October 19, 2011
The Greek parliament is expected to pass painful austerity measures on Thursday in order to prevent insolvency. But as the cuts begin to affect an ever-larger number of people, the general strike called for two days this week promises to be massive.
Nikos Petridis has experienced plenty of difficult times in his life: a world war, the Greek civil war and the military junta. These days, the pensioner is consumed by fear yet again. On an unseasonably chilly mid-October morning, he sits with an acquaintance in a café in Athens' Kallithea suburb. They while away almost every morning here reading the newspaper, chatting and playing cards.
Petridis pours out his heart. "How on earth are things supposed to go forward?" he asks. "For two years we've heard nothing but bad news. I don't know if my pension is going to be paid in November. What am I going to live on?"
The existential angst that has gripped Petridis is widespread in Greece. For three years now the country has been gripped by recession, the worst since the end of World War II. Eighty-five percent of Greeks polled in a recent survey believe the country is headed in the wrong direction, with no sign of a turnaround anywhere in sight.
Since the government of Prime Minister Georgios Papandreou passed the country's first austerity measures in March 2010, Greece's 11 million residents have been confronted with one package of belt-tightening measures after the other. "When we wake up in the morning, we hear that the government has passed new measures," people in Athens lament.
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