Thursday, March 4, 2010

Blood is in the eye of the beholder

This country's psychology and personality eludes me. It always was elusive to me and I think it will continue to be. I've always considered myself to be -not anti-greek - a non-greek, a neutral amongst Greeks at least. I dunno why. Because. Sometimes I'm ashamed I've been born in Greece, I can't easily relate to people here (of course there are exclusions), I can't understand some things they do. All the controversy of being a Greek.

I know (especially now) some people from abroad think of us as vulgar people, monkeymen, frying stuff around in olive oil and being loud, pretending to pay the bill when is another one's turn, dancing sirtaki or another exotic but stupid dance while drinking wine that tastes like paint thinner (because it's tradition) and speaking in bad bad BAD english to women that we wanna have Greek sex with (ah yeah, Greeks call anal "ottoman sex", while in the UK they call it "Greek sex" and it is said that ALL Greeks love it ) while eating souvlaki/moussaka/rice-in-vine-leaves/something obscure and overpriced. People that have no problem stealing money from the EU or any other benefactors when they are so deep in it for them to do such foolish things...
I don't care about the money stealing accusations, every country/politician/blah random authority is "stealing" from the money they are supposed to use from something else, others steal little, others more and so forth (I just think it's hilarious they get to blame Greece for de-stabilizing the whole economy, when we are in the middle of a WORLDWIDE economical crisis and especially when we are always last to do anything/to feel the waves of changes in general as a country.).

I'm just sad others put all Greeks in one basket. We are all bad. Period.

Yesterday afternoon, while I was riding the bus to work, I saw something that made me feel especially ashamed to tread on this Greek soil. I saw about 5 gorilla-looking 16/17-year olds cheering up for another more-gorilla looking 17-year old that was beating up a Pakistani man (who is a regular on that particular road, usually cleaning windshields like yesterday). The gorillas, after beating the man up, crossed the road again to go wherever they had to go, while the man stood not being able to understand what happened that very moment, his face covered in blood. Some people pulled their cars over and gave him bottles of water. And then the bus left and I couldn't see more.
I, then, wished I was in another bus, a bus that could take me far away.

How can Greeks demand foreign respect when they THEMSELVES treat foreign people like that? How could teenagers be beating up a grown man and NO ONE would lift a fucking finger?

I officially want to be adopted by another country that wouldn't mind about my Greek past.