Anti-German Mood Heats Up in Greece

[marmar]

from Der Spiegel:



Nazi flags are hardly a rarity at Greek demonstrations these days. Anti-German tirades on primetime television have likewise become a staple. In Greece, a consensus has developed as to who is to blame for the country's economic misery. Age old stereotypes are flourishing.

Georgios Trangas had launched into a tirade -- yet again. He seemed to have completely forgotten his four studio guests. Trangas stared into the camera and turned to his favourite subject: the Germans, and how they are cold-bloodedly shoving Greece into the abyss. "Germany doesn't care that 3 million pensioners are dying here," he raged.

The sentence is one of his more harmless utterances on this evening. But such verbal artillery is hardly out of the ordinary on the Athens television broadcaster Extra 33, a channel full of angry broadsides against the "German occupiers."

"Choris Anästhetiko" is the name of the program, and it lives up to its name: "Without Anaesthesia." Politesse is an alien concept on the show as it offers ruthless analysis of the economic and debt crisis gripping Greece. On this evening, the show is set to examine the problems facing taxi drivers in Athens and the suffering shipping industry. But the experts invited to appear on the show serve little more of a purpose than providing the moderator with additional excuses to launch into a diatribe. ................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/0,1518,814344,00.html

[provis99]

1. tell the Greeks to quit cheating on their taxes.