No vote celebration, Greece. Demotix/Harris Savolgou. All rights reserved.Robin McAlpine (Robin): The first time that I was in Athens, I was sitting in one of the squares in a café, watching two old Greek men having a conversation. I asked my Greek friend, “what are they fighting about?” And she said, “oh no, they’re not fighting! That’s just a normal conversation!” So my question is this: given that I’ve never met anybody more like the Scots in having a conversation which looks like a fight, why did it take so long for the Greeks to kick back against structures which everyone knew were corrupt? Why did it get so far? Why didn’t Greece rise up earlier?
Christina Psarra (Christina): A simple answer would be that until that moment, the system served certain interests. So we were seeing the problems, but that didn’t really touch our everyday lives until 2008, when the situation started getting out of control. There is also a generational gap. You mention this conversation between the two old men. Maybe the two old men are still doing the same thing! I would take a generational perspective – the emergence of political discussion, tension and resistance, from the young and from middle-aged people.
