Sensation of being in front of structural crisis in Greece

Hello Shiva? Did you like the place?

Yes of course, this place is nice.  Not like my place where I grew in.

What about the drawings in walls in streets, did you like it?

Of course not, I am scared of it.

Sebastian, a young guy who is a Movie maker from France, was asking what exactly I liked in Greece. There were plenty of things that I could have shared him. But I didn't. I was numb. I don't know why, I was a bit scared of crazy drawings on wall in the street, and people's sorrows of being unemployed and hopeless.

Greece, a small country in Balkan, is now suffering from terrible economic recession. The effect of recession can be felt in faces of Greek people, and even from these drawings in the streets. Young people in Greece, more than 40% of whom are unemployed, had families but not being able to support might have expressed their sorrows in the walls. I don’t know exactly what caused the recession. But I can assume that the recession may be because of down trend of capital flow in Greece. It clearly symbolizes the exiting economic structures are failing in Europe, and elsewhere.

In Greece, I was participating in the international people's health university course, happening in Aristotle University (AU). AU is in Thessaloniki; the second largest city in Greece. It can be reached by one hour flight from Athens.  This place was quite new for me, but the country itself was not. I had travelled to another part of country; Rhodes Island in September this year. Unlike the earlier destination of mine, in the mid of ocean more or less resembling to well off cities in Europe, this place was exactly the mirror of Greece, and the Europe nowadays in crisis.

I had very good time learning about how flourishing capital creates inequality between the people, and how business sectors can evolve and make profit of the poor capital situation in the country. This was a good learning for me.  Regarding the participants, they were from twenty countries in Europe, were just amazing. I had not met with such an inspiring and amazing people in my life.

I want to talk a bit about Greece, which is suffering from rampant privatization of public services like education, transportation, land and health. When I writing this blog I am still feeling uncomfortable writing why the country is so rich and people are so poor? Why its economy is one of the worst in Europe? What will happen to the people if their social welfare structure fails, and health sector sold to private sectors? 

Literally in seven days spent in Thessaloniki, I was bored of listing about drawn trend economy and struggles of people for their life in Greece and other places in Europe. Seeing this, I was thinking about my country. We never had developed so much as Greece did. Greece was doing so well before, it suddenly started failing. What will happen to us if our country fails; our economy goes down, and public services sold to the privates. May be I am too late to think about that, because we have already sold much of our public services to private. We no more have government presence in transportation; we are obliged to pay high travel fares. Education system is on hands of business men. You cannot pay the fee of your children education easily within your monthly earnings. As such medical education is one of the worst in Nepal. Low and lower middle class cannot think of paying the fee, rather compete with thousands other for few places in private teaching hospitals.  If you are from lower or middle class family background and you are Brahmin and Chhetri (ethnic groups) at the same time. Then you should leave seeing you studying engineering or medicine or working at public service.  Private hospitals are in hike in Nepal. Middle class and upper middle class seldom tries to utilize the services of public facilities. Writing this, I am pity of myself, I had never been to primary health care center though it is very near to my home town.

But we (Nepali) have learnt to be happy even in these worse conditions. Are we the happiest people in the world? Or Are we just adjusted to the environment and habituated to scarcity? We never had hopes for lots of things in life. For much of Nepalese population the biggest goals of life are managing Food+Clothes+Shelter+Families. We have been proud of sovereignty from thousands of years. We fought vigorously with East India Company, had paid the death of thousands of Gorkhas in first and second world war for survival of our families in Nepal. And we are still happy, our brave Gorkhas have been granted to shelter rest of their lives in the country where they were not born, and behaved as bread taker. We are never tired of being happy; many of people had their own land to work, had families with their parents and grandparents where they can share their problems, and had high Himalayas to glare when we are bored of life.

Whatever I saw in Greece might be the result of failing economic structures that we created, and we existed in. Nepal, suffering from mushrooming of private sectors, paralyzed bureaucracy and political crisis should not be near to the omens making Greece sick in crisis. May be this is the time where we, our politicians and policy makers can think of alternative ideas where people's government will provide welfare services to people. These ideas have always been criticized to be radical. Yes, it is it. We should dream of the public and economic structure; where the roles of private sectors will be limited; health, education, water, land will never be sold at private sectors.