pocket and the
farewell letter in the other, and set out for the square, as he had done
so many times before, and wrote the last text message to his daughter.
On the day after the memorial service for her father, Emmy
Christoulas drove her father's body 13 hours to Bulgaria to have him
cremated. The Greek Orthodox Church denies church burials to people who
have committed suicide. Her father had left her the money for the trip.
[..]
Nikiforos Angelopoulos, an Athens psychiatrist, has kept track of
suicides and, with each new death, he has become more afraid. He tries
to see each act as the failure of an individual, confused person. The
60-year-old did his doctoral dissertation on the subject of "hostility."
Suicide is a disorder, he says, a form of hostility -- a person's
hostility against him- or herself. [..]
The 90-year-old woman who fell to her death from a rooftop terrace
on Vathi Square jumped together with her son. But the truth is that she
didn't jump at all. Her son pushed her. Then he waited three minutes and
followed his mother. It was a 15-meter (49-foot) drop to the pavement
below. His name was Anthony Perris, a musician and writer, a quiet,
60-year-old man.
The spot where he hit the ground is three kilometers from Syntagma
Square, next to the building where he lived with his mother. Perris had
cared for his mother, who had Alzheimer's and cancer, for 20 years. He
took her for a short walk in the small park outside every day. On the
evening before the suicide, he closed the blinds in the apartment. The
next morning, he took his mother into the elevator and up to the roof
terrace above the sixth floor.
Perris also left a suicide note, placing it on the kitchen table.
"My life has become a constant tragedy," he wrote. He tried to sell his
house, but no one had the money to buy it. He owned a house, a boat and a
moped.
"What's the use of owning things when you don't have any money to buy food?" Perris asked in his suicide note.
Everything that the papers are saying about the rash of suicides is
"misleading and dangerous," says Angelopoulos, the psychiatrist. People
who commit suicide, he notes, are not political fighters, even if the
public turns them into heroes.
The pharmacist who shot himself to death on Syntagma Square was a
desperate individual, just like all the others, says Angelopoulos, who
sounds a little desperate himself. He is fighting a lonely battle. All
the same, the Greek Ministry for Health set up a suicide hotline a few
weeks ago. Despite all the budget cuts and austerity measures, it feels
the expense is justified. [..]
On the morning after our visit with Christoulas, the Athens police
received another emergency call. A 61-year-old man has hanged himself
from a tree on a hill in Aghios Philippos Park, not far from his house.
He was a sailor who had recently lost his job. He had a wife, a son, a
daughter and a dog. His body was removed by the afternoon, a few hours
after his death.
The red-and-white strip of crime scene tape is still hanging between two trees, fluttering in the wind above the big city.
