The Ghosts of Omonia Square
Posted: August 30, 2012 Filed under: Essay, Photography, Travel | Tags: Athens, cities, crisis, EU, Greece, politics, travel, urban landscapes Leave a comment »
This just up at The Margins, with photos, one last dispatch from Athens, this time with hookers, junkies, immigrants, and cops.
At night, the junkies take over the square. They are almost vaporously thin, like the dead even before they shoot up. They have ruined most of their veins and bend forward to stick the needle in the backs of their knees or other parts of their legs. The happy ones are curled up fetally, oblivious to everything. A tall South Asian man with a tense, fierce face asks me several nights in a row if I want anything. “Hash? Junk? Anything?”
Read the whole story here.
The City Painted, part two
Posted: August 23, 2012 Filed under: Art, Essay, Photography, Travel | Tags: apocalyptic visions, Athens, cities, crisis, graffiti, Greece, photography, travel, urban landscapes, walking Leave a comment »Over and again, when I asked about the precarious future of Greece, people gave me this response: “Greece has been here for thousands of years. It does not die, and it will not this time.” Walking the streets of Athens, I find myself marveling at the beauty and humor and energy of the graffiti I see everywhere, and also feeling dismayed, because it does mar the city, it does make it ugly, and it does make the lives of Athenians who have to encounter it every day that little bit worse. But I also think of that quote, and I know that cities, like people, go through periods of creative destruction. Who knows what will emerge out of the Athens of today, what city will stand on these shopworn foundations? But one thing is certain. The city will be here, and so will its people, and I suspect that much of the energy released onto its walls will also help to feed its rebirth. For in seeing the city so brought down, one can begin to imagine the city reborn.
Click on the images to view larger versions.
For additional photos, see the earlier post, “The City Painted, part one.”
All images copyright 2012 Ranbir Sidhu.
Night Walks in Athens
Posted: August 13, 2012 Filed under: Essay, Photography | Tags: Athens, cities, Greece, night, travel, urban landscapes, walking 1 Comment »Past midnight in a poorly lit alley near Metaxourgeio, a man approaches me pushing an overloaded cart. I’m taking photographs. No one else is around. What time is it? he asks. I say I think it’s a quarter past, and he nods and points to his cart. I sell all this, and now I pack up and go home, he says, I do this every day. Where are you from? I ask. I’m a Kurd, he says, I’m from Iraq. He reaches into his pocket and pulls out a green sprig. Smell it, he says, pushing it into my face. Take it and smell it. It sounds like an order, and I do as he asks. The plant is basil, and in that dark alley, it smells wonderfully fragrant. He smiles when I recognize the plant, then nods. This is what I sell, he says. And saying nothing else, he walks away, leaving me with the fragrant sprig of basil. I keep it as a good luck charm, because this night I’m still not sure what parts of the city I’ll walk through, and what protection I will need.
On the following night, I learn a couple of days later, in the same area, around the same time, an Iraqi immigrant is stabbed to death by five unknown attackers.
Click on the images to view larger versions.
For additional photos, see the earlier post, “Athens at night.”
All images copyright 2012 Ranbir Sidhu.
The Athens National Archaeological Museum, or The Past In Fragments
Posted: August 10, 2012 Filed under: Essay, Photography, Travel | Tags: archaeology, Athens, Greece, photography, sculpture, secret doors, travel 1 Comment »On my way into the National Archaeological Museum of Greece today, I met a young woman who was handing out discount flyers for a nearby café. We got to talking, and she said there were many secrets in this city, and many hidden histories. I have felt the same thing, wondering at the dark doors, and silent alleyways I’ve passed. On the Acropolis, she said, there are secret doors to other worlds, and she was amazed I had not encountered them. As a writer, she scolded me, she thought I would have looked more deeply.
Inside the museum, in one of the last rooms I visited, the room containing the five breath-taking Kouros statues, I had an astonishing experience and, for a moment, found one of those secret doors she spoke of. Maybe one day I will write about it.
All photos copyright 2012 Ranbir Sidhu.
After the election: crisis postponed, not averted.
Posted: June 18, 2012 Filed under: Essay, News | Tags: apocalyptic visions, Athens, crisis, EU, Greece, Open Magazine Leave a comment »An update to the article published in Open Magazine:
Last night, the conservative, pro-bailout and pro-austerity New Democracy party won the elections, but not decisively enough to have an outright majority. To be able to form a government, they will need to form a coalition with one of their opponents. The second vote-getter, and close second in the elections, was the upstart, radical left party Syriza. It’s leader, Alexis Tsipras, has ruled out any coalition with any pro-bailout party, and so a coalition will likely be formed with PASOK, and one of the other, smaller, leftist parties.
While the election of New Democracy averts the immediate crisis of Greece leaving the euro, it in no way changes the long-term picture. The requirements of Europe’s bailout haven’t been fully implemented, and some of the most severe cuts are yet to come. These will be very difficult to get passed into law, and if they are passed, will likely cause a violent reaction on the streets in the coming months. But the larger picture is more disturbing. Even if the cuts are implemented, Greece will still ultimately be unable to live up to its commitments. It will not be able to pay back its debts in full, even at the current levels where much have been forgiven, and it will not be able to grow its economy effectively under the burden of such severe austerity measures.
The reaction of international markets to the Greek election struck me as quite rational. An initial sense of optimism because the immediate crisis was averted, followed by a pullback and a dose of reality, because even with the election of the conservatives, there is no obvious way forward for Greece within the euro. We’ll be exactly here again a year or so from now, if not sooner, and between now and that time, Greece will continue to suffer. The only chance that a deeper crisis can be averted is if Germany and the rest of Europe acts proactively with real stimulus measures designed to actually grow Greece’s (and Europe’s) economy. I’m not holding my breath.
Zombie highways, and other features of the Greek crisis
Posted: June 18, 2012 Filed under: Essay, News | Tags: apocalyptic visions, Athens, crisis, EU, Greece, Open Magazine Leave a comment »
From last week’s issue of Open Magazine, my take on the (then) imminent Greek elections:
The highway from the airport is eerily empty. It’s mid-afternoon in the middle of the week, and there are fewer cars than on highways in a California desert at the quietest daylight hour. Another unsettling sight are the billboards. From the airport to the city, except one, all are blank. Some of them drip with papery fragments of old ads. It looks like a set for a zombie movie where everyone has died except me. Office parks and foreign factories line the highway’s edge, but most appear closed. The Ikea parking lot is empty.
Read the whole story here.
A Snapshot from the Greek Elections
Posted: June 17, 2012 Filed under: News, Photography | Tags: Athens, crisis, EU, Greece Leave a comment »
Credit: Ranbir Sidhu
This morning in Perivolia, Crete.
