A Massive Storm's Brewing in the Aegean

Jeff—Saturday

This weekend the Southeast US and the Philippines face horrendous storms.  The in-your-face enormity of the potential tragedy faced by the people in the storms’ paths got me to thinking about the region of the world in which I spend more time than anywhere else on earth: Greece’s Aegean Cycladic Islands.

There’s a storm raging through my part of the Aegean.  It’s already hit hard on Mykonos, Santorini, too, and alerts are sounding on other islands.  Paros, Naxos, and Milos sit directly in its path, but they’re far from the only ones at risk.

It is a devilishly cunning storm; one that comes ashore subtly, offering welcome rain to drought parched islanders, and in so doing distracting the citizenry from the great risks their island faces from what’s coming: gale force winds to level its unprepared institutional authority, torrential rains that drown those brave enough to challenge the invading storm’s will, and massive flooding to forever alter the island’s landscape.

It is a storm unlike any other, for what gives it energy is not warm waters, but cold hard cash.

The islands are experiencing an influx of tourism money unlike any ever experienced before.  And there is no sign of it going away anytime soon. Yes, the types and origins of tourists will change—they always do—and some islanders will go bust because they misjudged the market, but tourism cash will keep coming, and if cash remains the piper, islanders appear willing to keep dancing to the tune, no matter how foreign it may be to their own culture and values.

The islanders say, “We’re just giving the tourists what they want.”  That’s a seductively understandable explanation, one quite compelling on the surface, but dig deeper and you’ll find its insidious ramifications. 

Let’s start from this proposition. If you are willing to provide an environment where the purveyors of vices and their clientele may freely conduct their business without threat of official repercussions, you will always make money.

So, enter the one-week-long tourist (four days longer than the average stay on Mykonos), who during those days lives as if Sodom and Gomorrah is alive and well.  The tourist leaves to return to life at home, one far more limited, ordered and restrictive than the one just enjoyed for a week.  What are the chances of that person’s behavior patterns having been changed by a one-week binge?

Now, let’s look at the islander who spends between four and five months a year, “just giving the tourists what they want.”  How great do you think is the risk facing the islander enabling such aberrant tourist behavior, that it is the islander’s family values that will suffer as a consequence?

Just think about it.

I’m not preaching morality here. I’m just saying that islands that see a golden pot of money to be made in chasing after tourist cash ought to take a long hard look at how far they are willing to go to get it.

Making a deal with the Devil is not new. Nor are the consequences.  The Devil is charming, the Devil is clever, and the Devil knows how to subtly make a deal for the souls of the innocent as well as the greedy. 

 

In other words, Islanders, heed the warning signs. One hell of a storm is headed your way.

Prepare, if you wish to have a say in saving your island.

—Jeff