Global Voices » Asteris Masouras

Video: Meet the New Greek Diaspora

Asteris Masouras — Mon, 22 Apr 2013 18:25:41 +0000

Chronicles of the Unemployed in Greece

Asteris Masouras — Mon, 22 Apr 2013 11:25:37 +0000

Journalist and author Christoforos Kasdaglis started The Diary of an Unemployed [el], a project to collect stories [el] and data [el] on Greek unemployment, consistently driven to record figures for years on end by the debt and austerity crisis. 27% of Greeks were jobless in January, a rate that has tripled since the crisis began in 2009, while youth unemployment is reaching 60%. More than 120,000 Greeks are estimated to have left the country since the crisis began.

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You're Sponsoring Neonazis on Greek TV!

Asteris Masouras — Fri, 12 Apr 2013 09:39:46 +0000

@northaura: #xa_advertising is about a twitter movement protest by email in #Greece to push advertisers off ever again supporting pro-neonazi TV shows.

Blogger @ypopto_mousi started a campaign to inform the sponsors [el] of a highly controversial SKAI TV panel featuring four neonazi Golden Dawn MPs, that they are sponsoring hate speech. The blogger is urging netizens to email advertising companies, providing sample emails [el] and addresses of advertising companies, while blogging [el] and posting regular updates on Twitter on the campaign's results under the hashtag #xa_advertising.

Greek Government Shutters Athens Indymedia

Asteris Masouras — Fri, 12 Apr 2013 09:36:16 +0000

A leading alternative news site in Greece, Athens Indymedia announced it was being suppressed by Greek judicial authorities, along with two radio stations, and provided a Tor link [el] for alternate access. Potmos asserted on the significance of the site for independent news in Greece:

@potmos: Fast and accurate info posted on Athens #Indymedia led to life sentence for cop who murdered 15yo Alex. Grigoropoulos in 2008.

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Video: Crisis Engenders Greek Documentary Boom

Asteris Masouras — Mon, 18 Mar 2013 18:51:25 +0000

The 15th Thessaloniki Documentary Festival - ongoing from March 15 to 24, 2013 – includes five crisis-themed Greek films [el] in its lineup, as was the case last year [el]. As the Festival, and Greece at large, continues to labor under the mounting debt and austerity crisis, fiction and documentary filmmakers alike are increasingly focusing their work on its effects on society.

This year, the Festival's poster and trailer feature a sheep whose blindfold is pulled from over its eyes by the deluge of images from a society in crisis:

Two of those documentaries to be screened this year, “Greedy Profit” by “Yannis Karypidis”, and “Cassandra's Treasure“, by Yorgos Avgeropoulos, focus on the conflict surrounding gold mining in the forest of Skouries in Chalkidiki, and how it affects local communities. Karypidis and Avgeropoulos have collaborated in the past, to produce an award-winning chronicle of the first successful breaching of the naval blockade around Gaza.

Stelios Kouloglou's “Holocaust of memory” traces the enigma around the virulent resurgence of Nazi ideology in a country, like Greece, that suffered so much at the hands of Nazis during World War II.

Not all crisis-themed films are downbeat. “Hardships and Beauties” tells the story of a modern-day Greek cowboy, an empirical philosopher and the owner of one of the biggest farms in south-western Greece, whose road trip into the heartland of Greece becomes a symbolic trip into a country that will never be the same again:

Living in Interesting Times follows four charming people living in a sunny but gloomy Athens. They are confronted by the harsh reality of the crisis; they have to fight for what is their due; they have to come to terms with absurdity

A web cottage industry?

Inside and outside the festival distribution track, documentary film-making in and about Greece in crisis is undergoing a boom, as affordable high definition cameras are becoming ubiquitous, and web-savvy young creatives and journalists -many of them returned from studies abroad- are putting their talents to use, chronicling the plight of their country and its’ people.

The trend started with “Debtocracy“ and “Catastroika“, two web-published, Creative Commons-licensed, crowdfunded documentaries by journalists Aris Hadjistefanou and Katerina Kitidi, which attempted to chart the historical mutation of capitalism into the voracious debt “virus” attacking societies and countries today.

Last year, a group of 14 young photographers pieced together “The Prism“, a compelling, multi-hued, and competently filmed narrative of 27 multimedia stories, which they produced into a 63′ feature film called Krisis.

This year, several independent, web-based, documentary projects have emerged to fill the gap left by shrinking mainstream media coverage of the crisis’ effects on Greek society.

“Debt Management” is a 42′ documentary in English by a group of young artists and scientists, living in Thessaloniki and collaborating for the creation of alternative documentaries, that explores this “symbolic war between people's determination to preserve common values, human conditions, rights and needs, versus an Orwellian financial world”:

The City at a Time of Crisis [..] is a research project that seeks to trace and research the effects of the ongoing financial crisis on urban public spaces in Athens, Greece. It will comprise a holistic, cross-disciplinary study of changing notions of the ‘public', with urban public spaces as its main research subject extending into areas related to ‘public interest’, ‘public security’, ‘public provision’ and the ‘public good’

Into the Fire [..] is an investigative documentary looking at the situation of refugees and migrants in Greece, in the face of severe austerity measures and rising racism. We spoke with refugees, asylum seekers, immigrants and undocumented in Greece, to try and get an idea of the state of the asylum procedure in this European border country and what it is like to live in constant fear of being attacked – for having the wrong skin colour.

Portraits of Greece in Crisis is an ongoing project of multimedia stories, of people and constitutions that have been significantly affected by the crisis. It is an attempt to approach the greek crisis, as it is depicted in each portrait.

2 artists on a journey all around Greece aim to highlight the personal stories of the people of the land, and focus on the richness of human testimony. The Caravan project will compose a mosaic of images, narratives and documentaries, in order to emphasize a different way of life than the one systematically promoted by the media, and to shed light on a land that continues to create, dream, and proclaim that “Another World Is Here”!

#Followme: Greek Documentary Explores Twitter

Asteris Masouras — Mon, 18 Mar 2013 18:41:20 +0000

@andriotakis: Στο τρέιλερ του #followme οι @jeffjarvis @evgenymorozov @drandakis @vatraxokoritso @Urfurslaag @constantnos @asteris http://youtu.be/5OD_9oZXlH8

Videographer and author Manolis Andriotakis namechecks Greek tweeps and acclaimed critics he interviewed for his documentary on Twitter, prior to its’ screening at the 15th Thessaloniki Documentary Festival.

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Video: Greece Austerity Protests Teargassed

Asteris Masouras — Mon, 11 Mar 2013 10:11:16 +0000

A reportedly peaceful attempt to revive the mass anti-austerity ”indignant protests” of 2011 on the evening of March 10 in Syntagma square, Athens, was met with teargas and police brutality, as shown in this video of an arrest, uploaded by Eleftherotypia daily:

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Crowdmapping Media Layoffs in Greece

Asteris Masouras — Fri, 08 Mar 2013 12:42:57 +0000

Journalist Ioanna Iliadi has created a crowdmap to monitor press layoffs in Greece, mounting in numbers and frequency, as an already brewing media crisis has been compounded by the financial crisis.

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Greece: “Gods Just Got Bored Playing Dice”

Asteris Masouras — Mon, 24 Dec 2012 03:44:10 +0000

German daily Handelsblatt reportedly picked Greek prime minister Antonis Samaras as politician of the year, after yet another round of austerity measures, another bailout tranche to Greece, a warning from the European Commission of more to come, and endless ‘GRexit’ speculation (on whether Greece will exit the Eurozone and default). Financial blogger Albert John offers an explanation:

There's no universe where Samaras is ‘politician of the year. Gods just got bored playing dice. World has ended. Don't believe what you see

Anti-mining Protesters Converge in Greece's Second Largest City

Asteris Masouras — Wed, 28 Nov 2012 21:22:30 +0000

Screenshot from protest video. Thessaloniki, Greece.

More than 6,500 protesters from around Northern Greece converged in Thessaloniki on Saturday, November 24, 2012 to warn the inhabitants of Greece's second largest city about the environmental fallout caused by gold mining.
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Greek Director Theo Angelopoulos Remembered at Thessaloniki International Film Festival

Asteris Masouras — Sun, 11 Nov 2012 12:51:11 +0000

Colleagues share recollections of Theo Angelopoulos at the 53rd Thessaloniki International Film Festival. Photo © Asteris Masouras

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Greek Journalist Arrested for Publishing List of Alleged Tax Evaders

Asteris Masouras — Mon, 29 Oct 2012 09:51:24 +0000

Greek journalist and editor of Hot Doc magazine, Kostas Vaxevanis, tweeted his arrest and posted a video message [el] a few hours after his magazine published a leaked list of over 2,000 names of Greeks with bank accounts in Switzerland, allegedly the “Lagarde list” that Greek governments had misplaced for years.

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Greece: Petition to Remove Golden Dawn MP from Non-Discrimination Committee

Asteris Masouras — Thu, 18 Oct 2012 22:50:16 +0000

The Golden Dawn party has become notorious for its blatant anti-Semitic and xenophobic rhetoric and has been responsible for perpetrating attacks against Jews and foreigners.”

The European Union of Jewish Students have created a petition urging the Council of Europe Committee on Equality and Non-Discrimination of the Parliamentary Assembly to remove Golden Dawn MP Eleni Zaroulia from its ranks. Zaroulia recently referred to immigrants as “sub-human” [el] while addressing the Greek Parliament. The Central Board of Jewish Communities in Greece also addressed a letter asking for Zaroulia to be removed.

Greece: Theater Critic Assaulted by Neo-Nazi and Religious Protesters

Asteris Masouras — Sun, 14 Oct 2012 21:11:05 +0000

This post is part of our special coverage Europe in Crisis.

Religious groups and neo-nazis protested against gay-themed play Corpus Christi in Athens on 11 October, 2012. Deeming it blasphemous, they assaulted a theater critic and forced the cancellation of the performance. He was attending the premiere and tweeted his experience immediately afterwards. Netizens reacted in shocked outrage, demanding an end to the unchecked spiral of violence perpetrated by neo-nazis in recent months.

Orthdox Christian religious groups had previously attempted in vain to get the play banned in court:

@zairacat: απορρίφθηκε η αίτηση ασφαλιστικών μέτρων παραθρησκευτικών οργανώσεων, κατά της παράστασης corpus christi. κανονικά απόψε η πρεμιέρα.

@zairacat: Religious organizations had their request for interim measures against the Corpus Christi play thrown out. The premiere will go on tonight.

They called protests, in which members and MPs of the Golden Dawn party took part:

@Inflammatory_: Golden Dawn allegedly protesting in Gazi district of Athens over Corpus Christi, a theater show accused of blasphemy by Greek Church #rbnews

Religious groups protest the premiere of Terrence McNally's play “Corpus Christi” in Athens, 11 October 2012. Photo by Christos K, CC license

According to @stratosathens, theater critic Manolis tweeted a detailed report of his assault and battery by the protesters in full view of apathetic police officers:

@stratosathens: Journalist @manolis says he was beaten by GD members and at least 1GD MP. Police standing by, refused to intervene. #Greece

Several tweeps translated his testimony on the spot. Community news collective radiobubble chronicled attempts to censor Corpus Christi and compiled Manolis’ tweets, translated in English by Aliki:

At the entrance of the theatre, there were Golden Dawn and priests tearing down the show posters and stepping on them. I took out my mobile to take pictures for the blog. 5 Golden Dawners and a cop surrounded me. They ask ‘Are you a journalist?’ [..] They pull me aside, call me ‘faggot’ and ‘queer', pull my beard, spit in my face, hit me in the stomach. Cops nearby. I shout “They're beating me, do something?” Reply: I've seen nothing, move along please. The cop's wearing 3 stars. They put a lit cigarette in my pocket. A woman standing near warns me, in front of the cop. He pretends he hasn't heard. I start to get scared, move away from the entrance. They shout after me ‘Go away, you dirty faggot, go suck someone's cock!' I turn back to observe. A known Golden Dawn MP follows me, punches me twice in the face, knocks me down. Downed, I lose my glasses. The Golden Dawn MP kicks me. The police are exactly 2 steps away. Their backs are turned. Repeatedly, I shout to the cop “THEY”RE PUNCHING ME, DO SOMETHING!” Back still turned, he walks away. The rest of them shouting at me next to the police officer “Cry, you pussy, queen, little girl” We pass dozens of cops hanging out. I tell them I was beaten at theatre entrance. They ignore me. One blows me a sarcastic kiss.

ON THE WAY TO ITHACA summarized the events of the night, embedding videos that show a Golden Dawn MP launching threats and verbal abuse at the cast and crew of the play. The blogger mused:

I am beginning to wonder if this charade is going to become a weekly thing for as long as the play lasts… And to be honest this is getting a little too spooky for my taste

The incident marked an ominous turn in the outbreak of violence by Golden Dawn members, thus far aimed mostly at immigrants. It has led many to question the state of democracy in the land that gave birth to both it and theater:

@zoemavroudi: Tweeps point out attacks outside of gay-themed play in Athens tonight is 1st organized Golden Dawn targeting of Greeks instead of migrants.

@IrateGreek: #Greece #rbnews LPC @KHatzinikolaou: Theatre owner: Last time a play had police guard was in Junta, don't want to believe it's Junta again.

Shocked and outraged netizens flooded Twitter with messages of support for the victim of the assault, denouncing the police for colluding with neo-nazis, and demanding action from the government, which they held responsible for promoting racism:

@CrippleHorse: Ι am Greek. In my country, the government, the police &the justice system have let loose Golden Dawn, a Nazi gang, free to commit any crime.

@northaura: we demand action MT @IrateGreek: Min Public Order @NikosDendias. Torture. Human shields. Neo-nazi MPs running amok.All on your watch. #Greece

Many pointed out that neo-nazi violence, rampant against immigrants for more than a year, especially since Golden Dawn entered parliament, is now targeting other groups as well:

@nikoxy: Το σόου των νεοναζί στο θέατρο Χυτήριο αποτελεί πρελούδιο για τη μετα-ρατσιστική βία Χρ Αυγής. Οχι μόνο εναντίον ξένων.

@nikoxy: The neo-nazi show at Chytirio theater is a prelude to Golden Dawn's post-racist violence. Not just against foreigners.

@mi_kitas: Αρχικά ήταν οι μετανάστες, μετά ήταν οι αλλόθρησκοι, μετά ήταν οι αριστεροί και οι ομοφυλόφιλοι. Περιμένεις την σειρά σου;#xytirionow

@mi_kitas: First it was immigrants, then non-Christians, then leftists and homosexuals. Are you waiting your turn? #xytirionow

@Kat_McKork: Ας αφήσουμε αυτά τα “πρώτα οι μετανάστες, μετά οι ομοφυλόφιλοι, μετά εσύ” δεν είναι αυτός ο λόγος, το “μετά εγώ”. Δεν πρέπει να είναι. Όχι.

@Kat_McKork: Stop saying “first immigrants, then homosexuals, then you”, “then you” isn't the reason [to react]. It shouldn't be. No.

Another theatergoer during the same night who was met with hate and derision by protesters chronicled her attempts to reason with them in her blog, Invisible Ink:

My efforts, and the Atheist Union t-shirt I was wearing, attracted the attention of protesters who started to comment:

“What does she want? To see the play?”
“She's a lesbian and wants to see the fags?”
“Look at her t-shirt! Atheist Union!”
“She's an atheist!” [..]

“You want to see the faggots? They're faggots! Perverts!”
“They swear against our Christ, our Virgin Mary!”
“How do you know? Have you seen it?”
“No, but so they told me. They told me it swears against our Christ. It must be banned!” [..]

“Hey, don’t waste your time on her, she’s not worth it. She’s trash.”
“Get out of here, Albanian!”
“I'm Greek.”
“Greek? True Greeks don't do such things! You're Albanian!” [..]

“Listen here, bitch, we are Greek Christian fascists! 90% of Greeks are Christian fascists, understand? As a fascist, i have the right to tell you to get out of here.”
“As a fascist, you have the strength, but not the right.”

The combined effect of the relentless debt crisis and austerity, the mounting police and neo-nazi violence with impunity have left many Greek netizens aghast, forlorn of hope and feeling forced to leave the country. But some vow to persevere, in spite of it all:

@thesspirit: Πιστεύω στους θεσμούς κ τον άνθρωπο. Πιστεύω ότι η λύση μπορεί να είναι μόνο πολιτική κ ότι η βία γεννάει βία. Αλλά σήμερα πιστεύω λιγότερο.

@thesspirit: I believe in institutions and in humans. I believe the solution can only be political, and that violence begets violence. But tonight, my belief is lessened.

@tinaletina: #Greece 2012, Nazi & state violence: some will give up, some will leave, some of us will stay n defend our dignity and lives. Fighting back.

Check out more curated tweets and links on this story by the author on Storify.

This post is part of our special coverage Europe in Crisis.

Greece: Debunking a ‘Coup That Never Happened’

Asteris Masouras — Mon, 01 Oct 2012 08:36:31 +0000

Impressive reportage from fantasy land, but no knowledgeable editor with a soul was at hand to throw it in the trash.

In a Twitlonger post [el], journalist Yiannis Bogiopoulos debunks a controversial expose published in Sunday newspaper To Vima about “a coup that never happened“, and dismisses “loaded” conjectures as to why it would print an article rife with inaccuracies, in favor of a simpler explanation.