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Uncontrolled and ever-expanding packaged tourism and coastal development, along with overfishing in the Mediterranean is taking its toll on resources and what still survives of the marine wildlife. 

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Deceitful King Sisyphus was condemned by Zeus to eternally carry a boulder to a top of the hill with the boulder rolling down again. Sisyphus has been interpreted as representing vain politicians, aspiring for eternal glory and eternally failing. Epicurus on the other hand praised the virtues of a pleasant, just and detached - including from politics - life. On the second day of a general strike in Greece, it seems we have to choose whether to follow Sisyphus and the illusion of capitalist abundance, or Epicurus and his doctrine that "natural wealth is both limited and easily obtained, but vanity is insatiable".

Compared to what lies ahead, life in Greece until 5 years ago seemed quite good for the vast majority of the population (with the exception of immigrants), reflected in us reaching the top 20 of the Human Development Index at the time. However not all was well however, as a result of history, geopolitics and other factors, the two major parties (New Democracy & Pasok) had created a bloated bureaucracy and a clientelistic state, with a large unofficial (untaxed) economy, funded with EU grants and international loans, with draconian and complex, unenforceable laws, tax evasion and money laundering. The adoption of the Euro was the coup de grace to an already failing industrial sector which could not compete either with the quality of other EU partners, or with the low price of non-EU imports. Strong unions and a relatively progressive labour law legislation and pension schemes led the remaining greek industrialists of northern Greece to take their factories to Bulgaria. Environmental awareness was quite low, innovation was absent, R & D non-existent, most universities in a permanent state of unrest, the best minds kept migrating to UK and US universities and labs. To all of the above you may now add that unemployment has doubled from 9% to around 18% (and rising fast) in just 2 years and it is as much as 40%+ for people under 30 and for women, pensions have been cut in half, and taxation is really biting for the first time. One in three family shops have closed but even large foreign supermarket and consumer goods chains are in trouble as sales have nosedived. Consumerism is also dying, which is perhaps an opportunity. 

One solution, for some people at least, could be for them to start a peaceful revolution not (only) to change the government, but to change the way they live, work, deal with their fellow citizens, thinking along the lines of self-managed entreprises (as in post-IMF Argentina), collectives, local exchange trading systems, local/alternative currencies, urban farms. We should not and will probably not return to the ex ante situation, even if they decided to write off all our national debt or kick us out of the Euro. But more importantly we should not be led to cannibalize each other, to a new civil war or to become a colony. Currently there is nothing really stopping us from good or disastrous solutions apart from inertia and a general state of disbelief and shock. Reasons to be optimistic include that this country has been through much worse and that thanks to globalisation allowing Greece to fail may be too dangerous for the ailing, actually-existing capitalism.

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Remembering the way tabloids were treating Athens in the run up to the 2004 Olympics (which always are, like all mega-events, a mega-waste)  a certain schadenfreude could be expected from Athenians, but on the contrary they feel a sense of solidarity with Londoners and the UK tourism sector who seem to be experiencing the same effects of neoliberal globalisation - high youth unemployment, social injustice, racism, police brutality, increased crime, all leading, mathematically, to riots.

I have found the reaction of the London Greens (here and here) interesting and measured, while a post in Red Pepper also seems to put the finger in the wounds. Let us hope that neoliberal government policies will be reversed soon, both in UK and in Greece.

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"Invisible wall" a short documentary about tourists, refugees and immigrants in Agathonissi, Greece, a tiny, formerly sleepy, island close to the Turkish coast.

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Unfortunately the non-violent, colorful, pluralistic, direct democratic 'indignados' ("aganaktismenoi") assembly protesting neoliberal IMF recipes in Athens' main Syntagma Sq., already in its 3rd week, has been attacked by the infamous riot police 'MAT' units on 15 June, following a large demonstration on a day of general strike.

In a city already plagued by air pollution, the police, besides batons, insist on using carcinogenic tear gas (banned under various treaties) despite repeated promises by the government that it will be phased out.

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Hot summer ahead, and not just speaking about climate change...some days it seems that the world is spinning out of control. While the Mediterranean peoples are revolting in violent and non-violent ways, rightly demanding real democracy (although somewhat ironically on Facebook), the great powers-empires are extinguishing and imprisoning real and perceived foes from dissident Nobel laureates, to environmental activists, to IMF heads, and doing everything, as always, they can so that popular movements are manipulated and/ore discredited. Over here in post-Athens-what-a-waste-Olympics-2004-Greece, geographically and culturally situated somewhere between the 1st world and the rest world, we may be experiencing early signs of Germany in 1920 (rapidly rising unemployment, bankruptcy in slow motion, rise of the far right which exploits the ever growing tide of refugees from Asia and Africa, but also a vibrant art scene - as misery & art always go together) while our post-modern socialdemocratic government, wearing a neoliberal straitjacket and following IMF recipes which have devastated many countries,  instead of focusing on creating real, green jobs, is cutting hard-won worker-rights and pensions and desperately seekinf foreign buyers for anything of value, including holiday home and golf developers for public coastal and island land. Tourism is supposedly our 'heavy industry', or so are we constantly told by short-lived clueless tourism ministers and their tourism backers, thus two long-awaited tourism investment laws will attempt, probably unsuccessfully unless the selling price is too low, to smooth the edges and portray Greece as the perfect banana republic / 'IMF' hotel chambermaid for mega-resorts, golf in semi-arid locations, and real estate. If all this was not enough, all our neighbouring countries (probably thinking that 'Fukushima' is a type of mushroom - well it is, in a way) - are currently constructing (with the aid of eager kn0w-how 'but-otherwise-non-proliferation' sellers) 2-3 nuclear power stations each, some right next to earthquake faults (sign related petition), so that they may sell their electricity to us, to power our summer mass tourism and air-conditioners on the same islands where semi-illegal rubbish dumps are collapsing into the blue sea. Tourism can provide solutions, but only if it is the right sort, low-key, alternative, community-owned. This time last year, Greek humorist blogger Pitsirikos actually advised potential visitors to Greece to choose a staycation, in his own hyperbolic style, adding a "Don't" in front of the national, and not very original, national tourism slogan "Visit Greece". Humour is good, but becoming rare, as an increasing number of young people are choosing mystical-conspiracy, violent and hysterical theories and means to comprehend and tackle the situation, while what is really needed are rational, green, non-violent, solidarity, communalist, self-organisation and mutual-aid policies, to try to turn this crisis, an international financial-capitalist and local capitalist-statist crisis, into an opportunity for all...against the odds.

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Opening the ITB Travel Trade event in Berlin today, UNWTO Secretary-General Taleb Rifai's speech indicated a slight progress (verbal at least) in the organisations positions, recognising the 'environmental imperative' and the need for a 'fairer' and 'more sustainable growth'. However, no relevant key proposals were put forward, and as expected, there were no criticisms against the business as usual approach of unreformed (beyond token CSR tricks) international tourism oligopolies, there was no differentiation between more appropriate tourism types, means of transport, management and ownership structures (such as community ownership) no mention of climate change and of the direct contribution of aviation to it, tax and pension evasion and the offshore nature of whole tourism sections. There was of course continuing admiration for ever higher tourism numbers, unsustainable mega-events, and the cliche about the contribution of Tourism to global 'employment', without any reference to stagnant working conditions and declining worker rights.

The full speech can be found at: http://www2.unwto.org/sites/all/files/pdf/sg_itb_speech_2011_en.pdf

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How would you like it if the government suddenly informed you that the rubbish of a 3 m. city would soon be deposited next to your house in a small town (Keratea of Attica), where you and your forefathers have been living off agriculture for the past hundreds of years, and – to add insult to injury – the precise spot contains important ancient ruins (citadel of Ovriocastro) also provoking the ire of archaeologists who together with the locals have filed an official protest with UNESCO (see http://issuu.com/antixyta/docs/keratea-unesco )

This is the case in Keratea, a formerly peaceful town, in a still surprisingly pristine, wine-growing and sheep-herding area, close to the new Athens international airport. Everyone from the mayor, to the priests, to the most disinterested, otherwise apolitical/conservative citizen is up in arms, and the unpopular government has sent in semi-military riot police to defend the sub-contractors bulldozers from being burned. A violent cat and mouse game involving police tear-gas attacks and beatings has been taking place day and night for the past two months with the scenes not very different from the uprising in North Africa.

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