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
