Obama’s audacity of hope bypasses Greeks in a never-ending crisis
ATHENS — When a US president last visited Greece, the economy was booming, Athens had been awarded the Olympics and the country was preparing to join the euro.
That was in 1999, and as Barack Obama gives his keynote speech on Wednesday defending democracy in its birthplace, the spotlight will inevitably fall on Greece’s deterioration. Its journey to the brink of bankruptcy, dragging down financial markets worldwide, was among the defining international events of Mr. Obama’s eight years in office and few places better show the ensuing forces of populism that ultimately brought in Donald Trump to replace him.
“You have to manage anger, but the result is that this anger grows even bigger when all these promises fail to be realized,” said Dora Bakoyianni, who was Greece’s foreign minister when Mr. Obama was elected and whose brother is leader of the opposition New Democracy party. “Seen pessimistically, the price the world will pay for populism is the price the Greeks have paid for their decisions.”
If Americans thought their problems warranted replacing Mr. Obama with Mr. Trump, spare a thought for a NATO ally and European Union member whose economy has shrunk by more than a quarter since the last change of US leadership.
BROKEN PROMISES
Greece’s freefall shattered the old political order and propelled Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras to power last year on a promise to repudiate the country’s debt and ditch the fiscal austerity imposed by European creditors and the International Monetary Fund. After he too was forced to capitulate, polls show that if elections were held today Mr. Tsipras would be replaced by the eighth prime minister of Mr. Obama’s tenure.
“This crisis is not an obstruction, but has had a very concrete and devastating impact on the lives and livelihoods of millions of people across this country,” Mr. Obama said at a press conference on Tuesday after meeting with Mr. Tsipras.
Among other grievances, the perception among ordinary people is that they are being squeezed to repay debts to banks which themselves received public bailouts. That resentment is echoed from Greece’s heartland through continental Europe to Brexit Britain and across swathes of the US
Away from the Obama tour, Thermopylae captures the reality of Greece in 2016. Like most of the country, it’s a blend of proud ancient history and modern economic catastrophe.
300 SPARTANS
The village is where Spartan soldiers held up the advance of Persian King Xerxes almost 2,500 years ago. The 300 heroes were turned into a Hollywood movie in 2007, just as the global financial crisis arrived. Three years later, Thermopylae got a new tourist center, missing the boost to visitor numbers. Then Greece hit the rocks. “Life was really good here,” said Andreas Makris, 39, a farmer who is president of the local community association in the village of Thermopylae. “There were two or three coffee houses and people would go to them. We’d eat and drink out each night. Today you see four guys having a cup of wine before heading home.”
Members of the far- right Golden Dawn party, whose crest resembles a swastika, now gather every year in front of the statue of Spartan King Leonidas in Thermopylae as its leader Nikolaos Michaloliakos gives speeches denouncing everyone from immigrants to Europe’s leaders.
Two derelict state-owned hotels at the nearby thermal springs house about 500 refugees fleeing war in Syria and stranded when countries north of Greece shut their borders. An attempt by the privatization fund to attract developers in 2013 led nowhere.
“You see Germans coming here in camper vans and staying all winter long, and you realize the site is being underutilized,” Giorgios Maniotis, 64, a retired teacher and now farmer, said as he sat in Mr. Makris’s office. “Before elections politicians always promised to do something, but it never happened. Now with the crisis no one wants to invest.”
NEW GREECE
In his press conference with Mr. Tsipras, Mr. Obama reiterated his call for Greece to get debt relief and thanked the country’s people for the support they’ve given to refugees. He departs for Germany after touring the Acropolis and delivering his setpiece speech.
In the meantime, officials from the IMF, European Commission and European Central Bank returned to Athens this week as the government tries to close the country’s bailout review to have any hope of winning some short-term debt relief next month. Agreement on labor market reforms in a country with 23% unemployment remains a barrier.
For Iliana Ziogas, it hit home that her country had changed for good when a 77-year-old retired pharmacist shot himself outside Parliament in 2012, leaving a note saying he was taking his life because of economic hardship.
“My hair stands on end when I remember seeing people in Athens sleeping on the streets and searching the trash cans for food,” said Ms. Ziogas, 28, who commutes from the town of Lamia 15 kilometers (9 miles) away to work at Thermopylae’s visitor center for 400 euros ($429) a month. “Then I think, where have we come to?” — Bloomberg