Walking to his Athens apartment at 4 a.m., Joseph Skarzenski ran into a group of young men playing an impromptu soccer game in Syntagma Square at the foot of Athens’ parliament building.
Earlier that day, the men had been protesting against austerity measures implemented by the Greek government. Skarzenski had been there too, reporting on the events as a freelance journalist with a nongovernmental organization called Hellenext.
The third-year political science and classics student had arrived in the midst of demonstrations in Athens’ Syntagma Square and a crippling economic crisis. A dual citizen of the United States and Greece, Skarzenski interviewed Greek political figures and covered street demonstrations protesting political corruption.
Now back at UCLA, Skarzenski watched on Nov. 6 as Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou agreed to step down to make way for an interim government, which named Lucas Papademos the new prime minister early Thursday morning.
The former vice president of the European Central Bank will hold his position until Greece holds elections in early February.
Skarzenski said no matter what form the new Greek government takes, he does not think the unrest and political malaise he witnessed will be relieved, even by the election of a new government.
The government will attempt to pass an 8 billion-euro bailout package and meet euro zone demands to stabilize the Greek political system.
But Greece’s monetary troubles are the result of years of over-spending and corruption, said Jernej Copic, a UCLA professor of economics. He added that lasting solutions must be focused on long-term goals.
“This will not go away in a year or two,” Copic said.
Throughout the summer, mass demonstrations called for an end to the austerity packages passed by Parliament, which have reduced state workers’ pensions, increased retirement age and cut government spending in the public sector, said Copic.
Skarzenski said he did not see many instances of violence on the part of protesters, as is often featured by international media outlets.
Although Skarzenski said he witnessed a few protests that took a violent turn, he said he most often saw a scene more resembling a festival than political dissent.
Skarzenski lived only a few blocks from the site of the protests, and said barbecues loaded with meat and corn, protesters singing and dancing and pick-up soccer games were not uncommon sights in the evening.
While reporting on the protests, Skarzenski spoke with top Greek officials, including Greece’s minority party leader Antonis Samaras and Athens’ deputy mayor Anna Filini, with whom he discussed growing concern over public health as more demonstrators took up residence in the square.
The protests themselves, he said, were well organized and planned in advance. Protesters would give the government notice 48 hours prior to their demonstration. People would even notify their employers in advance, telling them they would be missing work to take to the streets.
Widespread unrest among the Greek people is also due to a strong sense of nationalism, Skarzenski said.
“Greeks view (International Monetary Fund) as a foreign invader of the country,” he said.
But Greece’s problem is not limited domestically ““ if Greece defaults, it will only aggravate the economic situation in other nations of the European Union, Copic said.
Signs of poverty ““ elderly women selling dried oregano in the streets and unemployed young people loitering in the square ““ are nothing new to Greece, Skarzenski said.
But Konstantinos Sideris, a graduate student in computer science from Athens who returned home this past summer to visit friends and family, said he sees increasing pessimism in the country, particularly among Greek youth.
“I talk to my friends, and they are depressed about their future opportunities,” Sideris said. “They don’t believe there are any.”
Sideris said he came to UCLA to continue his studies because he felt his opportunities in Greece, both for school and employment, were slim to none.
He and Skarzenski agreed, however, that many in Greece are simply waiting to see what Greece’s regime change will bring.