Guardian
October 21, 2011
It's the system, they say. It sucks you in, makes you complicit. You really have very little choice. It's everywhere, in every corner of your life.
"I thought I knew what to expect," said Vangelis Sgouras, 55, a council worker in Thessaloniki, who returned to his home town more than 20 years ago after spending the first half of his adult life in Australia.
"But I had no idea of the extent. It's staggering. You want the electricity fixed, it's in a month, or tomorrow if you slip someone a note. The lawyer, the same. The doctor costs €50, or €80 if you want a receipt. So what do you do? Thirty euros is a lot of money to my family. You pay €50, and you become a part of it."
In southern Italy and northern Greece this week, people didn't want to talk about the financial and economic crisis, the fate of the euro, debt-to-GDP ratios, credit downgrades or bailout. Many of them wanted to talk about the system.
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