[SenseiG]

Θα σας παραθεσω παρόμοια επιστολή που έγραψε στο ίδιο κανάλι η αδελφή της γυναίκας μου, δυστυχώς είναι στα αγγλικά, αλλά θα πάρετε μία ιδέα οι αγγλομαθείς.

TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN
I am writing to complain profusely for the appalling display of heartlessness, insensitivity and mockery towards the Greeks in your show ‘Go Greek for a Week.’
To start with, it is obvious that you are either misinformed or intentionally aiming to slander a great nation. As I like to give anyone the benefit of the doubt, I prefer to regard that the former, rather than the latter, is the case. Therefore, I feel obliged to inform you for example, that no such thing as a ‘milk allowance’ exists in this country. Perhaps you mean the allowance that mothers are given by social services per year for each under-aged child but surely this happens everywhere in the world and besides, its hardly worth a mention being so preposterously low (you try financing your child’s needs for a year with only 70 eur!)

Moving on to the big stuff now, I wonder if you have ever bothered to read the European statistics at all? Kindly be informed that the Greeks are the most hardworking and yet the least paid Europeans. They work 12 hour shifts or more per day without overtime pay, sometimes for as little as 400-600 Eur a month. I couldn’t imagine an English family living on that per month! This is probably a British family’s monthly allowance just for booze!

Υou seem to think that the Greeks are living like kings but I would gladly let you take my place for a week in my world! Care to hear details? Here goes! I am 44, with a University degree, I speak 3 foreign languages and yet, I am still unemployed, two years after I lost my job after 20 years of work! What's more, I receive no benefit because according to my corrupted and immoral government I don’t need it because my husband works! Like everyone else, we have ruled out any expenses other than for the absolutely necessary. No restaurants, no cafés, no cinema etc and no long drives either due to petrol prices. These days, my government mails me notifications to pay extra taxes every month. So far, I have paid annual tax on my property three times this year!

Here are two ideas for your contestants to try, since you wish them to live like Greeks: Firstly, forbid them to use their cars and hand them bicycles or get them to walk for long distances. Its quite common for many Greeks now due to petrol costs/car tax and also the constant transport strikes. Secondly, get them starving for days including their children, letting them eat hardly anything solid. Do you think that’s preposterous? Why don’t you ask the schoolteachers who report every day that Greek schoolchildren faint in their class because of hunger? That is the real life of a Greek these days, far from the preposterous fairytale that you are projecting to your viewers! Yes, the Greeks are unable to even feed their own children nowadays because of unemployment, price increases and extra taxation. And yet, you mock us? I think that’s inhumane and disgusting! As far as I am concerned, I think Channel 4 should stop this appalling and malicious slander and apologise formally to the Greek people! I said ‘I think’ but somehow, I don’t expect it any more than I expect my dog to recite the alphabet! Do you know why? It is because your country has a long history of slander on Greece and its people by your media, which only adds insult to the perpetual injury of having to wait still for the return of our Parthenon marbles after that unmentionable ‘noble’ countryman of yours stole them from us.
This is a matter of high sensitivity to every Greek by the way and yet, instead of returning the stolen property with your apologies, you mock us with witty little remarks (I refer mainly to your prime minister’s disgusting wit earlier this year with the phrase ‘Britain will not lose its marbles!’) As for our financial ruin, far from what you think, this is not due to tax evasion by a small percentage of the Greek population, but due to the admittedly highly corrupted political scene of the country since the 80’s. If anything, the Greek people deserve sympathy for this as well as encouragement while we suffer humiliation and poverty. The civilised nations of the world know this well but you are forever detached from the rest of us in your isolated little isle! Instead of standing on your pedestal mocking us, perhaps you should show some heart for our predicament, the way the rest of the world does. Sympathy and eagerness to help the ones in need is a sign of nobility and humanity but so far, I have seen neither from the British. And now, channel 4 does its bit, poisoning your own nation with scorn for the Greeks. You have no regard and no respect for our great country and its people and I am sure that if it weren’t for the money involved, you’d never even seek to host the Olympics. I personally think you don’t deserve to host them since you hold no respect for this glorious idea that unsurprisingly enough, is Greek, like so many other great ideas adopted by the rest of the world.

Personally, I am not surprised with your attitude. But make no mistake: In the end, you will find yourselves in our position too (your national debt is as large as ours in case you didn’t know). Your precious pound is not going to save you but you know what? When you come in our position, the greatness of the Greek people will come through once again because then, instead of mocking you, we will sympathise with you regardless of all this! Do you know why this is, oh high and mighty Sirs of channel 4? The answer is simple: We are light years ahead of you in the matters of decency and civility. At the time that the Greeks were building the Acropolis, you and the rest of your people had barely come down the trees yet!

Un-kindest regards,

Effrosyni M.
(A ‘highly privileged’ unemployed Greek after 20 years of work who is unsure if a pension is even due by retirement age…lucky me huh!)