All left to chance

Due to liquidity problems, Hellenic Post (ELTA) has been withholding money from electricity bill payments made by people at post offices instead of passing it on to Public Power Corporation. Thousands of PPC customers across the country have been asking for explanations and for their bills to be settled. On the other hand, the state’s unpaid debts to suppliers and taxpayers amounted to 3.4 billion euros at the end of March, according to data from the Finance Ministry. The country is indeed “stabilizing” according to remarks made by a senior SYRIZA official during a radio interview. The official added that the main opposition New Democracy party cannot accept this turn of events and “is in a state of permanent delirium.” The subject of the interview was not the economy but current affairs – like Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras’s visits to Lemnos and Lesvos. However, the images coming from the two eastern Aegean islands, especially Lesvos, showed anything but stability. Given that the public sector, in all its guises, is breaking down and all the social issues remain unresolved – from the refugee problem at the Evros border and on the islands to the lawlessness in the center of Athens – then the reassurances of the SYRIZA official represent an assault on common sense. Whether something is “delirious” or not is determined by the content of the phrases that are being expressed. Deliriums also demonstrate a lack of perception and delusion. When there is a dearth of arguments and the claims of recovery are dashed on a daily basis, then deception is the only line of defense left for the government. The repercussions of this deception are common to all – from the consumers who pay their bills on time and find themselves in the lurch as they realize the money they paid has gone elsewhere, to the residents of an area in Athens who feel imprisoned and unsafe in their neighborhood and homes. The intensity of emotions sparked by these situations vary from extreme annoyance to simple anger. Whatever the emotion, the eight years of financial crisis have shown that the only “stability” we can talk about is the continuous disconnect from normality and the sense that everything is left to chance.