CONTEXT FISHER
Referendum looms as fear grips Greece
Greece was gripped by fear, uncertainty and rumour within hours Wednesday of becoming the first developed country to default on the International Monetary Fund.
By six in the morning, a dozen bleary-eyed Athenians were already lining up outside the Alpha Bank branch on Athena Street to check if the automated teller machine there had been replenished overnight so they could withdraw their daily legal entitlement of 60 euros ($83 Cdn) before the money ran out.
A second crowd comprised entirely of pensioners milled around the main entrance because they had been told — correctly as it turned out — that if they did not have bank cards they would be allowed to receive 120 euros in cash against their July pensions.
Several people waiting to receive their meagre daily stipend said what they worried most about was whether hospitals and pharmacies would remain open and adequately staffed and provisioned; if ferries would keep running in this country of more than 1,000 islands, after wildcat strikes Tuesday; and how much longer Greece would be able to buy imported gas and oil when it was broke and nearly cut off from international financial markets.
Nearby, a woman washing the floors of a supermarket before its 8 a.m. opening said the store expected throngs of panicked shoppers stocking up on staples such as milk, pasta and rice.
“We’ll be cleaned out in no time,” she said.
The mess was caused by the intransigence and blundering of “reds,” such as Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, she added. His hard-left government is celebrated or reviled for having taken on German Chancellor Angela Merkel, the European Union and the International Monetary Fund since winning elections in January on a promise to end five years of financial tumult and austerity.
Iron worker Stratos Matinopolous denounced Tsipras with a torrent of profanity for not finding a way to appease international creditors, whose 1.6-billion euro ($2.2-billion) loan came due Tuesday at midnight — a drop in the ocean of Greece’s debt: 23 billion euros ($32 billion) and counting.
“I am exactly the same age as Tsipras (42) and we went to high school together,” said Matinopolous, who took over his father’s business a few years ago.
“Even back when we were at school, Tsipras was always taking the communist party line, trying to tell us what to do. He never had an original thought of his own. And today he has no plan at all.”
Matinopolous and the cleaning woman said they would vote Yes to approving the creditors’ stringent terms in the snap referendum the Greek prime minister has called for Sunday. Taking their cue from the words of several western leaders, including Merkel, they said they saw it as the only way for Greece to remain in the eurozone and the EU.
“It’s not about getting out of the euro. It is: do you accept the creditors’ measures or not?” said Yannis Kastanos, a University of London-educated lawyer, who was campaigning for the No side at a low-key rally in nearby Monastiraki Square.
“We’re very depressed. The EU has pressed us so much. We must say No to blackmail. We are fighting for a better life than we have had these past five years. Enough is enough.”
To support his argument — and that of Tsipras — that Greece can somehow remain in the eurozone while not meeting creditors’ demands, he added, “Not even Mrs. Merkel has said that if we vote No, we are kicked out. There is no mechanism to throw us out, either. But it is true that we are blocked, we are at a dead end.”
Not for the first time, Tsipras extended Wednesday what he regarded as an olive branch by offering “fresh compromises” in a letter to creditors. But Germany balked at this and said no new talks could begin until the result of the referendum was known.
Sophia Adoniadi is one of many young Greeks who remain in Tsipras’s thrall precisely because he has not been willing to compromise.
“Tsipras is very good for this country because he will make us free from Europe,” said the 25-year-old who sells clothes in a discount store.
“Sunday is an important day for Greece. Everything is in play that day.”
Like many Greeks, she is dealing with personal adversity.
“I grew up in a village far from Athens and the only way for me to survive now will be to go home,” she said.
“I have started a new life for myself here and now it is destroyed. I am lucky to still have a job, but for how much longer? I work 13 hours a day, seven days a week and my pay has already been cut from 800 euros a month to 500 euros ($695).”
Despite rough language from both sides of the widening political divide — and busloads of riot police downtown — Athenians have been polite and remarkably patient. But there is broad acknowledgment that such civility is wafer thin and could disappear in a flash.
“The police are around because everyone is afraid something is going to happen,” Matinopolous said.
“When there is no longer any money in the ATMs or there is no milk for our children, that is when the trouble will begin.”
We must say ‘No’ to blackmail. We are fighting for a better life than we have had these past five years. YANNIS KASTANOS