A design for life

By Harry van Versendaal

She grew up in the foothills of Mt Parnitha and went on to study in the well-ordered, if somewhat predictable Netherlands. Now back in Greece, in her late 20s, graphic designer Natassa Pappa has found a way to import some of that order into the grit and chaos of downtown Athens.

Her project “Into Stoas” maps the largely neglected and overlooked commercial arcades in the center of the capital. For about two years, Pappa researched and photographed dozens of these covered walkways (usually referred to in Greek as “stoas” or “stoae”) – an undertaking that ultimately resulted in an interactive, and purposefully minimalist, guide with a fold-out map and a rather ambitious goal: “I wanted to come up with a fresh narrative for the city,” she says.

“Into Stoas” is an interdisciplinary project that borrows from graphic design, architecture, town planning and the urban experience. “Moving between those boundaries means that I may sometimes make, let’s say, arbitrary decisions: The map, for example, may not sit well with an architect,” she says. “As a designer, however, my goal is to create a product for the average person and offer a fresh experience.”

Pappa, whose postgraduate work at St. Joost school of fine art and design in Breda drew from the Situationist International concept of psychogeography in exploring more playful ways of drifting around urban environments, would love to see people use her guide as a tool to navigate Athens’s interior passages on their own.

“The city is a terrain to be explored. I only give away where stoas lie. This is about losing yourself in the city, moving about in a spontaneous fashion,” says Pappa, who is disdainful of the more mainstream understanding of tourism.

“Tourism is usually understood as a routine that you wish to follow. You travel to Paris and you visit the Eiffel Tower. Your photograph of the monument is your trophy from a faraway destination,” she says.

For those who prefer someone else to lead the way, Pappa also organizes walks, for English speakers as well as Greeks. If you decide to join one of her “Athens Walkthrough” sessions you will be taken around 11 stoas, from the refurbished Western-style atrium-covered Stoa Arsakeiou, which serves as a thoroughfare for foot traffic between Panepistimiou and Stadiou streets, to the surreal (make sure you climb the staircase to the rooftop to catch a rather dystopian spectacle) Stoa Anatolis (meaning Stoa of the East, which was allegedly inspired by a design seen by the architect in Alexandria, Egypt), off Aristeidou Street, once a hub for printing presses.

During the walk you will get a chance to chat with neighborhood businesspeople and taste some local delicacies. Don’t expect to get too much in terms of urban history or architectural analysis. The experience is rather driven by interesting anecdotes and the beauty of unexpected encounters.

Back to the future

The bulk of Athens’s arcades were built in the interwar and postwar periods – a utilitarian concept aimed at maximizing buildings’ commercial use as they grew in size to occupy entire blocks. Built along the lines of the Western European archetype, they were a prologue to the commercial centers that mushroomed in Athenian suburbia in the 1980s and 90s, and to their latest – and more commercially successful – reincarnation: shopping malls.

Unable to catch up with the economic change, these early arcades began to decline after 1970. More than 40 arcades of about 65,000 square meter surface can be found within the contours of Athens’s commercial center delineated by Panepistimiou Avenue, Ermou St and Athinas St.

According to recent data, the average occupancy rate of non-renovated arcades is about 54 percent but it rises to 83 percent for their renovated counterparts such as Stoa Spyromiliou – City Link or Stoa Korai. In some arcades the occupancy rate has dropped as low as 10 percent.

The aesthetic implications of Greece’s brutal financial crisis have somewhat paradoxically been coupled with a rise in urban activism and rekindled interest in the city. Pappa does not treat the arcades as an architectural legacy to be mourned or admired in doses of Instagram-filtered nostalgia. Rather, what she sees in that particular building type is a model to build on.

“We should make use of the arcades’ unique character: shopowners are here in close proximity; it is inevitable that they will exchange ideas and get feedback,” says Pappa, who has seen a similar pro-synergy micro-environment at play at her downtown Athens workspace at Romantso, a former printing house-turned-incubator designed to help get arty individuals and start-ups off the ground.

In an initiative last year, two local architects teamed up with the City of Athens in a bid to bring business back to the Stoa ton Emboron, or Merchants’ Arcade, which links Voulis and Lekka streets just off Syntagma Square. Creative people of every stripe were invited to put the unleased properties to use as production facilities and laboratories to explore new ideas and promote their work.

Pappa, who ran a workshop at the venue, says initiatives like this make her optimistic about the city’s future. Plagued for decades by the indifference and contempt of a population that arrived en masse from the rest of the country, Athens, she believes, stands a much better chance in the hands of the newer generation of creative individuals that were born and raised here.

“Athens is worn down and dysfunctional. But we can definitely solve many of its problems,” she says.

Pappa, for one, is doing her share.

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For bookings and more information visit facebook.com/intostoas, call 6972.937.037 or send an e-mail to intostoas@gmail.com.

Re-evaluating the urban legacy of the 1960s

By Harry van Versendaal

Much of the controversy that has arisen over contemporary Athens’s urban landscape stems from the changes wrought on it during the 1960s. Any reference to the architectural legacy of that period usually provokes a knee-jerk condemnation as the time is associated with the brutal transformation of the capital’s appearance.

It’s an unfair judgment, in the eyes of Kathimerini journalist and urban culture aficionado Nikos Vatopoulos. As the curator of “Athens: The Spirit of the 60s – A Changing Capital,” an ongoing exhibition at the Hellenic American Union’s Kennedy Gallery in the downtown Kolonaki district, he tries to challenge mainstream perceptions about the formative period.

“It was a controversial period because it was full of powerful contradictions. It was a time of transition and transformation for Greek society – a process that had many positive aspects, such as a faith in progress, the rise of cosmopolitanism, and economic growth,” Vatopoulos says.

Indeed, the rate of economic growth was heady: On average, gross domestic product was growing at an annual 7.6 percent while industrial output was increasing 10 percent each year. Growth was driven by a surge in foreign direct investment, mainly from the United States and Germany, coupled with a wave of internal migration to urban centers, which spurred construction. The cement and home appliances industries were flourishing. The apartment building, or “polykatoikia,” embodied the values and ambitions of the postwar urbanite generation, who turned their backs on the memories of deprivation in the countryside and the nasty hangover from the civil war.

Original photographs and postcards from the period, many from Vatopoulos’s own archive, document the burgeoning metropolis and the arrival of modern architectural landmarks such as the Athens Hilton. Built between 1958 and 1963 according to plans by architects Emmanouil Vourekas, Prokopios Vassiliadis, Spyros Staikos and Antonis Georgiades, the emblematic structure reflected the economic and social zeitgeist as Greece became a global player in the tourism and luxury market.

The evolution of lifestyles, fashion and social habits during the 1960s is also documented at the HAU exhibition. Magazine covers, ads, stamps and playbills capture the advent of cosmopolitanism and female consumerism (with classic 60s sexist cliches). Most of that came to an abrupt halt with the onset of the military dictatorship in 1967.

To be sure, Vatopoulos, who was born in Athens in 1960, acknowledges the decade’s negative consequences on the city’s physical and social environment.

“There was no foresight regarding the city’s expansion while dogmatic belief in ‘the new civilization’ left no room for historical sensibilities,” he says.

Many historical structures were knocked down at the time to make way for new buildings in the name of a tradition- and culture-insensitive modernism – also assisted by a wave of “antiparochi” deals between landowners and contractors (whereby the latter would replace low-story homes with apartment blocks whose units would then be divided between the two), a now deeply controversial measure introduced by Costantine Karamanlis as minister of public works.

The HAU exhibition takes place against the backdrop of a brutal financial crisis that has naturally left scars on the Greek capital. Interestingly, the social and aesthetic implications of poverty, homelessness and Greece’s six-year recession have been coupled with a rise in urban activism and rekindled interest in the city.

Vatopoulos, who currently lives in the southern seaside suburb of Glyfada, has been surprised at the response to the Facebook group “Saturdays in Athens” he formed three years ago as a platform for organizing weekly cultural activities such as guided tours, lectures and seminars. It currently numbers more than 19,000 members.

“The public has a desire to turn to something steady, familiar and safe. This is compounded by a feeling of nostalgia for a city with a recognizable etiquette,” he says.

But this is not the only reason behind the renewed interest, he says. “All this is also a reaction to the city’s degradation, a more energetic reaction that seeks to comprehend the various stages of Athens’s development,” he says.

Vatopoulos, for one, appears to be motivated by both. On top of his online community and extensive writings on the city, he has released a number of publications over the years and staged a well-received photo exhibition with cozy, nighttime shots of some of his favorite Athens buildings. As Instagram user @16thcentury, he uploads the pictures he takes all over the city.

He loves Athens, with all its contradictions.

“I was born and raised in Athens at a time when the city was changing at a rapid rate. Certainly, I was influenced by my family environment, but the emotional, awe-filled response I had witnessing a building’s demolition is a very strong childhood memory,” he says.

“I consider that I grew up observing the transformation of the city on the inside, I changed as the city changed. It’s something very personal to me.”

“Athens: The Spirit of the 60s,” at the HAU (22 Massalias) to Dec 13. Vatopoulos will speak on Athens during the 1960s at 7 p.m. on Nov 21 at the HAU Theater. There will be a guided tour of the exhibition on Dec 5, starting at 7.30 p.m.

New tool for female empowerment: Turkish soap operas

By Harry van Versendaal

When the Turkish soap opera “Noor” revealed to Samar that marriage can be an equal partnership between two loving people rather than a state of misery and repression, she switched off her TV and got herself a divorce lawyer.

“I liked using the subject of soap operas to speak of the important issue of women’s rights. Doing so cast a different light on the story; it was also a happier way to tell the story,” says Nina Maria Paschalidou. Her latest film, “Kismet,” is screening at this year’s Thessaloniki Documentary Festival (TDF) after making a well-reviewed debut at the International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam (IDFA) in November where it was nominated for the IDFA Best Mid-Length Documentary Award.

Fifty-four-year-old Samar, a Lebanese woman living for years in the United Arab Emirates, is not alone in finding inspiration in Turkish TV dramas. Samira, a victim of sexual harassment in Cairo during the recent Egyptian revolution, tells the camera how she found the courage, despite being pressured by her family to keep quiet, to take the perpetrators – army officers – to court after watching Fatmagul, a gang-rape victim in another Turkish drama series, fight for justice. She not only won her case, but also helped to stop the until-then mandatory “virginity tests” given to all females in police custody.

Paschalidou, a 40-year-old filmmaker, journalist and producer from Veria, a small town in northern Greece with a strong Ottoman imprint, became fascinated by how a medium that provokes much derision in the West has become a successful tool for female empowerment in the East.

“I was staying in Washington when a friend, who is from Turkey, showed me a Washington Post article on Turkish soap operas. I was intrigued and began to look into the subject,” says Paschalidou, founder of independent documentary and multimedia group Forest Troop.

Millions of viewers across the Middle East, North Africa and the Balkans are hooked on TV dramas such as “Gumus,” which is broadcast across the Arab world as “Noor,” “What Is Fatmagul’s Fault?” “The Magnificent Century,” “Life Goes On,” and “Forbidden Love.” During a recent survey carried out in 16 Middle East countries, three out of four said they had seen at least one of about 70 Turkish shows that have been sold abroad since 2001.

“The impact went beyond all expectations. People started to name their children after the main characters, women started to divorce their husbands because of what they saw on TV, tourist operators offered site-specific tours,” Paschalidou says.

Bad signal

The success of these shows naturally did not go down well with conservatives in the Middle East. In Iran, where shows are watched via smuggled satellite dishes hidden on balconies, authorities said soaps were “destabilizing the institution of the family.” Saudi clerics went as far as to issue fatwas against people watching the shows.

Apart from being an unintended cultural export and a unique brand of soft power, Turkish dramas also raked in cash – tons of it. The value of soap opera exports skyrocketed from a million dollars in 2007 to 130 million in 2012 as the country sold 13,000 hours of programming, according to data from the country’s Tourism and Culture Ministry.

Part of their appeal, the director says, was thanks to the good-old American recipe. “It’s the drama, the passionate love affairs, the nasty vendettas – a recipe first sold by the Americans with ‘Dallas’ and ‘Dynasty’ in the 1980s,” says Paschalidou.

But, like most observers, Paschalidou also sees culture-specific factors at play. “It was no coincidence that these shows struck a chord with audiences in the areas of the former Ottoman Empire. There was something exotic, yet at the same time quite familiar, to them. People in this part of the world have many shared memories, a common past, similar food,” she says.

They also have similar ambitions.

“Viewers in the Middle East see the Turkish woman as a model of the modern Muslim female. This is a bit who they would like to be, who they struggle to become,” Paschalidou says. They want greater freedom and more rights. And more wealth. “What all these shows have in common is their penchant to show off designer clothes, nice homes and luxury villas,” she says.

Interestingly, while women in Arab countries appear in the documentary to be inspired by the modern, feminist narrative, their Greek counterparts are looking in the other direction as Turkish series have triggered in many a nostalgia for pre-modern values and ideals such as tradition and family ties. “I like these shows because they have morals and the girls don’t take off their underwear all the time like they do here,” says one elderly Greek fan.

Greece’s stubborn recession, now in its seventh year, has hit most people hard and at the same time influenced Greeks’ collective self-understanding. “The crisis has been widely associated with the West and many things modern. As a result, we have dug out old memories and turned to the Eastern part of our identity,” Paschalidou says.

“Perhaps there is also this longing for true love, for the type of man who stands by his wife and looks after her needs – even if he is a bit of on the macho side,” she says.

To be continued

Closer to home, these programs have inflicted some collateral damage by exposing Turkey’s internal contradictions: The narrative of a modern, prosperous Turkey is being challenged by a conservative, intolerant backlash. Once the darling of liberal reformists, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan – who has criticized a historical soap based on the life of Suleiman the Magnificent, which depicts the sultan as a man in thrall to his favorite wife, as “an attempt to insult our past, to treat our history with disrespect” – has fed concerns among secularists about his increasingly authoritarian style of government.

“Turkey’s efforts to promote a modern, Western face cannot disguise its huge shortcomings in the area of women’s rights,” Paschalidou says.

Despite a series of legal reforms over the past few years, Turkey did poorly in the World Economic Forum’s 2013 Gender Gap Index. A recent survey found that a third of marriages in Turkey’s eastern and southeastern provinces involved very young brides, many of them under the age of 15. In “Life Goes On” a young girl from Anatolia is married off to an abusive 70-year-old. The girl escapes her yoke, but in reality such happy endings are less common.

“Reality is not always like in the series. A girl who has been forced into marrying at an early age in Turkey will not have the support of her family if she decides to break up,” the director says.

“These series present an idealized image that Turkish society is mature enough to solve its problems, which is not always the case,” she says.

But the effort is there, and it is a genuine effort Paschalidou believes. The shows are mainly written by female scriptwriters who nudge the narratives into more feminist paths, and even attempt to involve their audience. When the final court scene of “What Is Fatmagul’s Fault? was filmed, the extras cast to carry banners and shout slogans in support of Fatmagul were real-life victims of sexual abuse.

“What really impressed me was that Turkish actresses are fully conscious of what it is that they are doing,” she says. Many of them have taken the effort outside the TV studio by participating in a campaign to stop domestic violence against women.

“It’s not just a marketing strategy. Some of them genuinely believe they can help.”

WWF Greece unveils five-year plan for ‘living economy’

By Harry van Versendaal

Environmental campaigners WWF Greece on Wednesday unveiled a series of ambitious policy proposals aimed at providing the debt-hit country’s economy with a green kick-start.

The five-year road map, which was drawn up by a group of more than a dozen WWF experts and independent scientists, contains a wide range of institutional, financial and educational measures for a more workable and sustainable economy.

“The crisis signals the need for change. Greece has to change,” WWF Greece CEO Demetres Karavellas told journalists at the organization’s Athens headquarters during a presentation of WWF’s 90-page blueprint that was published under the title “A Living Economy for Greece.”

“Environmental protection is unfortunately still treated here as an unnecessary luxury, as a stumbling block to growth, or as an expendable product in the efforts to recoup the country’s debt,” Karavellas said.

Stuck in a six-year recession, Greece is eager to attract investment to generate growth and jobs in its depressed economy. NGOs have repeatedly warned of an environmental rollback in the country and accused authorities of using the financial crisis as a pretext for easing laws and regulations designed to safeguard the natural environment.

Recent legislation tabled by the Environment Ministry relaxes the restrictions on building in public and private forests, even if they are considered protected areas. The draft law was slammed by a number of local NGOs, including WWF, who refused to take part in the public consultation process.

The WWF proposals call for greater transparency, the scrapping of tailor-made regulations and the simplification of Greece’s notoriously nebulous legislation.

“Laws must be clear and well understood by everyone whether they are citizens, businesses or societies at large,” said Theodota Nantsou, environmental policy coordinator for WWF Greece, also calling for less bureaucracy and more financial incentives for green companies.

The organization put forward a number of far-reaching interventions in Greece’s primary production – agriculture, livestock farming, forestry and fisheries – as well as directions for sustainable reforms in secondary production, i.e. industrial and manufacturing activity.

Greek industries must substitute fossil fuels with renewable energy sources, promote energy efficiency and adopt resource efficient productive processes (like organic farming, recycling and sustainable waste management), said the report. WWF officials however warned that little will be achieved without a strong inspection system, while also calling for the introduction of the “polluter pays” principle.

“We want Greece to become the testing ground for this policy,” said Nantsou.

Tourism, which is Greece’s biggest industry accounting for about 16 percent of GDP and one in five jobs in 2011, is also addressed in the report. The sector must maximize economic gains with the minimum possible level of damage to the natural habitat and cultural heritage, WWF officials said, warning against unchecked construction.

“We must promote investment in areas where construction has already taken place rather than build new facilities all over the country,” said Nantsou, emphasizing the need for innovative ideas.

The WWF official proposed the revival of deserted villages that could be put to use for tourism while ensuring that their historic character is preserved and with the lowest possible footprint. She offered the example of Gavros, a village of adobe (sun-dried clay) houses in the Western Macedonia region of Kastoria.

According to a recent Eurobarometer survey quoted in the press conference, the natural environment is the key factor in picking a tourism destination. Cultural heritage ranks second.

Training and education also feature high on the agenda of the conservation group, which recently announced a new interactive, grassroots campaign to promote a more sustainable lifestyle. The WWF’s Kalyteri Zoi (Better Life) campaign, which is subsidized by the Stavros S. Niarchos Foundation, will debut on Thursday.

WWF said the report has already been made available to several Greek ministries and government agencies.

“We are not deluding ourselves. We just want to provide a framework and pursue anything that is possible for us to pursue,” Nantsou said.

For more information visit http://www.wwf.gr

Made in Greece

Illustration by Manos Symeonakis

 

By Harry van Versendaal

In a white, minimalist bedroom, a man in boxer shorts is getting dressed. His sated partner lies in bed. The door opens, and an older, besuited man walks in. Calmly, the woman introduces her lover, and her husband promptly asks him to lunch. And then the slogan flashes on the screen: “We Greeks aren’t like this — why should our furniture be?”

As Greece tries to deal with a contracting economy and sky-high unemployment, local businesses are trying to gain an advantage over the competition by advertising their Greek credentials. This commercial for Neoset furniture, poking fun at the local company’s bigger Swedish rival, is only one of many new ads popping up on the radio, television and in the press that are pitching the Buy Greek message.

“Despite Neoset being a Greek company that has worked in the sector for over 30 years, it’s the first time it has ever come out so strongly in advertising its products’ provenance,” the company’s retail marketing coordinator, Marita Kazadelli, said in a recent interview.

“As a company, but also as consumers, we want to support Greek companies and Greek products, so in this way we show our support for Greek businesses, Greek exports, Greek workers and all the rest,” she said.

A whole variety of businesses from travel agents to the fashion industry are catching the trend.

One of these is Helmi, a Greek company that makes edgy clothes for women who until now, its officials admit, had let consumers think it was not local.

“For years our customers considered us a foreign company, an assumption which… we never tried to correct. Now, however, we are letting our consumers know that this supposedly foreign brand is actually Greek,” Helmi CEO Dimosthenis Helmis said.

A radio ad by Bic, the France-based company specializing in the manufacturing of stationery products, lighters and razors, claims that 97 percent of the company’s disposable razors are manufactured in Greece. Around 860 million razors were manufactured in Bic’s factory near Athens last year, 90 percent of which were exported to 153 countries, according to the company website.

But nowhere is the Buy Greek penchant more prominent than where Greeks already held a strong position: the dairy and food market.

Melissa pasta last year used its Greek identity as the central slogan for a big campaign celebrating the firm’s 60th anniversary.

People at the company herald the newfound patriotism.

“I think this trend is natural and that it was late coming. Turks always bought Turkish products, the Germans always bought German products, why did Greeks think Greek products were inferior?” public relations manager Tina Kikiza asked.

The company has for years had to combat the general wisdom that Italian pasta is the best. What many people do not know, says Kikiza, is that many Italian rivals depend on wheat imports from Greece for their products.

The company’s turnover has not been dented by the economic crisis, climbing from 45 million euros in 2007 to 70 million in 2010. It is expected to reach a similar level in 2011.

Marketing pitfalls

However, marketing experts are wary of the long-term implications of the Buy Greek drive.

“All products are now brands. Their image is important to their viability. So the question is not whether Greek products are better or worse, but what their being defined as Greek has to add to their brand image,” said Daphne Patrikiou, associate creative director at the BBDO advertising agency.

Strategies vary. Some companies — not always Greek-owned — have adopted a consistent corporate approach, emphasizing their contribution to the local economy. The more opportunistic have pitched their Greek credentials with one-dimensional advertising campaigns or with simply putting “Made in Greece” stickers on their products to encourage impulse buying.

To be sure, not all firms have an interest in advertising their Greekness. Those who have for years invested in strategic planning, like eco-friendly detergent manufacturer Planet or natural skincare company Korres, are rather laconic about their origins, reaping instead the benefits of their longstanding niche strategies.

“Being associated with a Greek identity may benefit a product in the short term, but it could backfire in the long run,” Patrikiou said.

Particularly for companies specializing in hi-tech products and devices, experts warn, a Buy Greek strategy could be damaging. Computer and technology retailer Plaisio has made a profitable business in branding its own PC series, but success is attributed to its value-for-money image, not its being Greek.

Irrational exuberance

Made in Greece has never been associated with innovation, quality or style. And this one of the reasons why the country has for decades spent more than it made as consumers looked outside for good products.

But the situation really spun out of control after the country joined the eurozone in 2001. Thanks to the stable and trusted currency, Greeks were able to borrow cheaply. The balance of trade took a nosedive as Greece imported more goods than it produced.

In 1990, Greece’s balance of trade deficit was 446 thousand euros, by 2002 it had soared to 1.7 billion, while in 2006 it hovered at 2.1 billion. Meanwhile, Greek imports in 1990 were valued at 1.6 billion euros; in 2002 the figure went up to 4.7 billion and by 2006 it had skyrocketed to 5.9 billion.

The overconsumption of foreign goods also had a cultural aspect. After a long stretch of political instability and poverty, the newly empowered Greeks — often powered by provincial attitudes — developed a soft spot for foreign goods. The figures were backed by anecdotal stories of Greeks infamously storming London’s Harrods and Selfridges on weekend shopping sprees.

The situation prompted a reaction by the now defunct association for the promotion of Greek products. A Buy Greek promo made at the time mocked Lakis, a tacky character showing off his flashy designer buys — all foreign imports. At least Greeks created their own word for the trend, “xenomania,” meaning the extreme love for all things foreign — a regular topic of high school essays during the 1980s and 90s.

These days, the Buy Greek message is mostly spread by private firms and business associations, while a number of Facebook pages and citizen groups have also added their voices to the campaign. The Greece520.gr website for one aims to inform consumers that products carrying bar codes starting with 520 are made in the country.

The costly truth

The campaigns seem to be paying off. The National Confederation of Hellenic Commerce recently said sales of local products have gone up 44 percent this year as Greeks turn away from dearer imports.

“It seems crazy to me to buy American rice when I can buy Greek-grown rice,” said Katerina Petraki, a mother of two who works as a food inspector.

In the case of foodstuffs, Petraki says, she usually prefers Greek products — including the supermarkets’ increasingly popular own-name brands. They are just as good, she says, and at the same time you support homegrown products.

“I mean, I know it’s a profit-driven ideology — but why not support it? After all, it will help us become more competitive,” she said.

But not everyone appears convinced. Products made here often cost more and some consumers won’t hesitate to opt for cheaper foreign-made items to help their own finances.

“I haven’t started buying more Greek products because of the crisis. I buy what’s on sale. I look at the price, not the origin,” said Maria Andritsou, a civil engineer who has been unemployed for over a year.

“Until now I used to buy Greek flour. Now I buy foreign-made,” said Andritsou, the mother of a 3-year-old daughter.

People like her dislike the idea of having to accept poorer quality or more expensive products in the name of alleged benefits to the national collective. Such misplaced patriotism, she says, would be like a reward to substandard local suppliers.

“Greek manufacturers have overcharged for so long. Why should I support them now?” she said.

The costly truth is that concepts like home economics and consumer education have long been mostly alien to the average Greek. Consumers rarely did any market research, thus discouraging price competition among local retailers. Greek products were as a result more expensive than their foreign counterparts, which made little economic sense given the cost of transport and logistics.

Who gains?

Consumers often complain it’s hard to know if their money goes to the right place. Product identity in the globalized marketplace of complex ownership structures and competing loyalties can become uncomfortably fuzzy.

The fact is it’s not always clear where products are manufactured or who profits. The Misko pasta factory is controlled by the Barilla Group, Marinopoulos has been taken over by Carrefour, even Metaxa, the world-famous brandy maker, is now owned by France’s Remy Cointreau Group.

But commerce is not necessarily a zero-sum game. Although owned by Barilla, Misko still makes the brand’s products using Greek raw materials. For obvious commercial reasons, Barilla has kept the famous Misko brand logo featuring a Greek Orthodox monk riding a donkey. But, more importantly, the Italian giant operates one of Europe’s biggest pasta factories in Viotia.

Foreign companies like Ikea, Bic or the AB Vassilopoulos supermarket chain, which is controlled by Belgium-based retailer Delhaize, are keen to stress their contribution to the local economy, since they employ thousands of Greek staff and pay taxes to the Greek state.

“We don’t see ourselves as a foreign supermarket,” AB’s communication manager Alexia Macheras said, noting that the company is the fifth-biggest employer in Greece with more than 11,000 staff.

She said AB has for years supported local production by promoting homegrown goods while running campaigns to support Greek foods, clothes and tourism.

I want that Pony

Despite upbeat early statistics, experts insist that Greekness alone is not enough to shape people’s long-term purchase preferences and ensure sustainable growth for the companies.

“Consumers can see through advertising practices and remain rather skeptical toward them. They need a stronger sell to adopt a habit. A product’s national identity is not a strong sell on its own,” Patrikiou said.

Business gurus have a tendency to urge us to see crises as opportunities. Reports last month said that former Greek car manufacturer NAMCO is due to begin production of a new version of the poor man’s SUV, the Pony, which hit the country’s streets in the late 1970s and early 80s. If Greece were to exit the eurozone and return to a devalued drachma, beloved products like quality German cars would be out of reach for local consumers, who would have to depend heavily on locally made products. It would be interesting to see then how many people here would give up their dearest BMW or Mercedes for the more humble Pony.

Murder by design

By Harry Van Versendaal

Stelios Bozikis, the mayor of Zakynthos, had 364 days to publicly criticize or actually do something about the Ionian island’s notoriously problematic tourism product.

Instead, he picked the one day when he should have kept silent.

Speaking on television on Wednesday morning, Bozikis slammed the “inappropriate” behavior of foreign tourists in the popular summer resort of Laganas. He did so only a few hours after one of these visitors was stabbed in the heart by a local taxi driver.

The mayor said the fatal incident, which followed a verbal exchange between five British nationals and two cabbies, was the result of the island attracting cheap, low-grade tourists.

Of course, blaming the tragic incident on the island’s popularity with “second-rate tourists” is like a killer blaming his actions on childhood abuse. In that sense, it was an insensitive and politically cynical statement prompted — most likely — by an appalling mix of cheap patriotism and opportunistic scapegoating.

At the same time, Bozikis was conducting another faux pas by reducing the now-dead 18-year-old Robert Sebbage — a young man he knew nothing about and while the full circumstances surrounding the killing were still unknown — to the ugly stereotype of a young Brit behaving badly.

Before pointing a finger at the hordes of British tourists that flood the island’s bars and beaches during the summer period, the mayor should first take a minute to contemplate and condemn the terrible action of the perpetrators (who, like many of their colleagues, apparently thought it was normal to drive around with knives in their glove compartments).

Bozikis of course is right that Laganas — like the resorts of Faliraki on Rhodes and Malia on Crete — are a magnet for the full-on party and binge-drinking crowd. But if Laganas, or any other resort for that matter, is renowned among fun-seeking British youths as an anything-goes party zone, that is the responsibility of the local authorities; in other words, of people like himself. If bars are allowed to sell adulterated alcohol and tour operators are given a free rein on the island, that again is because local authorities are quite willing to turn a blind eye to the mess when it serves their own interests. If Laganas is a magnet for heavy-drinking low-budget tourists, it’s because it has been designed that way.

Bozikis is right that the party needs new rules but that goes first of all for the hosts of the party.

Wary steps across the Balkans’ lingering divisions

By Harry van Versendaal

A number of good-will gestures by former Balkan war foes have created grounds for optimism about the future of Europe’s dodgiest neighborhood, but some analysts express caution about the region’s true prospects for reconciliation.

Some of the recent initiatives coming from Serbia and Croatia, the two regional heavyweights, have been impressive by the standards of this conflict-ridden area. Following a push by Serbia president Boris Tadic, the country’s parliament last month passed a landmark resolution condemning the 1995 massacre of some 8,000 Bosniaks (Bosnian Muslims) by Bosnian Serb forces in fields near the UN safe heaven of Srebrenica, seen as Europe’s worst atrocity since the Holocaust. Although falling short of branding the events a genocide, the motion said Belgrade should have done more to prevent the tragedy.

Croatia followed suit as its president, Ivo Josipovic, expressed regret about his country’s involvement in the 1992-1995 war in Bosnia.

“There is significant development in the region in the direction of going back to normalcy, stability and peace,” says Ivan Vejvoda, head of the Balkan Trust for Democracy, a non-governmental organization promoting good governance in southeast Europe.

“More has happened than people realize because the western Balkans are not in the news any more, because nothing dramatic is happening, thank God,” he says. Vejvoda likes to talk about the growth in business, trade, and mutual investment, about academic and cultural exchanges, pop culture, and reality shows attracting men and women from across the region. MTV Adria, a pan-Adriatic version of the popular network, broadcasts music from the different Balkan nations. There are more Serbian tourists visiting the Croatian coast as they did in the days of Yugoslavia, and Slovenian tourists can be seen strolling in the towns of Serbia. “The proverbial kind of approach says that in the Balkans people are quick to flare up and get into conflict but conversely they’re also very quick to calm down,” he says.

Political drive

Much of the credit for the recent rapprochement must go to the two presidents, Tadic and Josipovic, who have met three times in less than a month. “They are people who have not been involved in any way in the conflicts of the 1990s, they are people of similar character, and they both come from social democratic parties,” says Vejvoda, whose think tank organized one of the meetings.

Both presidents have pledged to withdraw the mutual genocide charges filed with the International Court of Justice over atrocities committed during the 1991-1995 war and reach an out-of-court settlement.

There is no doubt that a fair number of outstanding issues remain between the two countries: resolving the border dispute, the matter of returnees, the question of internally displaced people who came to Croatia from Serbia, and the issue of missing persons. But both sides, says Vejvoda, recognize that maintaining the status quo will benefit no one. “This new approach signals that they both want to address these issues directly and to start resolving them because this will facilitate further the strengthening of ties and because it will be conducive to European Union membership,” he says.

EU carrot

Most Balkan observers are ready to admit that little would have happened without the carrot of EU accession. “I doubt that the process would have been as bold or as relatively quick if not for the allure of EU membership,” says Svetozar Rajak, a historian at the London School of Economics.

Croatia, whose accession talks were blocked last year by Slovenia over a maritime border dispute, hopes to conclude negotiations with the EU this year so as to join the 27-member bloc in 2012. Josipovic has pledged that should Croatia join the union it will not veto Serbian membership, still a remote prospect.

But some analysts warn that Balkan governments should not rely too much on Europe. Croatian historian and politician Ivo Banac, for one, questions the extent to which Brussels is committed to the process. “Unfortunately, the EU is no longer serious about almost anything, least of all about Balkan issues,” he says.

Banac, sometimes described as “the political conscience of modern Croatia,” is skeptical about the process of Balkan reconciliation. “Neither the Serbian parliamentary resolution on Srebrenica nor President Josipovic’s statements in the Bosnian parliament go to the length of expected expressions of regret,” he says. He believes there can be little progress before the two states tackle the issue of Bosnia.

Bosnia, a dysfunctional ensemble of a state created by the Dayton peace accords that ended the 1992-95 war is made up of a Serb Republic (Republika Srpska) and a Muslim-Croat Federation. The survival of Bosnia, already tormented by a toxic mix of de facto partition, corruption and populism, is further strained as the Bosnian Serb premier keeps flirting with the motherland across the border. Milorad Dodik this week warned that Bosnian Serbs will never accept that Srebrenica was genocide, saying the alleged death toll is “inexact.”

All that of course helps keep Bosnia away from the EU. Belgrade and Zagreb, however, are not without blame for the situation. “Serbia and Croatia created the conditions for Bosnia’s partition and collapse. All the consequences for its future arise from this fact, although this has not yet been acknowledged, much less publicly renounced,” says Banac.

“Unfinished space”

And, of course, there is Kosovo. Ever since the former Serbian province declared independence two years ago, Serbia has gone to lengths to prevent its international recognition. Belgrade considers Kosovo, the site of a historic defeat to the invading Ottoman army in 1389, its historic heart. It has also brought the case to the International Court of Justice at The Hague and a much-delayed ruling is expected later this year. It could also be a far-reaching one. “The future fate of Kosovo’s unilateral declaration of independence will also have an impact on the international system as a whole,” says Rajak, and it is no coincidence that Serbia has found some powerful allies to support its cause – namely Russia, China and EU member Spain, all states preoccupied with their own uneasy minorities.

Banac insists that Bosnia is the main sticking point to stability and that Kosovo is merely “Serbia’s chip in this much larger game.” Serbia insists on its sovereignty over Kosovo, he says, not because it believes that it will ever gain control over the whole of Kosovo, but because it hopes it will get the Serb-dominated Mitrovica area in the north of the province. “Serbia hopes that this ‘mini partition’ of Kosovo will set a precedent for the ‘maxi partition’ of Bosnia. The ‘unfinished space’ of the Balkans remains a source of conflict.”

As always, burying the ghosts of the past will take a lot more than official apologies.

Live your myth

By Harry van Versendaal

Albert Camus admitted that he preferred soccer to theater, but that’s not the only thing that makes him a great thinker.

January 4 marks the 50^th anniversary of the Algeria-born French writer and playwright’s death in a car accident. In the mud near the crashed Facel-Vega, driven by his friend and publisher Michel Gallimard, lay an unfinished manuscript of “The First Man” and, in Camus’s coat pocket, an unused train ticket. It was a tragic death, one which justified Camus’s description of the human predicament as “absurd.”

Man, a meaning-seeking creature, must squeeze value out of a universe that is basically godless, meaningless, and doomed to extinction. This, Camus held, makes this world an absurd place.

Camus would no doubt have had a great deal to say about the Greece of today. It truly is becoming increasingly difficult to make any sense of this proud yet troubled nation that appears well on its path to extinction.

And the gods do not appear to be answering any prayers either.

It’s absurd-overdose: Unchecked spending is digging Greeks ever deeper into a black hole of deficits and debt. Meanwhile the country is stubbornly stuck at the bottom of Europe’s transparency table. “Greece’s prime minister, George Papandreou, wrote a new page in the inglorious history of his nation’s public finances this week by acknowledging to his European Union peers that the Greek public sector was riddled with corruption,” the Financial Times commented on Saturday.

Political credibility has hit rock bottom. The younger generations are exhibiting a strong anti-political, if not nihilistic, streak as demonstrated by the recurring outbursts of vandalism and physical violence racking the capital. A series of uncomfortably earthly sins, such as the scandalous land swap between a monastery and the state, have cost our high priests their (metaphysical) claim to benignity.

City streets are packed with cars, and so are the narrow sidewalks when they are not blanketed with heaps of trash. Education is a mess; public universities are caught up in a spiral of vandalism and thuggishness. The judicial system is riddled with graft and corruption. And so too is Camus’s favorite pastime, soccer.

Greece is whirling in the direction of the absurd.

Unlike the majority of his hysterical doom-and-gloom peers, the author of “The Stranger” and “The Guest” did not see the absurd as a cause for despair. He went as far as to see hope in the person of one of those cursed ancient heroes of Greek myth: Sisyphus. After trying to cheat Death, Sisyphus, the cunning king of Corinth, is condemned by the gods to an eternity of rolling a boulder uphill, only to watch it roll back down again.

Sisyphus, the quintessential absurd man, keeps pushing only to see his pain and effort come to nothing. He then drags himself back down to the plain. Camus is intrigued by that very moment, the pause: “I see that man going back down with a heavy yet measured step toward the torment of which he will never know the end. That hour like a breathing-space which returns as surely as his suffering, that is the hour of consciousness. At each of those moments when he leaves the heights and gradually sinks toward the lairs of the gods, he is superior to his fate. He is stronger than his rock.” It is the lucid awareness of his destiny that transforms Sisyphus’s ordeal into victory.

The modern-day workman performs that same mundane task each day – and his fate, our fate, is no less absurd. “But it is tragic only at the rare moments when it becomes conscious.” Does the realization of the absurd dictate suicide? Camus ponders. “No. It requires revolt.”

And modern-day Greeks do protest against their situation. Too much, perhaps. Athens is after all paralyzed by an average of more than two protests per day. Revolt here comes with a self-destruct button.

Stuck in traffic for hours behind the steering wheel of your flashy car, watching your life pass by as you snail your way to the office cubicle – those states of consciousness become uncomfortably ordinary. “The struggle itself toward the heights is enough to fill a man’s heart,” Camus said. “One must imagine Sisyphus happy.”

But for some reason, it doesn’t quite work.

“Live your myth in Greece,” the catchy tourism slogan urged. Modern Greeks do, in fact, live their myth. Too bad it’s the myth of Sisyphus.