Monday 10 September 2012

Forcing Greece to implement harsh austerity measures – a democide of the poor?


The French president, François Hollande, recently made it known that, oui, la Grèce simply must stay in l’Eurozone – a sentiment many high standing officials including the German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, seem to share. Because of this, Greece has been offered a seemingly generous €130bn bailout from the European Union (EU) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF). But nothing in life is free – and doubly so when dealing with politicians. The lenders stubbornly insist that Greece put into practice harsh austerity measures, which will reduce its budget deficit and supposedly help revive the Greek economy. These have climbed up to €11.5bn for 2013 and 2014, an amount which is about as easily imaginable as a colour outside of the visible spectrum.

Due to the difficulties Greece is facing at the moment, Greek Prime Minister Antonis Samaras called for a two-year extension, which would allow the country to extend the spending cuts until 2016 instead of the end of 2014, so that their impact would not be so harshly felt by the citizens. To this, however, both Ms Merkel and Mr Hollande chose not to respond. Why? Because the truth is, it seems, that the bit of European solidarity EU leaders seem to cherish is grounded in fear of the consequences a Greek default would have on their nations, rather than the population of Greece itself.

Politicians keep talking about Greece and its responsibilities – Volker Kauder, the chairman of CDU/CSU (a union of Germany’s two largest conservative parties), let it be known that they must “live up to [their] responsibilities [as] it makes no sense to continue to ask for a delay.” [1] Why it makes no sense to provide this delay he did not specify, likely feeling that the answer was blatantly obvious. Similarly, Mr Hollande proclaimed, that Greece “still has to demonstrate the credibility of its programme and the willingness of its leaders to go the whole way, while doing it in a way that is bearable for the population.” [2] But is that truly possible? How can €11.5bn cuts, which are expected to be based primarily on further pension and public sector pay reductions, be implemented in a way that is bearable for the general Greek populace? Sure, the Greek government has many responsibilities at the moment and deservedly so. But it also has the responsibility to provide bearable living standards to its citizens and it is wrong of the foreign lenders to effectively forbid that.

Some might allude to the no bail-out clause, Article 25 of the Lisbon Treaty, and say that Greece is lucky enough to have gotten any financial help at all. In fact, eight judges in the Federal Court of Justice of Germany in Karlsruhe, a city in southwest Germany, are debating whether the European Stability Mechanism (ESM) violates this principle[3] right now and will rule on September 12. But almost everyone including German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble believes this effort will fail. As such it is difficult to argue that the aid being given to Greece is in any way unwarranted. Hence the issue remains – is it acceptable for EU leaders to ignore that they are depriving innocent citizens of a chance at living with dignity through their insistence on overly harsh austerity measures? Why is it tolerable that those who never contributed to the financial hardships Greece is experiencing should bear the burden?

The world shuddered when reading about 77-year-old Dimitris Christoulas, a retired Greek pharmacist who killed himself on April 4, 2012. With a single bullet to the head, he ended his life in the middle of Athens’ Syntagma Square – in the midst of intense austerity measures, but a long time before the new €11.5bn cuts for the next two years were even announced. This is what he wrote in his suicide note:

“The Tsolakoglou government has annihilated all traces for my survival, which was based on a very dignified pension that I alone paid for 35 years with no help from the state. And since my advanced age does not allow me a way of dynamically reacting (although if a fellow Greek were to grab a Kalashnikov, I would be right behind him), I see no other solution than this dignified end to my life, so I don’t find myself fishing through garbage cans for my sustenance. I believe that young people with no future, will one day take up arms and hang the traitors of this country at Syntagma square, just like the Italians did to Mussolini in 1945.”[4]

The tree where Mr Christoulas had stood on that fateful day has now become what some refer to as “a national memorial to shattered dreams”[5]. Since his suicide, things have only been going down the hill. As Mark Lowen reports from Athens, 84-year-old pensioner Ermioni struggles in a much similar way. “My son asked to borrow two euros (£1.50) from me he was so desperate”, she says. “It was like a dagger through my heart. I can't afford to live any more. All I want is to close my eyes and never wake up.” Another woman, Maria, who is now 82 years old adds: “I can no longer afford to buy chocolate for my grandchild. If they cut my monthly pension even more, I'll be left with 100 euros (£80) with which to live. Am I not human?” [6] And surely – are pensioners and working class citizens of Greece not human? It seems that national leaders who are supposedly helping the crisis-stricken country believe them to be dispensable. Mr Samaras declared that this would be “the last such package of spending cuts.”[7] But can this promise be trusted after scores of similar words which left previous Greek officials’ mouths during the past two and a half years turned out to be lies? His vow will be hard to keep and even more so if the likes of Merkel and Hollande do not realise, that such intense austerity measures are harming innocent civilians and reducing their lives to endless struggles for basic survival rather than helping them.


Do not get me wrong – it is kind of the EU and the IMF to provide fiscal assistance to the weakened nation. But the way they are doing it is not right and is, in fact, harmful to those whom these measures are intended to rescue. We can only speculate how much Greece would struggle without such aid – but somehow it is difficult to imagine, that the old and the poor would be in a much worse position than they are already with malnourishment and homelessness persistently rising within the country, creating a social class of the so-called “new homeless”.[8] This approach needs to change, because punishing the poor and underprivileged for the sins of those much higher up the social ladder is not the kind of help Greece, or any country, needs.

By Sabina Trojanova, via Backbench
(don't be all starstruck, that's just me ;))

[1] http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/financialcrisis/9498004/Debt-crisis-Merkel-says-Greece-will-stay-in-the-eurozone-but-traders-fret-over-more-delays.html
[2] http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/financialcrisis/9498999/Merkel-and-Hollande-sidestep-Greeces-plea-for-breathing-space.html
[3] http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10000872396390443779404577641610496801668.html
[4] http://www.athensnews.gr/portal/1/54580
[5] http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/a-nation-brought-to-its-knees-the-human-cost-823262
[6] http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-19519908
[7] http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/financialcrisis/9508653/Greeces-11.5bn-austerity-measures-will-be-the-last-promises-PM-Antonis-Samaras.html
[8] http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-505263_162-57453809/greece-economic-crisis-creates-new-homeless/

Photos: 1 / 23

Sunday 15 July 2012

Ten-year-olds in Thongs

Remember when you were ten and your mother bought you your first thong? Yeah, me neither. But posing this question to a 10-year-old girl these days might yield a whole different answer. With brands like Abercrombie Kids carrying suggestive thongs, it seems that Vladimir Nabokov's 12-year-old Lolita would be a late-bloomer by today's standards. Shows like "Toddlers & Tiaras" demonstrate the extent to which child sexualisation has been ingrained in popular culture. Toddlers. Gee. The following video is Tom Hanks's parody of this ridiculous TV series:



At first I smiled when Hanks, with heavy sarcasm, proclaimed: "You know, all of this is for Sophie. It's for Sophie. This is about her." But there is not much cause for smiling - what seems like an exaggeration on his part is actually a mild version of some of the things real pageant parents say and do. Below is perhaps the most abominable of them all, June Shannon, talking about her daughter Alana Thompson's "diva beauty queen" routines.


Needless to say, this video is frightening on many levels. Right after the chubby 6-year-old loudly proclaims "a doller makes me holler, honey boo boo", she is seen spinning around on the floor after downing the contents of an unlabeled bottle of what she calls "Go-Go Juice". So, basically, after making herself sound like a worn-out gold digger, she goes on to showcase her love for a substance, which allegedly makes her "laugh-y and play-ey". Alana's Daisy Duke dance routine with steps straight out of a Britney Spears music video is no less alarming. It seems it's all sex, drugs and rock'n'roll for this little girl.

And there are many other examples of similar tendencies, pretty much just as disturbing as "Toddlers & Tiaras". One of them is the modelling portfolio of Thylane Lena-Rose Blondeau, a gorgeous 10-year-old girl. There are countless photos of her posing in what I would deem a clearly suggestive manner to be found on the internet - the capture of her lying on a bed in a golden low-cut dress and high heels below is just an example. The second item with a high creep factor is Garry Gross's '75 photograph of 10-year-old Brooke Shields, posing in a bath tub with intense make-up on her face and oil covering her juvenile prepubescent body. You can view the photo here, I refuse to put it up for fear of looking like a pervy middle-aged uncle John.

thylane-blondeau4

In my opinion, such photos are much more than bad taste. They are dangerous, because they portray little girls as sexual objects - not only making it more permissible for older men (like the aforementioned creepy uncle John) to view them as such, but also showing impressionable parents that dressing their children in provocative outfits is endearing rather than seriously twisted. Now, I am no psychologist, but it seems obvious why little Thylane is posing in front of the camera and why Alana is sent to all these beauty pageants - their mothers (or fathers?) seem to be projecting their unfulfilled desires onto the little girls. That this is true is clear from June's sheer rhetoric: "the last pageant we did, we got runner-up". No, June... Sorry, but you are not a beauty queen - you're a dinosaur. 

Little girls who grew up listening to fairy tales about princesses are, no doubt, delighted to be at the centre of attention in beauty pageants or photoshoots for a day. Or two days. Or a year. And before they know it, they will have spent their precious childhoods trying to live up to the expectations of nameless, faceless judges, striving to appeal to others and gain their approval. Having learnt this, it would not be surprising if they carried on in much the same way - this time, however, it will be society as a whole whom they will perceive as the jury panel. And just think how difficult it is to please six billion people and try to tick all the boxes, which society readily prepared for us. So before an ambitious parent decides to use their children to fulfill their past desires, they should always remember, that their children are not merchandise - unless they teach them to be.

Monday 7 May 2012

Modern Feminist Icons: Gala Darling

Gala Darling is probably the absolute opposite of a stereotypical feminist - the word so many people love to hate. She wears high heels and pink sparkly dresses, she has long flowy hair and her everyday accessory is her friendly smile. But she is also one of the most powerful female bloggers on the internet and an inspiration to countless girls and women worldwide.


I discovered Gala's blog when I was about 15 and have been following it ever since. I was initially captivated by the more superficial aspects of the website, like posts about fashion and pink sparkly objects, but as I matured as a person (eh...), I began paying more attention to her articles about having faith in one's abilities and not changing who you are just to try to fit in. And thank god I did - not only is Gala a very skilled writer, she also has lots of creative advice on how to live one's life, which has been extremely helpful to me at certain points in the past. I find it very difficult to describe what fascinates me the most about Gala, so I will just let some of her articles speak for themselves. Covering topics ranging the art of performing a striptease and ridiculously fun date ideas to more serious things like 100 ways to start loving yourself right now, jealousy, maintaining your individuality in a relationship, being happy in this unforgiving world and the compatibility of feminism with a passion for fashion, Gala certainly has something to offer to everyone.

In February 2010, Gala started a project entitled "Radical Self Love". As is evident from its title, this movement's aim is to bring people - predominantly women, who make up the majority of Gala's readership - to love themselves and embrace who they are. What a positive message! In the following video, you can listen to Gala speak about her life journey and why she decided to launch this project:


I find her message incredibly positive and her approach to life extremely liberating. Reading Gala's blog makes me want to colour my hair pink and wear diamond-studded Louboutins to bed, while at the same time preaching equality of the sexes and talking about politics over a glass of Mai Tai. I think Gala is a fabulous role model for any and every woman trying to live her life to the fullest in this confusing, fast-paced world of the 21st century. In conclusion, here is the Radical Self Love Manifesto in all its glory. Start loving yourself today!



Source: Gala Darling

Sunday 15 April 2012

Crushed by Crushes

cutecouple2

I didn't get into the whole “liking boys” business until I was about fourteen. While that might seem fairly early on to you, I felt like a total idiot prior to hitting that stage, as most of my female friends have already experienced the whole “gee, I like him so much!” drama and I wanted a piece of it. I found it utterly unfair that they got to sit in their beds surrounded by boxes of chocolate and tissues, weeping about the difficulty of their lives. But after finally developing romantic feelings for a fellow human being, I realised that it was a thing I could have easily done without and that all those boxes of chocolate and tissues were not signs of being mature, but merely depressed.

I've upgraded from chocolate to champagne (it makes a social occasion out of my pain, making it more acceptable to invite my friends over with the intent of ruining their evening by making them go through painstakingly detailed re-enactments of my incoherent thought processes), but I continue being crushed by my crushes. I thought that, having reached adulthood, I was somehow too old for it, but I could not be have been more wrong. I suppose you can never be too mature to be immature.


Having a crush on someone can go one of three ways. You either make your feelings known and get rejected or – in the presumably better case – not… Or - if you are at all like me - you sit in your lair, stalk them on Facebook and wait. Here is my manual to handling all three cases!*

Requited feelings

In case you found that the person you were secretly enamoured with likes you too, congratulations! You are about to commence a journey of unknown duration, during which you will become an unbearable mess of a human being, unable to speak about anything but your new amazing boy/girlfriend, kissing, plush toys and baby animals. Good luck to you and all your friends!

Unrequited love

If you get rejected, then all the fictitious scenarios of the two of you watching the sunset together (which you've no doubt spent countless hours perfecting in your head) disappear. You are reduced to a shadow of your former thirteen-year-old self, clutching a box of Kleenex in one hand and a KitKat in the other (using brand names, how annoyingly consumerist of me!), thinking that the whole world is against you. Well, here is my advice: revel in those moments! It might sound stupid, but please, enjoy it! How long have you been waiting for a good enough reason to perform a questionable voodoo ritual, not shave your legs for a week, throw dog poo at happy couples and stay up all night listening to James Carrington’s “Ache” on a loop with tears flowing down your cheeks? There’s a little Bridget Jones inside most of us, so go ahead and indulge in these precious moments of pathetic self-pity.

abcjndkHaven’t said a word

In case you’re still waiting for the “right moment” to tell them, let me just tell you that there is no such a thing and that you should take a leap of faith and just do it before somebody else does. Having said that, I am one of those people who have "as much charm as a dead slug" ("Hunger Games" reference #1) in the presence of their crush and who fully agree with the following Chandler Bing statement:



I am generally unable to control my - already underdeveloped - motor skills in the presence of the boys I like, which makes it extremely difficult for me to use the invaluable advice advertised by reliable sources like Cosmopolitan. Swinging my hips and flipping my hair back just do not seem like plausible options when I am at a constant risk of tripping over my own foot. And talking does not help the situation either, as I either stutter or continuously insult them. So I tend to avoid confrontation and usually just end up leading them to believe that I am blissfully unaware of their existence. Every once in a while I do initiate conversation, but as such bright moments usually occur as a byproduct of liquor-induced courage, I rarely manage to make a good impression. And then I whine about it to my friends and complain that my crush doesn't seem to notice me. So please just let what I just described act as a deterrent and go get 'em.

The thing with crushes is this though – they are just crushes. The odds are, you will survive. In fact, the odds are you will look back in a few months or even weeks, and realise how ridiculous your entire obsession was... Speaking of odds, "may the odds be ever in your favour!" - I have acquired an unhealthy obsession with "Hunger Games" and I magically seem to find a way to incorporate quotes from the book into my everyday vocabulary. This is it for my useless rant and I wish you a fabulous Sunday!

*Disclaimer: Do not expect my advice to actually help you solve anything. Please, I can’t even solve my own problems!

Images: unknown; "Longa é a noite" by Eric Guillemain, via noirfacade; "Brivido Caldo" by Adam Whitehead, via noirfacade

Saturday 10 March 2012

Iran: To Attack or Not To Attack?

Should the USA attack Iran? That is the burning question American politicians are attempting to answer at the moment. I would love to think that a simple "no" should suffice, but clearly that is not a satisfactory answer in the eyes of most neo-cons. I will, therefore, try to show why I agree with the Israeli ex-Mossad chief Meir Dagan, who said that attacking Iran is "the stupidest idea he'd ever heard".

Untitled

I first began worrying about the possibility of a looming war in November 2011 when the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) published its report, warning that Iran appears to be on a clear path to developing a nuclear weapon. The report quickly made its way to the headlines of major US newspapers like The New York Times and raised concern among the populace. But even when - or especially when - reading major tabloids, one must "trust but verify". And after some initial verification, many realised that the IAEA report was not as reliable as they have previously believed. Seymour M. Hersh wrote a fascinating story in The New Yorker entitled "Iran and the IAEA". Here is an accessible explanation of the article, from The Young Turks' host Cenk Uygur:


But it was not until Robert Kelley's warning that people began paying attention. Here is what the former IAEA Chief Inspector had to say:
"When a country goes to war, as the U.S. did in 2003 with disastrous results, there should be some lessons learned on the table. It would appear there are no lessons learned being used in the current hysteria. The most important is peer review. The accusations leveled against Iraq in the nuclear area in 2003 were largely from the mouth of one single low-level analyst in the U.S. He got far outside his competence and made accusations that were shredded in peer reviews by far more competent people, yet his view bubbled to the top because the peers were muzzled and his scary message was more welcome in high circles. The November 2011 IAEA Board Report [on Iran] looks like déjà vu.... I think the Board of Governors should demand an investigation of the report and an independent review, line by line, of where that information was coming from, and why it was spun so heavily to one side."  
—Robert Kelley, former IAEA Chief Inspector

When the Obama administration somewhat unexpectedly announced that the US troops will be removed from Iraq just in time for Christmas, I was torn between feelings of relief and foreboding. The timing seemed a little uncanny in juxtaposition with the questionable IAEA report. And then it began - the Republican Presidential Candidates (with the exception of Ron Paul) began touting their willingness to go to war with Iran. Here is what they had to say at the CBS News & National Journal GOP Debate in November 2011:



Unexpectedly, I found myself nodding along as Ron Paul spoke. In his words: "I’m afraid what’s going on right now is similar to the war propaganda that went on against Iraq. And you know they didn’t have weapons of mass destruction and it was orchestrated and it was, to me, a tragedy of what’s happened these past 10 years, the death and destruction, $4 billion - $4 trillion in debt." This is the view I would have expected of any sane aspiring leader. But, sadly, Newt Gingrich summed up the general GOP and neo-con approach towards a possible war in Iran very well:

  1. Carry out "maximum covert operation to block and disrupt the Iranian nuclear program, including taking out their scientists, including breaking up their systems, all of it covertly, all of it deniable."
  2. Engage in "maximum coordination with the Israelis, in a way that allows them to maximize their impact to Iran."
  3. Employ an "absolute strategic program ... of every possible aspect short of war, of breaking the regime and bringing it down."
  4. If these measures fail and the dictatorship persists "you have to take whatever steps are necessary to break its capacity to have nuclear weapons."

Whilst the second point probably does not surprise anyone, due to the US right wing's infamous support for Benjamin Netanyahu and the state of Israel, the extent of covert operations on Iranian territory might not be known to many. Covert operations targeting Iranian nuclear scientists have been going on since 2007 and have claimed their most recent victim - thirty-two-year-old Mostafa Ahmadi Roshan, a professor of chemistry and the deputy director of Iran’s premiere uranium enrichment facility - on January 11, 2012. The identity of the attacker is not known, but odds are he is either an Israeli or, indeed, an American. As a recent article entitled "We Can Live With a Nuclear Iran" written by Paul Pillar stresses, "the timing of the chemist’s death—amid a series of diplomatic events that came fast and furious in January and February, each further complicating relations with Iran—had the effect of dramatizing how close this covert war may be to becoming an overt one." In other words, in the end the US and its treasured ally Israel might have no other choice but to go to war, because if tensions continue rising, a seemingly insignificant incident could set off a lethal chain reaction. Fear mongering, especially when used by prominent US politicians, is likely far more dangerous than any of them realise. This danger is well articulated in a slightly lighthearted article in The Economist, "The View from Tehran", written from the perspective of Iranian Ayatollah Ali Khamenei: "it is hard to be sure [whether America will initiate an attack on Iran or not.] I would feel a lot safer if we already had that bomb."

ubjbjk

In his provocative article, "On Bombing Iran, A False Choice", T. X. Hammes goes even further and states that the decision whether or not to bomb Iran is a false choice, because it is only a matter of time before Iran acquires a weapon of mass destruction. According to him, "the real choice is facing an Iran with nuclear weapons or an Iran with nuclear weapons after you have bombed it." And the answer seems crystal clear. So, once more, I am forced to say "No." Attacking Iran would be a very stupid idea indeed.

Images: via 9gag - Art to Think About

© Sabina T., 2012. All rights reserved.

Sunday 4 March 2012

Insanity: The Things You Can Learn From a Drunken University Fresher


I’m insane. I realised it the other day whilst looking in the mirror, after getting back home from a very late night out. Hair a mess, makeup smudged, probably smelling of cheap vodka and cigarette smoke - suddenly it hit me. "I’m an adult now," I thought. It’s time for me to make intelligent, informed decisions. It’s time for me to grow up and be mature. I turned away from the mirror, about to mentally beat myself up for staying up until the morning… for the third night in a row… But then I asked myself: what does it really mean to be an adult? What do I need to do not to feel like a complete failure at this whole grown-up thing?

Look – I’m eighteen, I don’t know how to whistle and horror movies still scare me shitless. I find it difficult to cook dinner for myself, not to mention wash my underwear or do healthy things like… um… moving? But don’t be misled and think I haven’t tried to be an adult. Ever since coming to university, I’ve been convincing myself that growing up is the way forward & something I need to do. I set out to join the gym, eat healthy, do my work on time, budget well and keep my room neat. Needless to say, none of those things actually happened. The gym membership was too expensive, eating healthy too time-consuming, I had too much work, not enough money, and no place to store the wardrobe rapidly growing on my floor. The only things I did have – and still do to this day – were excuses and bad feelings. But those negative emotions were not caused by a poor diet or lack of exercise, but rather my realisation that I was not fulfilling the standard adult role. And not meeting the socially constructed criteria for adulthood made me feel nothing but inferior to others.


But then I backed up for a second, and tried to recall the things I have done since I’ve become an "adult". Aside from getting ridiculously drunk at parties and spending a little too much money on things I don't need, I stayed up all night talking to a friend about her family problems. I followed the news and watched The Young Turks show every day. I took a walk in the middle of a rainy night and laughed at myself out loud when I slipped on the pavement and skinned my knee. I went on a charity hitchhike across Europe with no money. I told a guy how I felt about him. I signed up for capoeira lessons. I burnt my fingers on a hot stove and had to walk around with a cup of ice water for the rest of the night because it felt like the skin was going to melt right off them.

Some of the things I did were great, some plain stupid. But one thing is for sure – I did not do them to be an adult, I did them to be me. None of these actions were influenced by how I think others would want me to behave. Sure enough, often they were not even based on a coherent thought process, they just happened. They all had consequences, both good and bad. But the one thing I can tell you is this – as immature as my approach towards grown-up responsibilities may be, I often feel genuinely happy. And that is more than I can say for many "real" adults. 

Of course, I'm not saying being responsible will make you sad. But nor will it, based on my experience, make you happy, as some people suspect. If you push yourself to be spontaneous and do things outside your comfort zone, or just things society might generally consider "weird" or "eccentric", that's when you will discover that the real happiness lies in the present. Sometimes you should allow yourself to spend the whole night reading your favourite book and eating ice cream, even though you know it will result in you being sleepy at work the next day. Because putting off the things you wanna do oftentimes means that you will simply never get around to doing them.

So yes, I’m insane for not living my life more responsibly. Bat shit crazy, if you will. But so are you if you always do.

Images: "Daddy's Little Girl" by Elena Rendina, via noirfacade