Letter to the dutch
From greece
Sunday 06-05-2012
To my Dutch comrades,
It's Sunday morning,a lovely May Day has rise up in Athens.For a week now the temperatures are over 30*C,and the predictions for a hot summer are referred to more than the weather.
Eight months ago I left the beautiful lowlands of Noord-Holland to return in my homeland Greece due to the political situation and family affairs that made my presence here necessary.Since last June a peaceful revolution is growing in the biggest cities of Greece against the new austerity measures ,the corrupted political system and the failure of the represented democracy as we lived it the past 40 years.
Eight months know I've been witness of numberless strikes,massive protests and serious classes with the police special forces.And the "anger" of Greeks is not past yet.Why? I will give you some numbers to realize the dramatic situation of today's Greece.
Unemployment officially has reached 1.029.587 people in November 2011.Today we believe there are over 1.300.000 people and it's growing every day with at least 100 people.Keep in mind that we talking about a country of 10.512.527 people,57%of them already after the productivity period of their lives,older than 70 years old!!
Homeless people from 2009 until 2011 have raised up with 25% and in the capital city of Athens are about 20.000 people!!
Numberless are the people who are feeding themselves in the charity meals all along the country.Greek humanitarian organizations claim that they are more than 100.000 people.
The salaries were pushed down from 22% to 35% for the private,and 45% for the public sector.
Inflation is raising up with 3.7% for housing and 2.8% for goods and food.
NOTE:The numbers that I am giving you are from the EU official statistic sites.
Before crisis Greece used to have one of the lowest averages for suicide globally: 2,8persons for 100.000 people(600) per year.In 2010,according to the Health Ministry,was raised up to 40% .In 2011 specialists assume that they have doubled to 5 persons for 100.000 people.Officially we have 1802 suicides in the middle of the year!!And we also have the new category of the political suicides that counts already 14 people,the most famous is the one of Dimitris Christulas who killed himself in the middle of Syntagma square and turn himself in a symbol of resistance.Professor of Psychiatry Nikiforos Aggelopoulos admitted:"We are a nation in a shock condition!".
I totally agree with the professor but allow me to go a little bite further:We are in a shock condition after a unhonorable attack of the global finance system,who controls the debt of most countries in the world.And who are this system?Is something that really exists or is it a conspiracy theory of some weerd lunatics?
The Technical university of Zurich announced the results of a 3 member research on the OECD data base and the figure out that 737 multinational companies control 80% of the global economy!And among them 147 control the 40% of the global economy.And as it is well known even to 15 yer old kids:However rules economy rules everything!That's capitalism!And that's the reality of the globalization!
The question here is:Are we going to accept this silently?Are we going to allow this people to play with our future and our lives?Are we going to enter in a new Dark Neo-Slavery era?
Well it's a beautiful spring Sunday morning today in Greece.And it's also elections day!!I don't know the results yet,people are still voting,but I am sure Greeks are going to send the message:Enough is Enough!Time to awake!Time to fight back!
P.S:One of the most common phrases this days in Greece is the say of a Famous Kreatan writer Nikos Kazantzakis:"I hope nothing ,I am afraid of nothing I am a FREE man." We shall fight!
Salute!
Your Comrade,Ioannis A.Rozakis,(Psyhorgos)