Open society is very fragile. The foundations are fragile,
and they can't break down much faster than we ever imagined.
And we can find what used to be a very
functional place all of a sudden become a
really dangerous place where you can be have beaten up in the street just because of
the color of your skin.
The situation here is very dangerous when it comes to
protecting freedom of speech, democratic rights values.
It's a society closing. This not a problem that concerns only
a small society like Greece.
It's a disease practically that is gonna come to the West.
When people are fearful it's hard to open up, to embrace
others and to support a wider project and work for an open society.
You've got historical
precedents, that ought to warn
the European Union that it's on the wrong track.
I think there's a large silent majority
that realizes that something is very wrong
but is discouraged and passive.
I think like in every other country that's affected by the crisis
there are global events, and there are local events.
The Greek economy had particular weaknesses that made it extremely vulnerable
to the fluctuations that were created by the financial crisis.
During the boom years of course, and they'd been building the Olympics, not only in Greece
but in Ireland and in Spain and all the rest of it, you had all this cheap money flooding into these
countries from the big
European banks, mainly in Germany and France and Britain. So all of a sudden, you know,
the Greeks, the Spanish and the Irish are living on German interest rates.
They haven't merited that themselves through their economic performance
they haven't earned that.
Then when the bubble bursts with the financial crisis,
basically you have a situation of creditors versus debtors
that balloons into sovereign debt crisis. And then years of austerity and spending-cuts.
I don't think any country in the Western world
has experienced such a rapid deterioration of much as living
conditions but the general government.
We have unemployment which reaches 28 percent for the general population
and 65 percent for the younger generation.
This means that you start to think about your life differently practically,
now it's survival and subsistence.
Not just, you're not managing with your,
you know finances. It's that it's no longer easy to to sustain the social fabric,
to look after those you should be able to take care of
like your children or the elderly. There is some data that there is
increase of suicide rate. And if you go to social services,
to hospitals - the crisis is obvious.
As people are just feeling greater and greater stress,
they're also looking for a scape goat.
Economic crises offers opportunities to populists. They may turn that
into economic populism - just promise to the people magic solutions to their economic problems -
It can turn into racism and xenophobia.
Many people tell us to don't go out.
Because if they find someone black like me,
Maybe they beat him, maybe they kill him.
I have Greek nationality for 14 years.
What scares me is how this kind of evil, racism and xenophobia that we actually witness,
has started being tolerated by by a vast number of people.
So they end up, you know,
sympathizing with radicals. "Yes I want vengeance and I'm going to kick
the ass of migrants and the ass of the politicians. I hate the parliament."
They want to punish the politicians, and to move Greece away from the European Union mainstream.
We somehow have to turn to new actors, new people, you know,
small deeds of solidarity. We have to mobilize a new
civic capital, we have to even invent it.
The crisis is an opportunity. But where I see the opportunity is building the capacity
of young people who want to make a difference.
The notion of voluntarism,
community helping the community without asking for anything -
There are many people from my environment who came and told us, you know, I've been
trying for so many years to do something,
and I just didn't know where to go. And the search
of such a movement I think is very revealing as to
positive affects that can come out of the crisis.
A lot of people in Greece they understand better now the meaning of solidarity.
What I do and my colleagues do, it's enough to change our neighborhood.
This can become an example and can mobilize
others in order to change their neighborhoods too.
Growth means that you've tried to reinvent yourself and you found a way to do it.
As long as there is a minimum level of stability and a minimum level of
freedom and a minimum level of resources, I think that economies can
start growing and societies can start hoping even in the context of a bad state.
The problems in Greece are Greek problems but the solutions to them,
many aspects of those solutions lie not simply in Greece but in the European Union.
The essence of Europe is solidarity,
and we need to implement it so we can avoid the potential
of the destruction of the social fabric.
Europe, beeing an open society, is supposed to be
taking care of other people less fortunate.
The history will remember
not the poeple who act against, but the poeple who were silent.
And what we need now is more and more good people
to react to this situation and to offer solidarity.
And I think that you must help. I don't think that
Greece needs only money - Greece needs support
for democracy.