Another Take on Elia Kazan's "America, America"

Jeff—Saturday

(1909-2003)

Last night I watched Elia Kazan’s award winning 1963 film, America, America.  (Among Kazan’s two-dozen films are On the Waterfront, East of Eden, A Gentlemen’s Agreement, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, and Splendor in the Grass). It’s the autobiographical story of his Greek family’s flight from Turkey to the US at the turn of the 20^th Century.  I’ve seen it many times, and never fail to be moved by the sacrifice and determination shown by poor, third world immigrants driven by the thought of making it to America for a new beginning.  Every American born to US citizenship should see this film if only for a better understanding of what those not blessed to be born here are willing to endure for the chance of making a life in America.

I know that subject is topical, but that’s not why I watched the film or wrote the preceding paragraph. In fact, I planned on following up on that opening paragraph with an upbeat portrait of how things are looking for Greece this summer, inspired by reports that tourism in 2019 will exceed even last year’s record setting numbers.

That should be good for the economy. Yay.  But then I started reading through the Greek newspapers (English language versions), as I do most mornings, and lo and behold I saw a series of headlines that gave me pause.  Here they are in bold, straight from The National Herald, America’s largest circulation Greek newspaper.

Greece’s Jobless Rate Falls to 18.2%, Lowest Since 2011

That’s down from a high of 27.9% in 2013, but for those under 25 years old, there’s a 38.5% jobless rate, down 2.8% from a year ago. Neither percentage reflects the 700,000 (92% professionals and college graduates) who since 2010 have fled this country of less than eleven million. The government—up for election this year—is touting these jobless rates as good news, even though they remain the highest among the nineteen Euro-based economies, and are higher than US Great Depression unemployment rates at the same point in that financial crisis.

Greece’s 3.94 Euros [$4.49] Minimum Wage Among EU’s Lowest

As measured in purchasing power, among European Union members Greece’s minimum wage exceeds only Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia, and Bulgaria, and outside of Europe it trails all countries described but Brazil. It is a situation reflective of long ailing economies compounded by relatively high costs for goods, food, and fuel.  Government promises to change all of that have not come to pass.

Buried by Tax Hikes, Greeks Can’t Pay, Debts to State Soar

Greeks are buried under tax hikes they cannot pay, private sector bank deposits continue to fall precipitously, and debts owned to the State have jumped to over eleven billion dollars—“most seen as uncollectable,” because years have passed and much is owed by businesses “no longer in existence.”

To put all of this into more detailed perspective, you might want to consult an article I came across in The New York Times, written by Nikos Konstandaras, entitled, “Greece’s Great Hemorrhaging.” On the point about debt he wrote, “But not only is the public debt greater than it was in 2009; citizens’ incomes have been slashed, their assets devalued, their property lost, their debts multiplied.”

Yes, Greece is a tourist paradise, nothing like the Turkey depicted in America, America that drove Kazan’s family to emigrate.  But for those at the turn of the 21^st Century who bear the brunt of Greece’s continuing economic crisis—and do not share in the fruits of its flourishing tourism, or see a light at the end of the nation’s tunnel of ever constricting economic measures—they’re worried about what will become of them and their families.

It’s how responsible families think…leading some to become refugees.

I think I’ll watch America, America again.

–Jeff

Greece is Europe's Refugee Filter Trap.

—Saturday

Yesterday afternoon I completed my one-month college teaching gig by grading the budding mystery novels my dozen students had revised and re-revised over the past three weeks.  Who would have guessed werewolves were still so popular?  Now it’s time for me to get off campus before they get to see their grades. :) No, not the werewolves.

It’s been a hectic four weeks—teaching two-and-a-half hours virtually every weekday, spending eight hours each day critiquing the new writing, and additional hours preparing for the next day’s lecture.  Oh, yes, and then there’s that little matter of Andreas Kaldis novel #8 due February 1^st. My, Lord, that’s MONDAY!  Not to mention a Sunshine Noir short story promised to some folks who hang around this site.

But, that will all work out, I’m sure.

I’d like to say I feel at peace with the world…I certainly feel I’m blessed to have spent time laboring among the world’s best hope for Peace—Teachers, God bless them.  But having just jumped back into the midst of world news, my disposition on the state of our planet has not improved.

Forget about the US Presidential races, that’s a plague on everyone’s house courtesy of our Media-Politico Complex.  May they reap what they sow, though sadly we voters who bow to the charlatans’ siren songs will pay the greatest prices. 

Still, that’s not what’s fired me up. It’s been that way for way too many election cycles to get me riled up again.

What has me fuming is the holier than though attitude of the European Union on a subject that’s only gotten worse since I last wrote about it.

Now anyone who knows me realizes I am hardly a fan of how Greece’s governments (that’s plural) have handled things over the last you-pick-the-number-of years, but what the EU is doing to make Greece the scapegoat for the EU’s utterly dysfunctional, unrealistic immigration processes is unconscionable.

Figures for first 22 days of 2016

What the EU faces today has been anticipated for decades, but most member states’ methods of preparing for this inevitable migration can be summed up in a single word: NIMBY. Not in my back yard—unless of course they needed laborers to work in their yards.

Sound familiar? Yes, the US has it’s own potboiler of a situation, but try as they might, states of the US cannot set their own immigration policies.

EU member-states apparently can, or at least are acting as if they can.  But rather than facing up to the consequences of not planning for the long predicted stream of refugees rushing into Europe for safety and economic opportunity, the EU choses to cast its fickle finger of blame on its most financially strapped, politically vulnerable member, Greece.  And just to make it suffer a lot more, the EU threatens to deny Greece’s tourist dependent economy the benefit of passport free travel between Greece and its Schengen member states.

A country of eleven million in the midst of a worsening Great Depression is expected to carry the load of processing and protecting an annual flow of immigrants equal to seven-percent of its nation’s population.  And it’s not as if the faucet’s in Greece, but rather you’ll find it in the land of its historic enemy, Turkey, where human traffickers are making billions each year off the dreams of those seeking safety in Europe.

Still the EU finds it easier to simply blame Greece for not turning off a fire hose held in another’s hands, and dismiss as inadequate the efforts of everyday Greeks and volunteers from around the world doing what the EU should be doing—behavior that may yield a Nobel Peace Prize nomination for those working on the ground in Greece.

Frankly, I think the EU’s afraid.  Its members’ nationalism is showing, and its long unstated but simple plan for protecting its mainland members from the onslaught of immigration is no longer working.

And what was that plan? Chief Inspector Andreas Kaldis described it succinctly a half dozen years ago: “[EU] Member states kept returning immigrant asylum seekers to Greece claiming that, as their original EU entry point, by law they’re a Greek problem—as if Greece were the European Union’s immigration filter trap.”

Yep, that’s precisely how the EU has long regarded Greece.  But that filter trap was built to accommodate the flow from a garden hose, not a fire hose.  And trying to channel the flow into your neighbor’s house rather than dealing with it at its source will only flood you both.

I think it’s way past time for the EU to call in a professional plumber capable of fixing its household’s outdated, ineffective system; professionals capable of addressing the problems at their source. Otherwise, man the lifeboats, EU, for the water will only keep coming.

And the drownings.

—Jeff

The Other Greek Crisis

For a long time I’ve maintained that Greece’s role in the eyes of its EU brethren is to serve as the EU’s filter trap for immigrants fleeing Africa and the Middle East.  Not everyone agreed with that. Now’s the chance to prove me wrong, Europe.  DO SOMETHING.

The Grand Kabuki play between the rest of the EU and Greece over Greece’s financial crisis will drag on and on, without clear villains or heroes…despite the efforts of each side’s media sycophants to deify or vilify selected characters in those roles.  But as is the nature of hype meeting reality, some who started out as populist stars are rapidly drifting into the Sarah Palin category (can’t wait for the comments on that one :)). 

But in the midst of Greece’s economic catastrophe of historic proportions, there is one incontrovertible fact—refugees and illegal migrants are flooding its shores in unprecedented numbers.  The Greek Coast Guard literally saves scores of lives every day, and the people of the affected islands (including tourists) have shown remarkable character and patience in the face of unorganized and ill-equipped officials and facilities—though it’s anybody’s guess how long that patience will last in the face of the relentless daily deluge. 

In July alone, 50,000 arrived seeking refuge. With a population of ten million, that’s equivalent to Great Depression America experiencing 1,500,000 non-English speaking refugees struggling ashore in one month into rural Louisiana and dispersing from there to impoverished migrant camps set up across the state.  There is no sign of the wave subsiding. So far, it’s up 750% over last year.  The United Nations has called their conditions shameful.  And no one's disputing it.

Sergey Ponomarev photo on Island of Lesbos for NY Times

For those escaping, their drive is to find a better life. Many are educated and seem able to pay the price to the smugglers.  For the smugglers (and those who allow them to operate so openly) it’s all about the money.  They couldn’t give a damn whether the passengers live or die.  They’re just commodities, whose fate the smugglers leave to the sea and the Greek Coast Guard.

I doubt there is a leader in Europe who doesn’t have firm ideas on what must be done, they just lack the political will––though there are reports that Greece’s current government didn’t realize what it had to do to receive 500 million euros in funding aid from the EU for immigration and asylum projects.  

Refugees seeking a better life will not stop fleeing to Greece (or Italy) on the way to their dream of making it to northern Europe (few see their futures in Greece).  

Most fear lives of perpetual suffering if not certain death should they remain in their homelands, a realization that makes staying there—as opposed to risking all to make it to Greece—the only irrational decision.  And so they will keep coming, no matter the risks or costs.

The smugglers know that.

The question is, when will Europe?  And the rest of the world.

Jeff—Saturday