Vrasidas Karalis - The Demons of Athens: Reports from the Great Devastation

VRASIDAS KARALIS

The Demons of Athens

Reports from the Great Devastation

VRASIDAS KARALIS is Professor of Modern Greek Studies at the University of Sydney. For the last 20 years, his area of research has been in Modern Greek, Byzantine, Cultural Studies and more recently Film Studies. He has published studies on Nikos Kazantzakis and Dionysios Solomos. He has translated two novels by the Australian Nobel Laureate Patrick White into Greek (Voss, The Vivisector). He received the Federation Medal from the Federal Government in 2003. His recent publications include Recollections of Mr Manoly Lascaris (Brandl & Schlesinger), Martin Heidegger and the Aesthetics of Living (Cambridge Scholars) Power, Judgement and Political Evil: In Conversation with Hannah Arendt (Ashgate), A History of Greek Cinema (Continuum), and Cornelius Castoriadis and the project of Radical Democracy (Brill).

Also by Vrasidas Karalis

Martin Heidegger and the Aesthetics of Living

Recollections of Mr Manoly Lascaris

A History of Greek Cinema

The Demons of Athens

Reports from the Great Devastation

Vrasidas Karalis

All rights reserved. This book is copyright. Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of study, research, criticism, review, or as otherwise permitted under the Copyright Act, no part may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electrical or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.

The moral right of Vrasidas Karalis to be identified as the author of this work is hereby asserted.

Copyright Vrasidas Karalis, 2014

Authors photo by Andrs Berkes-Brandl

First published by Brandl & Schlesinger in 2014

PO Box 127 Blackheath NSW 2785 Australia

www.brandl.com.au

This project has been assisted by the Australian Government through the Australia Council, its arts funding and advisory body.

Book design by Andrs Berkes-Brandl

National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication entry: Karalis, Vrasidas, author.

Title: The Demons of Athens / Vrasidas Karalis.

ISBN: 9781921556418 (paperback)

ISBN: 9781921556784 (epdf)

ISBN: 9781921556791 (epub/Kindle)

Subjects: Financial crises Greece 21st century. Athens (Greece) Social conditions 21st century. Greece Social conditions 21st century. Greece Economic conditions 21st century.

Dewey Number: 330.9495

NOTE

All incidents described in the following pages are actual events which took place between September 2011 and January 2013 in Athens. For some strange reasons of synchronicity the narrator was an eyewitness to most of them: the burning of the cinema, the destruction of computers at the university, the Muslim protests, the Ashura, the episode of the receipts on the island, the incident with the Neo-Nazis, the bomb at the shopping mall, and many more.

The fact that they were his personal experiences accounts for the auto-biographical thread which weaves them into a continuous narrative.

Despite their chronological separation, they were put together for reasons of dramatic economy, as symbols of the atmosphere of urgency, tension and anxiety that dominates Athenian social life since the great contraction began in late 2009. The identity of certain public figures can easily be recognised; the identity of one or two interlocutors is better to remain concealed.

The current crisis has foregrounded the worst elements in the Greek political order: this story is about the entrapment of a nation by its political leadership. It is also about how people struggle to defend their existence from the semantic and moral nihilism that unfreedom has instituted as everyday reality.

I would like to thank Professor Anthony Stephens for his care over the shaping of the text and its stylistic excesses.

To Marie Meader, who left so gracefully

Day 1

C all me whatever you like, a deserter, a traitor, a drifter; but I must write down what I saw. Its an illuminating exercise: breaking away from the topographies of your beginning. Without narcissism or hubris: re-tracking and re-enacting. I hope youll understand.

Australian passport? asks the police officer. I smile. Without even looking, he adds:

I wish I could move to Australia; lots of money there. Here, nothing! We are all broke.

I notice his Cartier watch and the thick gold chain around his neck.

Aaaaaaaaach... he sighs as he throws the document to me. What I am doing here? Neeeeext...

I walk in haste down the long marble slippery corridors of the Athens Airport. At the exit, four customs officers drink coffee and smoke; they look annoyed by our presence. Its seven oclock in the morning anyhow. With hand gestures, they shoo everyone out: I should have taken with me the forbidden flower seeds I was asked to bring.

Out in the fresh air; it is a warm, mild, intimate day; just flying in for three weeks.

For you... No meetings... no distractions...

I am anxious and curious, for mother and motherland. You are becoming sentimental again.

On the bus to Piraeus. Grim urban landscape, speechless buildings, dirty streets: the sad spectacle of a city in meltdown. It seems as if the garbage collectors are per-manently on strike.

Something is happening. Yes, it is: people move frantically up and down. I think that there must be an accident along the road but no, its the same again: some workers are protesting and they block the traffic.

Two hours of immobility. I want to make a phone call but I fall asleep in the bus.

Finally, I reach Mothers home the ancient dwelling I abandoned so many decades ago. She stands at the door immense, small, primeval. (Her name is Anastasia but here she will be simply called Mother, capitalised, as she transcends all descriptions.)

Why are you so late? she asks.

Kisses, hugs and tears; more kisses, hugs and tears.

Let me have a shower and some sleep; I will explain everything.

Always the same excuses... she replies pensively.

Shower, change clothes, in bed. Massaging my swollen feet, trying to sleep as she watches the news and constantly shouts:

You scumbags, filthy criminals, obscene crooks...

She keeps talking endlessly to the television. Loneliness or helplessness?

But I fall asleep.

Later in the afternoon: the whole neighbourhood comes through the door. I want to keep my eyes closed yet impossible. I get up and play the role of the repatriated emigrant. I have brought with me two lamb skins (How soft... Australian lambs must be so healthy and big...), four kangaroo skins (They look like enormous rats...), a clock with the Harbour Bridge (Beautifuuul...), two plastic Opera Houses (It looks like the Parthenon...) and several plastic koalas (Can I have one for good luck?). I know how to seduce my audience.

The discussion grows more serious:

So far away... Did you say twenty four hours by plane?

Yes, I did say twenty four hours by plane.

Well, you are here now, we will watch television together.

I start dozing off, hovering between sleep and deter-ritorialisation, until a set of sentences is formed in my mind.