Al Jazeera
February 17, 2012
On a busy Athens street, a homeless man lay dead. I could see his hand, stiff with rigor mortis, poking out from underneath his blanket.
A curious crowd gathered. "Only a junkie," someone muttered. We began filming. Several people turned on us. An old man asked angrily: "Why do you only show what is bad in Greece? You would not film this in your country."
In one sense, I disagree with this man.
The death on the street of a homeless person would be news in Britain ["my country"], and passing journalists would not ignore it out of some sort of patriotic feeling that national honour was at stake, as my interlocutor seemed to be implying.
I believe that this particular death was significant, if put into context of what is happening in Greece today.
There has been a dramatic increase in homelessness in Athens as the economy contracts. So what we were seeing was another sign of how the fabric of Greek society is under strain.
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