Tag: Greeks

The Mountaintop Party

Hamar WilliamsLeave a comment

Well Thessaloniki was fun. I met up with my mate, met his family and reconnected which makes the trip worth it alone. It was touch and go for a bit as someone at his work tested positive for this virus but he was tested that same day I arrived and came back negative. It still seems bizarre to not be able to see people without worrying about this illness. We can add that to the long list of things Covid has affected. As well as that, as yesterdays post made clear, I went partying on Saturday night with two people from the hostel.

It was a small party at the top of a hill somewhere outside of Thessaloniki. We were so high that we could see the clouds below us in the morning. We got there in a taxi by following a guy we met in a bar. These types of parties are notoriously difficult to find and I felt a little sorry for the driver as he wasn’t expecting a trip on dirt roads up a mountain. He was also not keen on leaving us randomly in the middle of nowhere up there at two o’clock at night. We danced and had fun, and everything that is involved in such events. In the morning as the sun rose I saw the scene around me and the most remarkable set of people. It was like everyone who couldn’t normally be free had turned up and danced away in the dark. There was no one set type of person and probably about two hundred people so it was small. I’ve avoided too much detail but I spent as much time fascinatingly people watching once the sky was lit up as I did dancing and running around. These were not your average colourful trance festival people but it seemed more like the hardcore inner circle.

As the light came, the water ran out. With our dry mouths we attempted to get down the mountain before it got too hot. One of my new friends needed considerable convincing we were real but eventually we persuaded her to come with us and down the mountain. If we had waited much longer and without any liquid in that heat we would have missed all the potential lifts down and suffered under the Greek sun. Genuinely it felt quite serious at one point but we found someone who got us back. An accident on the small roads back made us follow a farmer over the most random series of dirt track back roads but eventually we reached Thessaloniki and our beds. It was intense and utterly memorable. I had fancied a party like that for a while especially after such a long time in lockdown and any real excitement. If you’re going to do it then do it properly it would seem.

A Toxic Storm

Hamar WilliamsLeave a comment

I sit tonight with thunder and lightning as a backdrop of sorts. I say of sorts because I am in a taverna and despite attempting to position myself looking outside there are still too many lights and people around to feel the full affects of such weather. In fact all these people and children kill any mood I felt prior to entering. There is always something atmospheric and intense with thunderstorms, especially those in hotter countries not used to rains all year round. The intensity is understandable, I imagine if they could measure the energy build up inside a storm, they probably can, maybe that’s what weather balloons do, they would discover it to be powerful. I suppose it is that strength which creates the burst of electricity that is lighting. Is the lightning a release though, is there a decrease in energy once it has struck. Can we compare this to the human mind?

I can use Greeks as an example. It is probably a little ignorant and lazy. Greeks are known for let’s say having an argumentative character. It is a lazy stereotype but for the sake of this argument, let’s assume it is true. It has felt when I’ve been embracing elements of this culture in the past, that the loud arguments have been a form of release. That sometimes we wouldn’t even be arguing over something we were actually angry about but simply looking for this excuse to release a build up of energy. The stereotype about the Greeks then is lazy because this is clearly something done by all, this is a game played in Scotland too for sure. The point is though that this energy must still go somewhere. I don’t know what happens once lightning strikes. What happens to the power that fires towards the ground. The power in an argument is hardly visible but you feel it and you hold onto it, perhaps it’s the same with the lightning strike. This I clearly don’t know.

I do know arguments though and I do know that I am capable and therefore others too of holding on to that energy. We see the other person relaxed and happy after their release but we’re a quivering ball of someone else’s anger. Our own toxicity levels increasing in the moment. Perhaps this is why some people are described as toxic. Toxic substances poison just as toxic people do too. We can’t ignore the fact if others do it to us then certainly we do it to others too. We can’t just spend our lives avoiding those we deem toxic in the hope of not becoming part of some cycle though, this is no way to live life. We must learn to live and not absorb, don’t take in their bullshit. See it and brush it off. I’m not sure why I got into this. I just wanted to talk about thunderstorms. It’s amazing how the mind wanders and relates.

Yassou Old Friend

Hamar WilliamsLeave a comment

September along with April and May is probably the best time to be in Greece. The second half of September in particular. The most extreme elements of the Greek summer have subsided; the heat, the tourists and the stressed Greeks trying to make money. This year is a little different but it seems to be following the usual pattern. There is a lot in this country that can frustrate a person, Greek or non-Greek, but it has more than enough to keep bringing people back. Secretly I love the place more than I’m frustrated by it but don’t tell anyone, sentiment like that gets in the way of being able to complain which is a favourite past time out here.

The plan is to fix up a boat. I’ll be sanding, painting, servicing engines and trying to work out why there’s water in the sail drive. The last will be the most challenging mentally but I’m not looking forward to being stuck down in the tiny engine compartments under the baking sun trying not to flood the engines with my sweat. It’ll be a good boat learning experience though. I’m a believer in the holistic approach to life so it is important to understand sailing isn’t just trying to catch the perfect angle to the wind with our sails or drinking gin and tonic in the sun. Watching everyone on their boats doing exactly that in the port today did make me a little envious though, there is something slightly unnatural about a boat out of water.

These thing I can worry about tomorrow though. Today has been about catching up on and ruining any notion of a sleep pattern as well as getting my bearings in this new place. In a way I’m back where I belong. I know despite my desires for a normal life I thrive in new lands. I enjoy finding my bearings and working out what is going on. I’m not always the best at chatting with everyone but I wouldn’t say I’m unsocial either. I got a good deal on a car rental and spent too much in the supermarket on food. In response I decided not to eat dinner in the taberna and ate a couple of kebabs washed down with a couple of beers in my car while watching people fish. It doesn’t sound like it should be a stand out thing but there was a reasonably attractive woman on her own fishing. It stood out because usually it’s old or middle aged couples and single men doing this kind of thing. It’s not a big thing and perhaps a subtle example but somehow Greece manages to find a way to provide moments which make you take notice. It’s what makes the place so interesting, and admittedly occasionally frustrating.

It would be nice to be out on the water though. I have some slight ideas of plans forming but will keep it all open. Jumping on a boat would certainly be an option I’m open to once I finish these repairs. Anyone going to the Canary Islands? I will say though as my feet and ankles experience that familiar feeling, I don’t miss mosquitoes when I’m not here. They do serve a purpose, I’m not someone who thinks they should all die but certainly I’m ready to discover the secret to what it is they’re attracted to and make the necessary changes in my life. The boat is at the far end of a huge boatyard and I’m hoping they don’t know I’m there. There’s nothing worse than one of those night sleeps. I’m sure it’ll give me something to complain about. Well, it is Greece, you have to do something in between all the enjoying life.

The Post-Post-Brexit Phoenix

Hamar WilliamsLeave a comment

Boris Johnson today suggested he was attempting to break international law in an effort to protect Britain’s “economic and political integrity”. For those who have travelled outside of the UK and actually had a conversation with anyone whose first language is not English, it has been pretty clear now for about four years that we as a country have little political integrity left. In 2016 shortly after the fateful day I was surrounded by utterly bemused Greeks, Spanish, French and Germans unable to make sense of what we had done to ourselves. For them, like most people I’ve met who are not of a particular ideological standing, the reaction has generally been a bemused one. Today, while I like to think I understand this Brexit issue from all angles, the truth is I too remain bemused. Since the referendum I haven’t felt compelled to jump on the “EU is perfect” bandwagon because firstly it isn’t, and secondly this level of fervent belief doesn’t appear to be that far removed in structure to the Brexiteers we’re fighting. The truth is always in the middle. Sort of.

I have recently been discussing the financial ramifications with a Brexiteer. I won’t go into particulars but this person has seemingly lost a rather large number of digits on the value of their wealth. This is mainly down to the falling value of the British economy and market in these last four years. With others I know losing in real time half the value of their estates, Brexit is very much something they can tangibly measure. I remember a few months ago reading about the cost of Brexit so far being the equivalent to all the money the British state – us – had so far paid to the EU since it’s inception, this loss is felt by all. The money the NHS was going to receive never existed, it was always a lie. Covid-19 will likely mask, or be used as a mask by the government and the media, the full extent of what is likely a no deal Brexit but it’s something no mask will manage to cover in our own life. While Boris attempts to convince his chums to embrace their inner teenager and break the law, we’re all left to pick up the pieces.

Make no mistake all we have left is pieces. The hardcore admit the economy will take a hit but that it will be worth it in the long run. Well what is the long run? For my generation, and the one after that, if not the one after that and possibly even the one after that – fifty years until we really see the benefits as Jacob Reece Mogg suggested last year. Great, I should be eighty-three years old by the time the country has fully recovered. Is ideology really worth that much? Myself and god forbid if I have children, them too. At least we won’t have to deal with the bureaucrats in Brussels as we fill out forms for bread.

There is so much lately that I just struggle to understand. Attempting to look compassionately from the other perspective seems completely futile now that the other perspective is hell bent on persevering with such a suicidal approach. Do we accept defeat and leave. Learn Mandarin? All this proves is that not only have we as a people failed to accept the defeat of our own empire roughly one hundred years ago but that we’re willing to go down with the worlds current self-defined ‘only’ superpower. Not only is it confusing it is depressing. We need to reinvent ourselves. Thankfully the ashes don’t appear that far away.

Fucking Fascists

Hamar WilliamsLeave a comment

I wrote a piece earlier about Greece and the current situation with the refugees crossing from Turkey and attacks on them by the fascists. Fascist is a term thrown around far too easily, I should know I’ve been one of those people calling everyone fascist for years, but in Greece it is genuinely a word you can use to describe people. Greece has actual fascists, everywhere does don’t get me wrong, but in Greece they are numerous, hold varying positions of power and the police are absolutely riddled with them like a disease. The piece I wrote earlier though turned into a rant because these fucking morons are arseholes and they piss my off. I’ve met them, not too often but enough to know how they think. Also Greeks in general can be quite volatile, the possibilities of what could happen in Greece worry me. They’re also just human and I love them for this, they’re genuine in their own way. I am really struggling to stop this turning into a rant again…oh fuck it I’ll just paste the first one below…

Greece appears to be fucked at the moment. Fucked doesn’t appear to be a strong enough word but I’ll use it anyway. Turkey has opened the gates to Europe using people for political gain and power, while Greece is attempting to shut them also for political gain and power. The Turks are exaggerating the numbers they’ve let through and the Greeks deny they’ve let through many at all. There have been videos online of all sorts of actions against refugees this last week. The Greek coastguard firing live rounds into the water near a boat they had previously tried to sink with a stick and turn over by ramming. When you have about seventy people on a boat designed for fifteen and only just above the waterline it is remarkable that didn’t happen. It is a shocking video and had it not been for political point scoring by the Turkish coastguard who are guilty of the same and worse, it would never have been shown. These things have been going on for the last few years in that narrow strip of water between Greece and Turkey but just away from the cameras. You then have refugees, NGOs and foreign volunteers being attacked on the beaches by roving bands of fascists, as the police look on doing nothing. The police themselves in Greece have an horrendous reputation for being indiscriminate racist morons who will only make the situation worse. New Democracy, the right-wing government in power since last summer doing all they can to attack left-wing squats, attack refugees and turn the islands into prison camps. Greece has a rich history of right-wing military dictatorships in the last hundred years and one thing they loved doing was throwing communists on prison islands to die, history repeats itself yet again. Moria camp on Lesvos has a capacity of three thousand but contains something like twelve thousand at present. I don’t blame the locals on the island for being pissed off at the national government for wanting to build more and larger (prison) camps on Lesvos, Chios, Samos and Kos but as per usual they’re going after the wrong people. The reality in Greece is that the fascists are real and they’re very much at the front of an angry populace. It is not hyperbole. Once there was Golden Dawn the far-right party but to win power New Democracy just appealed to the lighter elements of their message and then gave them free reign once they came to power. I remember when I was living there it was pretty clear that it wouldn’t take much for Greece to descend into another bloody civil war and with the right-wing violence of this last week just feels like another step in that direction. An incredibly polarised country in which they hate each other. Tourists always say about how nice and welcoming the Greeks are and it’s true, they are great at looking after guests, as well as their own families but outside of this they can be total arseholes to each other. Give them a divisive issue when they’re already struggling with no work or money and a country that is falling apart and doesn’t give a shit about them and the violence is inevitable. Who gets hurts, the innocent people once again. As the EU commends Greece for shutting the gates to Europe it ignores the abuse of innocents, of children being tear gassed, women being clubbed and boats being rammed. The Greek government has said they will stop taking asylum requests, I may be corrected here but surely there must be some kind of international law they’re breaking with that. But commend them our governments will. Commend the fascist thugs terrorising with impunity they will. Commend the brutalising of an already beaten populace they will. This has been a little bit of a unthought rant and I’m wary of doing so. But I also know people who have been threatened and attacked. This is a rant because it’s an emotive issue and it scares me and I worry about people I know in Greece. As I said a few days ago about the fascists in Spain, in Greece they have been and continue to be just as real. The Nazis were never short of collaborators, neither were the British and Americans backing the right wing in the civil war of the late forties. So nothing has changed in seventy years, it’s the same old bullshit as our governments feed the monster before distancing themselves once the job is done and letting everyone else pick up the pieces. Fuck them, that makes the Brits collaborators, the EU, everyones a collaborator. We’re all collaborating with right wing extremism because they’re doing in our name. How much do we love the EU now? Perhaps they’re not that perfect after all. Blood on everyones hands.