Greece sinks to its knees
The recent bail-out, which imposes strict new austerity measures on the Greeks, will deepen a crisis that has already driven up the suicide rate by 40 per cent. David Blair reports from Athens on a nation that eyes the future without hope.
If popular protest in the graffiti-stained heart of Athens is the most obvious sign of Greece’s burgeoning crisis, a handful of volunteers gathered inside a suburban office provides a quieter, but no less painful, symbol of the country’s agony. These restrained, dedicated people meet in the modest headquarters of Klimaka, a mental health and social integration charity serving as Greece’s version of the Samaritans.
In a country where suicide is so vehemently stigmatised that it amounts to the social problem that dare not speak its name, a specialised telephone service offering counselling to those in despair began as recently as 2007. Today, the psychiatrists and psychologists who answer whenever someone dials “1018” are busier than ever. As the national economic crisis has worsened, so the volume of calls has grown.
In 2010, the service spoke to 2,500 people judged to be contemplating suicide. Last year, Greece’s first euro bail-out failed and the country’s unemployment rate rose by half in the space of 12 months, climbing from 13.9 to 20.9 per cent. As more and more people confronted redundancy and destitution, the plaintive calls to Klimaka more than doubled: 5,500 people thought to be at serious risk rang in 2011.
Today , the German parliament will vote on whether to endorse a second bail-out that was agreed by eurozone finance ministers last week on condition that Greece implements some of the harshest austerity measures ever imposed on a Western democracy. After five years of recession, Greece must now endure almost a decade of further economic self-flagellation in order to reduce its national debt from 160 per cent of gross domestic product to 120.5 per cent in 2020. That is the language of Brussels communiqués and central bankers; but the true voice of economic crisis is heard by Klimaka’s volunteers every day.
Eleni Bekiari, a calm, elegant and softly spoken psychiatrist, answers many of the calls. “They give many reasons, but a common one is financial problems: the crisis, unemployment, losing their job or being fearful of losing their job, a cut in salary so they cannot afford everyday responsibilities,” she says.
Once, the volunteers spoke mainly to callers with a record of depression or an undiagnosed mental disorder. Today, more and more have no such history and once led ordinary lives.
“They are not depressive, they are not psychotic. More of the people who call us do not have a disorder,” says Ms Bekiari. “Anybody can reach a position where they think about suicide.”
Greece has always had one of the lowest suicide rates in Europe. The uncompromising stance of the Greek Orthodox Church, which will not bury those who take their own lives, has helped make the stigma attached to suicide particularly visceral here.
Meanwhile, the enduring strength of traditional family ties provides an admirable explanation for the relative rarity of suicide in Greek society.
Slowly but unmistakably, this is changing. In 2007, 328 Greeks took their own lives; in 2009 – the last year for which there is official data – the number climbed to 391. This 20 per cent increase gave Greece the fastest growth in the absolute number of suicides anywhere in the European Union, albeit starting from a low base.
No reliable data covers more recent years, although the health ministry estimates a 40 per cent rise in the number of people taking their own lives between January and May last year, compared with the same period in 2010.
Ms Bekiari does not draw a straight line between economic crisis and the increasing suicide rate. “There is not a simple cause and effect,” she says. “We cannot say the crisis is causing the suicides, but we can say the increase in the number of suicides is associated with the crisis.” For a fragile personality, the real or threatened loss of employment or livelihood can be traumatic enough to inflict the bleakest despair.
“The crisis is a heavy burden and many people cannot absorb that,” says Ms Bekiari. “In many cases, they say they have no one to talk to. They are ashamed of becoming suicidal.”
Caught in the vortex of economic collapse, the lives of ordinary Greeks can change with bewildering speed. Last November, Spiridoula Apostolopoulou arrived for work as usual as a tax collector in a branch of the finance ministry. She was promptly handed a letter stating that she was among 13 people in her office being placed “in reserve”. This term is one of the government’s chosen euphemisms for redundancy.
At a stroke, Mrs Apostolopoulou’s salary was reduced by 40 per cent and she was relieved of any duties and sent home. After two years, the loss of her job will be regularised, her salary will disappear and she will be eligible for her pension.
“Suddenly they told us to go away and we didn’t know what to do,” she remembers. “The most important thing is there was no proper selection. It was only because of our age.”
Civil servants close to retirement are first in line for the axe: Mrs Apostolopoulou is 53. “Now we are in a position where we have to think before we even eat,” she adds. “I have a child in Saloniki who needs 1,000 euros per month. How am I going to support him? We were not prepared for this. In one night, to be sacked. We lost our sense of security.”
In this bruising fashion, the government is shedding thousands of employees, with another 15,000 due to go by the end of 2012 under the terms of this week’s bail-out agreement.
Those who might have been reduced to poverty by previous austerity measures have not been spared. At 5am in the winter darkness, a queue of elderly, simply dressed people starts to form outside a government office on Alexandras Avenue in central Athens. This is where Greeks are being forced to re-register for sickness benefits as the government tries to reduce its social security bill.
The process is bureaucratic and generally requires two visits. After the doors open at 8am, the knot of haggard people enters a bare room where a civil servant behind a counter reads out the names of those who are allowed to step forward and reapply for their benefits.
Getting to this stage requires a prior visit and the acquisition of a number. A three or four- hour wait each time is common. Even those who clear the hurdles and keep their benefits are worried about the consequences of the swingeing budget cuts that are now inevitable. “If we’re taking some money, maybe it will be reduced, or maybe it will be cut off,” says Nikoleta Maniati, a neatly dressed 64-year-old who was among those waiting. “We don’t know what is happening.” Motioning towards the official on duty, she adds: “We only hope they know.”
Many Greeks have lost faith in their government: the country’s elected representatives are widely viewed as puppets of the debt collectors and bail-out providers, particularly Angela Merkel, the German Chancellor, and Wolfgang Schauble, her finance minister, whose finger-wagging approach has caused great resentment.
The steady impoverishment of a society of 11 million people is turning Greek politics upside down. On the eve of elections due in April, PASOK and New Democracy, the established parties of the Left and Right respectively, have been comprehensively discredited, allowing new movements to spring up and take their support.
One such is Democratic Left, a party founded as recently as 2010, which is now in second place, according to one opinion poll. Fotis Kouvelis, a veteran Left-winger and former cabinet minister who leads the movement, is preoccupied by the unpredictable consequences of national economic trauma.
Despair and powerlessness not only create queues of the desperate outside government benefit offices, and boost the number of callers to a suicide helpline. They could also bolster extremism and discredit democracy itself.
“The majority of society lives in agony, an agony that could create destructive forces for the country,” says Mr Kouvelis in his party headquarters in Athens. “That’s why the elections should not be delayed, so the Greek people are given the chance to decide. I don’t want an economic crisis to become a democratic crisis.”
“They are not depressive, they are not psychotic. More of the people who call us do not have a disorder,” says Ms Bekiari. “Anybody can reach a position where they think about suicide.”
Greece has always had one of the lowest suicide rates in Europe. The uncompromising stance of the Greek Orthodox Church, which will not bury those who take their own lives, has helped make the stigma attached to suicide particularly visceral here.
Meanwhile, the enduring strength of traditional family ties provides an admirable explanation for the relative rarity of suicide in Greek society.
Slowly but unmistakably, this is changing. In 2007, 328 Greeks took their own lives; in 2009 – the last year for which there is official data – the number climbed to 391. This 20 per cent increase gave Greece the fastest growth in the absolute number of suicides anywhere in the European Union, albeit starting from a low base.
No reliable data covers more recent years, although the health ministry estimates a 40 per cent rise in the number of people taking their own lives between January and May last year, compared with the same period in 2010.
Ms Bekiari does not draw a straight line between economic crisis and the increasing suicide rate. “There is not a simple cause and effect,” she says. “We cannot say the crisis is causing the suicides, but we can say the increase in the number of suicides is associated with the crisis.” For a fragile personality, the real or threatened loss of employment or livelihood can be traumatic enough to inflict the bleakest despair.
“The crisis is a heavy burden and many people cannot absorb that,” says Ms Bekiari. “In many cases, they say they have no one to talk to. They are ashamed of becoming suicidal.”
Caught in the vortex of economic collapse, the lives of ordinary Greeks can change with bewildering speed. Last November, Spiridoula Apostolopoulou arrived for work as usual as a tax collector in a branch of the finance ministry. She was promptly handed a letter stating that she was among 13 people in her office being placed “in reserve”. This term is one of the government’s chosen euphemisms for redundancy.
At a stroke, Mrs Apostolopoulou’s salary was reduced by 40 per cent and she was relieved of any duties and sent home. After two years, the loss of her job will be regularised, her salary will disappear and she will be eligible for her pension.
“Suddenly they told us to go away and we didn’t know what to do,” she remembers. “The most important thing is there was no proper selection. It was only because of our age.”
Civil servants close to retirement are first in line for the axe: Mrs Apostolopoulou is 53. “Now we are in a position where we have to think before we even eat,” she adds. “I have a child in Saloniki who needs 1,000 euros per month. How am I going to support him? We were not prepared for this. In one night, to be sacked. We lost our sense of security.”
In this bruising fashion, the government is shedding thousands of employees, with another 15,000 due to go by the end of 2012 under the terms of this week’s bail-out agreement.
Those who might have been reduced to poverty by previous austerity measures have not been spared. At 5am in the winter darkness, a queue of elderly, simply dressed people starts to form outside a government office on Alexandras Avenue in central Athens. This is where Greeks are being forced to re-register for sickness benefits as the government tries to reduce its social security bill.
The process is bureaucratic and generally requires two visits. After the doors open at 8am, the knot of haggard people enters a bare room where a civil servant behind a counter reads out the names of those who are allowed to step forward and reapply for their benefits.
Getting to this stage requires a prior visit and the acquisition of a number. A three or four- hour wait each time is common. Even those who clear the hurdles and keep their benefits are worried about the consequences of the swingeing budget cuts that are now inevitable. “If we’re taking some money, maybe it will be reduced, or maybe it will be cut off,” says Nikoleta Maniati, a neatly dressed 64-year-old who was among those waiting. “We don’t know what is happening.” Motioning towards the official on duty, she adds: “We only hope they know.”
Many Greeks have lost faith in their government: the country’s elected representatives are widely viewed as puppets of the debt collectors and bail-out providers, particularly Angela Merkel, the German Chancellor, and Wolfgang Schauble, her finance minister, whose finger-wagging approach has caused great resentment.
The steady impoverishment of a society of 11 million people is turning Greek politics upside down. On the eve of elections due in April, PASOK and New Democracy, the established parties of the Left and Right respectively, have been comprehensively discredited, allowing new movements to spring up and take their support.
One such is Democratic Left, a party founded as recently as 2010, which is now in second place, according to one opinion poll. Fotis Kouvelis, a veteran Left-winger and former cabinet minister who leads the movement, is preoccupied by the unpredictable consequences of national economic trauma.
Despair and powerlessness not only create queues of the desperate outside government benefit offices, and boost the number of callers to a suicide helpline. They could also bolster extremism and discredit democracy itself.
“The majority of society lives in agony, an agony that could create destructive forces for the country,” says Mr Kouvelis in his party headquarters in Athens. “That’s why the elections should not be delayed, so the Greek people are given the chance to decide. I don’t want an economic crisis to become a democratic crisis.”
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