TBILISI -- In this age of globalization, when Greece sneezes, even Georgia catches a cold.
"We are all completely dependent on her," says 34-year-old Natia of her mother-in-law Guliko, who is a domestic worker in Greece. "We wait for her to send us something. For 15 years, she has been sustaining a family of eight."
Natia, who lives in the town of Dusheti, some 25 kilometers north of Tbilisi, is not alone. Although there is no precise figure for the number of Georgians working in Greece because many of them are there illegally, estimates range from 50,000 to 200,000, most of them women. And -- as in the case of Natia's mother-in-law -- most of them have been supporting several Georgians.
"She used to send us money twice a month," Natia, who asked that her last name not be used, continues. "One hundred euros for me, a little more for her son, some for her grandchildren. She earns 600 euros a month there and she sends most of it to us, her family."
Those payments are drying up.
"Her employers have cut her salary and keep telling her that soon they won't be able to pay her at all and that she should think about leaving," Natia says.
And when money does appear, transferring it to Georgia has become impossible because of emergency capital controls instituted by Athens. Guliko has been forced to resort to the risky measure of sending cash stashed in bundles of sundries.
After Russia, Greece is the largest source of remittances to Georgia.
Economist Ramaz Gerliani, head of the Expert Center for Economic Policy in Tbilisi, says that, before the current crisis, about $17 million a month came to Georgia from Greece.
"This is through official channels," Gerliani tells RFE/RL's Georgian Service. "If we add to that all the cash they send, it would probably come to more than $100 million [over six months]. This money is very important -- first of all, for the families, but also for the economy."
Giorgi Kadagidze, head of Georgia's national bank, said on July 7 that the loss of remittances might not threaten Georgia "in macroeconomic terms" but that the problems in Greece "will be especially painful from the social point of view."
The previous day, Economy and Sustainable Development Minister Giorgi Kvirikashvili said he is "worried" about the possibility of Georgians losing their jobs in Greece.
"Finding an opportunity to send money is easier than keeping one's job," Kvirikashivili was quoted as saying. He added that remittances from Greece had dropped by 18 percent in the first five months of 2015.
Marina, 50, lives in Thessaloniki and works providing care for the elderly. She is also anxious about the crisis.
"For the last five months, I have been receiving only half of my salary," she told RFE/RL. "All of us girls are constantly calling one another and asking, 'Did they pay you? Did you get paid?' Nobody is getting paid."
Many Georgians in Greece have already made the difficult choice to return home.
"In my hometown, around 20 percent of [locals who migrated to Greece for work] have come back," Natia from Dusheti says. "They all say that it has become impossible to work there."
Others, she adds, have moved to other countries, particularly Turkey.
Tsiuri Antadaze, coordinator of the Tbilisi Migrant Center, says the return of Georgians is definitely happening.
"The Greek crisis directly affected the ability of Greeks to hire domestic workers and that directly affected the ability of Georgians in Greece to find work," she tells RFE/RL. "The trend of these people coming back to Georgia was first noticed in 2014 and has only grown since. These days, around 10 people come to our office every day."
Marina, who works in Thessaloniki, says the crisis has prompted Greeks to make migrants feel less welcome and to encourage them to leave. She is uncertain about her future after 23 years in Greece.
"I don't know what I'll do," she says.
RFE/RL correspondent Robert Coalson contributed to this story from Prague
Copyright (c) 2015. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave NW, Ste 400, Washington DC 20036.
Europe tends to forget the extraordinary technological developments and inventions which characterised its past.
In the Renaissance, Aldus Manutius was the first modern publisher who made the book an easily available resource for the European peoples
Describing the wonderful habits of the Utopia island, Thomas More said that its inhabitants made use only of Aldine editions
This technology, which is mostly developed outside of the Union, fails to foster an enthusiasm for innovation among EU citizens. Rather, it tends to disorientate people. They fail to recognise that the reasons behind the extraordinary technological developments that have hitherto characterised Europe derive precisely from its ability to review its past critically, and draw inspiration from this for self-improvement. In this context, any attempt to place its remaining hopes of recovery on the stratagems of financial engineering will fail to recreate that covenant between citizens and institutions. A covenant that is essential to restore the confidence that has inspired the most significant features of European history. Our reflection on the importance of ruling over innovation starts from a specific historical event. This year marks the fifth centenary of the death of Aldus Manutius, the most important publisher of the Renaissance.
Aldus Manutius (Aldo Manuzio)
He died in Venice, 6th February 1515, at the end of a life that saw him play a key part in the most significant transformation in communication of his time – a transformation that went on to inform the arts and sciences in Europe for centuries.
Manutius was born around the middle of the fifteenth century in the vicinity of Rome. He spent the first part of his life studying and teaching Latin and Greek at a time when – in part because of the trauma caused by the recent fall of Constantinople at the hands of the Ottoman Empire – an interest in Classical languages and culture induced a renewed confidence in the intellectual abilities of mankind.
The loss of this former Byzantine Empire capital resulted in a fear of the subsequent disappearance of its libraries, books, and knowledge.
This anxiety fueled, on the one hand, a fear of losing the intellectual foundations of its culture, and, on the other, a desire to protect these traditional roots by putting into field the new writing technologies that were spreading in the meantime.
Therefore, to study Greek was to recover and resume its philosophy and science from the original texts. Rediscovered from the corrupted medieval apocrypha, these purified texts were given new life.
It was not merely a matter of protecting an illustrious past as an end in and of itself. Instead, by returning to and rereading those seminal documents, it was a matter of looking beyond, toward a better, unknown future.
Around 1490, the temperate teacher of Greek – now older and in the service of the little princes of the Po valley – arrived, rather unexpectedly, at a turning point in his life. He moved to Venice, a place that, in his words, seemed more than just a city: it was “an entire world”.
During that time the Venetian publishing industry witnessed an impressive growth, thanks to the legions of printers that moved to the city from Northern Europe. Manutius, too, entered into the publishing profession.
He realised that as a publisher he could devote himself to the dissemination of Greek language and philosophy far more effectively than he could through individual interactions with students.
For about twenty years, starting from 1494, Manutius played a key role in the communication and technological revolution that dominated the Renaissance and had a lasting and profound effect on Europe, even to this day.
He transformed the printed book into the most effective tool for the accumulation and dissemination of human knowledge of the last five centuries.
While Gutenberg invented movable type fifty years before, making mass printing an engineering possibility, it was Manutius who made the book an easily available resource for the European peoples.
As is often the case, the individual who dedicates himself to the technical aspects of a project rarely possesses the necessary vision to imagine the impact and consequences of his own invention.
During those years of constant military threat and bloody warfare across Europe and the Mediterranean, the book, for Manutius, represented a lifeline.
It was capable of uniting an ideal republic, brought together across the continent through their love of letters. It was to these men of letters and science that he addressed his work. In the prefaces to his editions he makes incessant reference to the suffering caused by wars and political crises.
To contrast this, he advocates the humanistic belief that books and education are an essential resource for humanity, with his own words acting as evidence for this. Only the “good books” he writes “sweep away once and for all the barbarity.”
“Only they,” he adds in 1504 in the preface to the orations of Demosthenes, “could represent a lesson of hope against the tyrants, teaching those who read them to be worthy for their community.”
Manutius was the first modern publisher, taking charge both of a book’s content (what should be printed) and its form (its typographical aspects), fine-tuning every detail.
On the one hand, he approached the book according to a precise and coherent cultural program, which worked both to recover eminent Greek thought and to develop the linguistic tools necessary to understand this.
He was the individual who defined the philosophical and scientific canon on which the education of the Europeans was to be based, beginning with Aristotle and Plato.
On the other hand, and as an immediate consequence of this first aim, he approached the book as an instrument and object.
Manutius understood the full potential of the press and invented those devices that have made the book what it has essentially remained up to now – something for which we must give him credit.
He devoted his attention to the design of typographical characters, perfecting those already extant and inventing new ones, like italics. He devised systems that allowed easy orientation within the text, such as page numbering and indexes, and developed ways to made reading easier, like new punctuation signs and smaller formats.
Through these multiple small but significant formal and typographical changes he created, together with a disengaged reading, new readers and new cultural habits.
We cannot emphasise enough the revolutionary consequences of the adoption of the “octavo” format, which placed books outside of the studio environment and fueled the diffusion of reading among women and men who did not consider learning their exclusive or predominant activity.
While it may be anachronistic to suggest that Manutius considered the ‘mass market’ as we understand it now, there is no doubt that he paved the way for this way of thinking. His work made it possible to overcome the prejudices that still surrounded the printed book.
The mass market came later, yes, but the 3,000 copies of his paperback editions – which were immediately counterfeited around Europe – cannot be considered as distributed to a niche market.
All his efforts were informed by an awareness of the delicacy of such operations, and that, in his words, “God’s gift of the press,” if not properly used, could be counterproductive and “result in the death of the sacred letters”.
Manutius’s commitment was impressive and did not go unnoticed. One year after his death, describing the wonderful habits of the Utopia island, Thomas More said that its inhabitants made use only of Aldine editions.
Erasmus of Rotterdam, that most illustrious European humanist – who some years before visited Venice specifically to ask Manutius to print some of his major works, including the impressive collection of Adagia – pointed out that Manutius’s project was far more ambitious than that of the King Ptolemy, founder of the Alexandrian Library.
The latter possessed a library that, no matter how great in size, was still contained within walls. Manutius’s intent was that of “building a library that had no other boundary than the world itself,” – something that implies the ambition and quality of his editorial choices.
The role Manutius assigned to books and education is highly instructive and had a strong influence on Europe and its inhabitants. According to Beatus Rhenanus, one of the humanists closest to Erasmus, the diffusion of the humanistic culture and of the Renaissance spirit all over Europe is due precisely to a Manutius’ conception of publishing.
Despite this indisputable success there failed to emerge a unanimous understanding of the book as a free instrument for communication and education.
The years that followed the death of Aldus Manutius ushered in a long period of fierce political and religious conflict that divided and bloodied Europe.
That largely unconscious freedom that had characterised the first decades of the printed book’s life gave way to repression and censorship.
Europeans grew to learn that with an instrument of such influential potential, never before experienced through previous forms of writing, came great risk.
In the wake of those fierce conflicts, it took more than a century for Europeans to start thinking about the idea of tolerance, developing that concept of freedom of thought and expression which, despite many inherent ideological contradictions, is one of the salient features of European culture.
Der Mörder lachte, während er seine Opfer mit der Maschinenpistole hinrichtete: Seifeddine Rezgui Yacoubi, der Attentäter am Strand von Sousse (26. Juni 2015). Seine Autopsie ergab, wie die Daily Mail berichtete, dass er bei der Tat unter dem Einfluss der Droge Captagon (Fenetyllin) stand. Zu der Familie der Amphetamine gehörend, wirkt Captagon enthemmend und suggeriert Omnipotenz, wie ein Fachmann, Dr. William Lowenstein von SOS Addictions, erklärt:
"Comme tous les neuroexcitants, cette molécule entraîne une résistance à la fatigue et donne l'impression à celui qui la prend qu'il n'a plus de limites. Il est deshinibé et devient capable de passer à l'acte sans crainte de la réaction des autres qui n'existent même plus pour lui. Mais il ne suffit pas de prendre du captagon pour fusiller 38 personnes ! Dans ce cas, la drogue a agi sur un cerveau "préformaté". Généralement, cette substance est utilisée pour ses propriétés dopantes. Dans les années 1960 à 1970 c'était d'ailleurs la molécule la plus utilisée dans le cyclisme."
Dr. Lowenstein meint, um 38 Menschen zu ermorden, reiche Captagon allein jedoch nicht. Das Hirn des Mörders müsse "vorformattiert" sein. Zur Erinnerung: die kurdischen Kämpfer in Kobane hatten bereits vermutet, dass die Dschihadisten des IS beim Kampf um die Stadt gedopt waren. Nur so liesse sich ihre achtlose Selbstgefährdung erklären.
-- editor
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Exarchia ist ein reich mit Graffiti geschmücktes Viertel in der Altstadt Athens, nicht weit vom Omonia-Platz. Für seine Studenten-Unruhen und Anarchisten-Treffs bekannt, ist Exarchia auch der Ort, an dem die Linkspartei Syriza entstand. Tsipras, Varoufakis & Co wohnen hier. Es ist so, als ob Neukölln Deutschland regierte. Ein schiefer Vergleich?
Hier wie dort leben in den linken Szenevierteln junge Leute, die wenig Geld aber viel Zeit haben, um über Gott und die Welt nachzudenken. Vor allem über die Welt, die ihnen fehlkonstruiert erscheint. Intelligent, sprachkundig, vernetzt, stehen sie in ständigem Kontakt mit ihren Gesinnungsfreunden im Ausland: in England, in Frankreich und in den USA.
Mit ihnen sind sie sich einig, dass die Welt -- vor allem die Politik -- erneuert werden muss, und sie zehren dabei von den Lehrsätzen des französischen Philosophen Alain Badiou, der die gängige Ethik als eine Form des Nihilismus brandmarkt:
Die heutige Ethik bezeichnet die Unfähigkeit, etwas Gutes zu benennen und es anzustreben. Sie ist Symptom einer Welt, die Resignation mit Abgrenzungs- und Zerstörungswillen verbindet. Die Logik des Kapitals gilt als notwendig, objektiv und nicht diskutierbar. Ethik ist Ergänzung des Unausweichlichen. Die Konsensethik angesichts des Unmenschlichen fördert die Resignation und das Akzeptieren des Status quo. Jedes Projekt der Emanzipation zerstört den Konsens, da jede neue Wahrheit auf den Widerstand des Bestehenden trifft. Die moderne Ethik ist die spirituelle Ergänzung dieses Konsenses und erschrickt vor jeder Form der Zwietracht. Sie verbietet Ideen und Denkprojekte und überdeckt die zum Handeln auffordernden Situationen mit humanitärem Gerede. (wikipedia)
In der politischen Praxis will Syriza Strukturen aufbrechen, das politische Denken eines Landes irreversibel verändern und dabei jeden Kompromiss mit dem Bestehenden ablehnen. In diesem Rigorismus ist Syriza den dschihadistischen Milizen nicht unähnlich, die der modernen Ethik eine angeblich koranische Ethik entgegensetzen und das humanitäre Gerede verspotten.
Neuerungen, die einer Wahrheit entsprechen, sind bei Badiou immer gegen bestehende Strukturen gerichtet, sie brechen als Ereignisse aus dem Nichts in die Strukturen ein und verändern sie nachhaltig. Wahrheitsereignisse sind zudem ausschließlich subjektiv: Die Wahrheit eines Ereignisses erweist sich – nachträglich, mit Bezug auf dessen ‚Einbruch’ – allein in der Praxis, in der (illegalen) Handlung eines Subjekts. (Kamecke, 55)
Das Referendum vom 5. Juli 2015 war für Syriza der Beweis, dass der Einbruch in die Strukturen nachhaltig gelungen ist. Selbst die zerschmetterte Opposition erkennt nun die Wahrheit des Ereignisses und unterstützt den Premier bei seinen Verhandlungen in Brüssel.
Oberflächlich betrachtet, geht es Syriza um die Rettung des Volkes vor den Konsequenzen eines finanziellen und wirtschaftlichen Zusammenbruchs. In der Eurozone zu bleiben ist Teil der Strategie wegen der vielen Vorteile, die damit verbunden sind.
In Wirklichkeit widersprechen Euro und Eurozone jedoch dem Konzept der radikalen Demokratie, nämlich der Wiedererfindung der Demokratie, wie sie der griechisch-französische Philosoph Cornelius Castoriadis (1922-97) forderte. Antike griechische Demokratie sei laut Castoriades und dem Franzosen Jacques Rancière auf Chaos gegründet gewesen, während moderne Demokratie kodifiziert sei und den öffentlichen Raum einnehme, während sie dabei die Autonomie der Nichtbürger -- beispielsweise Protagonisten von Syriza -- ausschliesse.
Das Streben nach Wiederbegründung der Demokratie lehnt das Konzept der Staatengemeinschaft Europas ab, verlangt Griechenlands Austritt aus der NATO, die Schliessung der amerikanischen Militärbasis auf Kreta und die Beendigung der militärischen Zusammenarbeit mit Israel, um nur einige der aussenpolitischen Forderungen zu nennen. Antikapitalistische und staatswirtschaftliche Reflexe teilt Syriza mit vielen anderen linken Strömungen. Paranoide Ängste vor heimlichen Machenschaften der Gläubiger, der internationalen Konzerne und ihrer griechischen Mitläufer vervollständigen die Festungsmentalität der Syriza, die Tsipras und seine Leute dank einer ausgezeichneten Medienkampagne erfolgreich auf die Wählerschaft übertragen konnten.
Während die Weltöffentlichkeit das griechische Geschehen aufmerksam beobachtet, gibt es nicht wenige Griechen, die dem Wirken der Syriza in Athen und Brüssel eher amüsiert folgen. Die Klasse der Besitzenden in Hellas ist gross und ungewöhnlich reich. In den Jahrzehnten seit dem Sturz der Militärdiktatur 1974 hat sich das Bürgertum einschliesslich der Sozialdemokratie am Staat gemästet. Es ist ja nicht so, wie gern behauptet wird, dass Griechenland jahrzehntelang "über seine Verhältnisse gelebt" habe.
Nur ein Teil der enormen Summen, die von Brüssel und internationalen Kreditgebern in das Land geschleust wurden, kann als tatsächlich "verbraucht" gelten. Der grosse Rest wurde privatisiert, diente der Vermögensbildung einer Oberschicht, die einen erheblichen Teil davon im Ausland sicherte. Wie der deutsche Ökonom Hans Werner Sinn errechnete, verfügen die Griechen insgesamt über rund 120 Milliarden Euro mehr Vermögen, als einem Land dieser Grösse angemessen wäre.
Diese Oberschicht ist international verwurzelt, an ihr perlt die Athener Tragikomödie weitgehend ab, denn für sie gilt seit vielen Jahren: "Gesellschaft wird zu einer Ressource, deren ökonomische Ausbeutung vom Staat nicht verhindert, sondern befördert wird. Diejenigen Teile der Gesellschaft, die sich nicht ausbeuten lassen, werden aufgegeben, abgespalten, unsichtbar gemacht." (Radikale Demokratie)
Während Exarchia vom Schlachtfeld diverser Anarchisten-Aufstände zum Quasi-Regierungsviertel mutierte, steht Neukölln noch am Anfang einer Entwicklung, die allerdings seit den Krawallen vom Januar 2012 schnell fortschreitet. Noch ist Neukölln mehr mit Netzaktivisten, Piraten und Künstlern als mit Polit-Philosophen gesegnet, deren Wirken allerdings auch in der Szene kritisch gesehen wird:
"...das ist das Problem mit all den Aktivisten...Sie sind Besserwisser, die bei jeder Gelegenheit anderen Leuten erzählen müssen, wie es doch besser ginge, selbst aber nichts auf die Beine stellen. Da ja auch wieder eine ganze Reihe von Piraten dabei ist: na mit "alles frei verfügbar" macht man eben nicht die notwendige Kohle um etwas ... hochzuziehen."
In der Zwischenzeit bekämpft man halt die Gentrifizierung des hübschen Altbauviertels Nord-Neukölln.
Heinrich von Loesch
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Ausgerechnet in der Locris Kalabriens, im schlimmsten Herrschaftsgebiet der N'drine, der kalabrischen Mafia, beweist der Ort Riace, wie sich 400 Migranten bestens integrieren lassen und einen Bonus für die Entwicklung darstellen. Ein Video der Zeitung Il Fatto Quotidiano zeigt, wie die Zuwanderer arbeiten, verlassene Häuser restaurieren, Handwerke erlernen und die Wirtschaft beleben.
Übrigens, Riace ist der Ort, bei dem im Meer die berühmten Bronzekrieger aus dem 5. Jahrhundert v. C. gefunden wurden
"Ci sono posti dove l’accoglienza dei migranti non solo funziona, ma è anche unarisorsaperilterritorio. Paesini “fantasma” se non ci fossero i “disperati” arrivati inItalia sui barconi . È il caso diRiace, nella Locride in provincia di Reggio Calabria, dove da anni i cittadini convivono con circa 400 migranti ai quali sono stati date le case abbandonate dagli italiani che si sono trasferiti al Nord."
