Living On The Edge In Post-Election Athens

“As my father used to say, ‘You cannot get blood out of a stone.’ Austerity programs have been shown to fail. Yes, in turn we do need to reform, and we need to cut the hangman’s noose of red tape that is suffocating investment and choking new businesses before they leave the planning stage. But we punish ourselves enough; we don’t need the so-called Troika to whip us into shape and then pour salt into our wounds.” —Diana Farr Louis

Eating Well Is The Best Revenge

By Diana Farr Louis

ATHENS Greece—(Weekly Hubris)—2/9/2015—On January 25^th, Greeks elected what some analysts term a radical left-wing government for the first time in its history. In its campaign, Syriza, composed of “liberal Marxists,” Socialists, former Communists, and the generally disenchanted, promised that we’d be turning a new page. The trouble is no one can see what’s written on it, yet.

Friends abroad have asked what’s going on. This is my attempt to tell them.

If you were just a bystander, you could get as much fun out of our political scene as a three-ring circus. And with Carnival season coming up, it may be hard to tell the difference between a masquerade party and the real thing.

When Alexis Tsipras, our new 40-year-old prime minister, toppled conservative Antonis Samaras, few tears were shed but many people were shaken by the prospect of uncertainty. Fears of Grexit from the EU surfaced once again. With the coffers empty, how could Tsipras fulfill his election promises to hike the minimum wage, restore jobs, reopen the National Broadcasting Company, etc., etc., while at the same time insisting on renegotiating Greece’s debts and saying no to the Troika’s austerity measures? And if we went back to the drachma, then how could we survive as a pariah in Europe, and fend off Erdogan’s covetous leers at our eastern Aegean islands?

At our farmers’ market, one clever vegetable merchant quotes his prices in rubles, but Russia is not going to bail us out, either.

On the very day after the elections, Tsipras, an avowed atheist, scored lots of points by asking the Archbishop of Athens for his blessing before taking the oath of office from President Papoulias and then laying a wreath at a site on Mt. Hymettus where the Nazis executed hundreds of Greeks. Samaras, on the other hand, lost hugely by not being present at the Prime Minister’s office to hand over the keys to the kingdom (oops, sorry, the republic). Cartoons and photo-shopped images portrayed him as a porter, slinking out of the building with filing cabinets strapped to his back and rolls of purloined toilet paper in his hand. It seems the outgoing administration even removed the soap and did not leave the wifi password. Samaras’s excuse for the lapse in protocol: “I didn’t know what time he was going to be there.”

Meanwhile, though, Tsipras’s own ministers seemed to fling themselves into the arena like loose cannon. Raising the most concern were the ministers of defense and the economy. The former, Panos Kammenos, makes many Greeks uncomfortable because his party stands only slightly to the left of our Golden Dawn Nazi party, which now commands the third largest percentage of voters, neck and neck with the new, center-liberal party called, whimsically, Potami, or The River. Tsipras actually called on Kammenos and his Independent Greeks to join in a coalition with Syriza, since they were short the two votes needed to form a government (149 in an overstuffed parliament of 300 seats). Known for his anti-semitic pronouncements, Kammenos is on record as stating that “Jews pay no taxes in this country,” which had to be instantly refuted, but he is also staunchly anti-Troika. Rumor has it that he has lowered the EU flag at our so-called Pentagon (it’s not even five-sided) and hoisted the banner of Byzantium in its stead.

Our new finance minister is attracting even more attention. Yannis Varoufakis, who looks remarkably like Star Trek’s Spock, has a degree in economics from Cambridge, was a fellow there at 26, and left a teaching post at Austin, Texas to serve in Tsipras’s government. He and his new boss both raise eyebrows because they provocatively refuse to adhere to the international leaders’ dress code of suits and ties. Varoufakis, who calls himself a “liberal Marxist” and rides a 1500 cc motorbike to parliament house, draws crowds of teens trying to capture him on their smart phones, but does not get the same enthusiastic response from EU officials hoping for reassurance that Syriza is going to play by the rules.

Right now, I’d say that most of us are clutching at straws, looking for shreds of hope wherever we can find them. Amidst the welter of conflicting news broadcasts, op-ed pieces, commentary, and Facebook posts, domestic and foreign, you can reach almost any conclusion you want. But in this second week of coverage, it looks to us as though face-saving compromises can be arrived at that will keep us in the EU, in the Eurozone, and solvent. There are indications that Tsipras and Varoufakis will soften their tone, and there are plenty of prestigious columnists (such as Paul Krugman) and public figures (such as Obama) urging Germany, especially, to loosen up, reconsider their own history and bail-outs, and admit that the “crisis” and loans have actually benefited their own economy.

As my father used to say, “You cannot get blood out of a stone.” Austerity programs have been shown to fail. Yes, in turn, we do need to reform, and we need to cut the hangman’s noose of red tape that is suffocating investment and choking new businesses before they leave the planning stage. But we punish ourselves enough; we don’t need the so-called Troika to whip us into shape and then pour salt into our wounds.

Meanwhile, the uncertainty continues. Almost everything has been put on hold, from pension policies to real estate decisions. Rumors buzz non-stop, about new regulations, the rescinding of old laws, bank accounts abroad, and whom Tsipras will pick to be the new president. We live in a kind of limbo, but a trip downtown on the Saturday after the elections showed streets thronged with people of all ages and budgets. They were shopping, sitting happily in cafés, mingling with musicians and stray dogs in Monastiraki, smiling at strangers in the Metro. Overheard snippets of conversation carried the selfsame words to our ears—i kyvernisi, the government. Nobody thinks or talks of anything else.

Time will tell. We hope it’s on our side and we won’t be mocked by Auden’s refrain: “If I could tell you I would let you know/Time will say nothing but I told you so.”

 Recipe

Meanwhile, good food continues to provide solace and cheer, while cooking is beneficial occupational therapy. Here is a recipe that never fails to make our household happy, or less unhappy.

Chicken Piccata

For this, you can use thin slices of turkey or chicken breast, pounded into scallopine but, recently, I’ve been substituting boned chicken thighs for more flavor. Don’t worry about exact amounts. It’s hard to go wrong with this dish.

Flour for coating

A good splash of olive oil

A couple of un-waxed lemons: grate the rind and then juice them

2 tablespoons capers

1 teaspoon Knorr homestyle stock, dissolved in ½ cup boiling water (or more, depending on how many slices of chicken you’ve got)

Chopped parsley, optional

Coat the chicken or turkey pieces in flour and fry them quickly on both sides in a large non-stick frying pan until they are lightly browned. The legs will take a little longer. Remove to a plate and make the sauce by deglazing the pan with the lemon juice and chicken broth. Add the lemon rind and capers and boil down quickly. Replace the chicken pieces in the sauce to finish off the cooking and let the sauce thicken. Sprinkle with chopped parsley, if you feel like it, and serve with rice, bulgur, or bread for soaking up the scrumptious sauce.