Time
October 19, 2011
The 48-hour walkout by Greek workers on Wednesday and Thursday has been dubbed "the mother of all strikes" by leading Greek daily Ta Nea. The biggest strikes since the debt crisis began in the country almost two years ago saw thousands of protesters ringing parliament on Wednesday as part of massive demonstrations against the latest raft of austerity measures — measures that parliament is expected to pass on Thursday.
After a massive and largely peaceful anti-austerity demonstration devolved into street fights between riot police and hooded youths, Evangelia Trifona sat on the steps of a store with smashed windows, her eyes red and watery from tear gas.
Trifona, a 59-year-old housewife, started venturing to demonstrations a couple of months ago, after she stopped believing that the austerity measures were going to led anywhere good. A few months ago, her husband, a retired schoolteacher, saw his pension cut by a third. Then the restaurant they ran in Crete failed. Now they can no longer pay their mortgage. She's afraid she and her husband are going to be homeless.
"I'm coming back tomorrow," she said, coughing into a handkerchief. "I want someone to hear me, to know I exist. I feel like no one in parliament is listening to me or cares about me."
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