This Article is From Jul 05, 2015

Bailout Referendum Lays Bare Deep Schisms Among Beleaguered Greeks

Bailout Referendum Lays Bare Deep Schisms Among Beleaguered Greeks

Alexis Giannopoulis, a butcher at the Varvakeios Agora, a century-old meat and fish market in Athens, Greece, July 3, 2015 who plans to vote 'yes' on the Greek referendum.

Athens: Pangiotis Smailis paused from his lunch and cleared his throat with a swig of bitter retsina wine. The patrons seated around him on Friday at the Hangout, a legendary taverna inside Athens's oldest food market, had broken into a heated dispute over Greece's referendum on a European bailout, and he jabbed his finger in the air to command attention.

"For those who want to vote yes Sunday, think about Greece's dignity!" shouted Smailis, a clothing shop owner whose business has been ravaged by the crisis. "We must reject this and fight our creditors for a just outcome. If I was dead, I would climb from my grave to vote no!"

"If we do that, we'll no longer belong to Europe," retorted Spyros Pangiotopoulos, a government employee who had settled at the same table. "Greece doesn't exist without Europe."

"No," Smailis persisted. "Europe won't exist without Greece."

The squabble set off a new cacophony and exposed a schism that has gripped the country ever since Prime Minister Alexis Tspiras asked Greek voters to make a crucial decision: whether to accept a bailout offer that demands more austerity.

As patrons tried to convince one another that a no - or a yes - was the right choice to make, their exhortations fell into a seemingly unbridgeable gulf, one that, within the space of a single bewildering week, has turned Greece into a house divided.

"The truth is, we don't know what the best choice is," said Grigorious Tsigaridas, a Health Ministry employee, tucking into a plate of grilled meat.

Would a yes vote bring more stability or new austerity-driven misery? Would a no vote force Europe to acknowledge that austerity is a mistake, or tip Greece out of the eurozone?

"That's what makes this so dangerous," Tsigaridas said.

Those questions have been thundering through every corner of this angst-ridden country, in cafes, homes and businesses. In the echo chamber of cyberspace, angry Greeks are unfriending one another en masse on Facebook after vitriolic online scuffles.

While nobody knows what the vote's outcome will bring, one thing is certain: Tsipras' gambit has deepened rifts, not only with and among Greece's European partners, but between husbands and wives, sisters and brothers, friends and neighbors, co-workers and strangers. The dividing lines are likely to persist long after the vote, with consequences for the future of Greece and for the broader European project.

On Friday, the stakes grew higher after Greek bank officials warned that cash machines might run empty Monday if Greece rejected the bailout and the European Central Bank did not renew an emergency lifeline.

Despite that, at the Hangout, most patrons were prepared to vote no. Many were older people who had worked for years around the Varvakeios Agora, Athens' century-old meat and fish market, where the taverna is located. Steeped in memories of being ruled by a military junta, of a civil war and the Nazi invasion during World War II, they reasoned in terms of dignity.

"A no vote does not mean we want to get out of Europe," said Dimitris Kopamos, 70, a butcher at the market for 50 years. "It's a message that we will no longer live under a yoke." He stabbed the air with a steak knife.

"We don't want pensioners to get more cuts, or to see taxes on food and other products rise to 23 percent," Kopamos said, complaining that already he could barely make ends meet. "Now the banks are closed, and we can't pay our employees. If this keeps up, there will be a revolution. We must vote no."

Alexis Giannopoulis, 53, a butcher from a neighboring stall, sniffed with disdain.

"The situation could get much, much worse," he warned the others. "If we vote no, the banks won't open. If we vote yes, it'll be hard for several months, but that would be better than coming out of the euro."

He swept his eyes across the market, where rows of bloody meat carcasses swung, unsold, on hooks. Since Tsipras came to power, Giannopoulis said, his sales had slumped 40 percent.

"People don't have money to buy meat; and when they do, they're buying chicken because it's cheaper," he said.

Giannopoulis lifted his shirt and revealed a pistol he had started bringing everywhere after draining his bank account and carrying wads of euros to pay suppliers, who now demand cash up front.

"We need to be ready for everything," he said. "If there's a no vote and the drachma returns, there will be no money, and things will turn to utter chaos."

He added that if Greece did not get debt relief or financial aid from the creditors, "We're done for."
Across town, Nikolas Ioannidis echoed similar concerns inside the sleek offices of his company, Qrator, a Greek startup website specializing in linking artisan luxury designers.

Far removed from the clamorous world of the taverna crowd, most of the people in their 20s and 30s working at Qrator were not rooted in the past or consumed by issues of pride. Young Greeks who had returned to the Athens startup scene from jobs in the United States and elsewhere, their focus was on pragmatic questions of business development and growth.

"A yes vote is a no-brainer," Ioannidis said as his team gathered in a high-ceilinged conference room, with chic furniture and modernist paintings. "If there's a default or a haircut on deposits because of a no vote, we risk not being able to deliver to our investors."

The chaos of the last week had already taken its toll, he said, since capital controls now made it nearly impossible to pay for services that normally kept the website humming. Yet even within the company, a debate had broken out over whether the yes vote that seemed crucial for Qrator would be the best decision for the nation.

"The Europeans seem to want to drive Greece out of the euro, then come in and take the spoils," said Pamela Langas, 35, an acquisitions manager who had recently moved to Athens from Australia. She was leaning toward voting no, but had not made up her mind. "This seems to be about a power grab," she said. "We're left in the dark. We're just scared."

"This side of the table will vote yes," Ioannidis said. "We're already affected. It feels like a Third World country. People are lining up at the ATM just to get 60 euros. I have a responsibility to make sure that we have enough funds to go on."

Despina Pavlaki, 37, a copy editor who planned to vote yes, cast a sympathetic eye toward Langas.

"It is really tough to agree to these terms," she conceded. "Everything that applies to businesses and workers is harder, like higher taxes."

"Look," said Jason Iliou, 27, a community associate. "The alternative is very scary. This government had a mandate to negotiate and they failed. Now they've left it to the people to take responsibility. I know yes is a bad deal for Greece, but if you vote no, where are you going to get the funding to pay salaries? How will the country survive?"

After debating for another half-hour, Langas stood up. Like some of the old-timers in the taverna across town, she remained torn, and would make her decision the moment she cast her ballot.

Still, there was one thing that she and everybody else could agree on.

"Whether the outcome is yes or no," Langas said, "it will be chaos."
© 2015, The New York Times News Service
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