here, there and everywhere

'The spectator feels at home nowhere, for the spectacle is everywhere' (Guy Debord)

Today, in Birmingham New Street train station, I saw a news item on the giant sky news screen: 'Greece's Economy grows faster than the UK'.

I couldn't help but think that it's Britain's turn. Murdoch's media announce that things are not looking good'. That the country that has collapsed in many different ways (Greece) may be better off than us here in Britain. Of course the five or six malls in the centre of Birmingham are still full (as they are in Athens). The image of stability and safety is still there. Soon Cameron will start denouncing all scenarios for the IMF's visit to the Albion. As did the Greek Prime Minister until a year ago, when he announced happily but with grave concern from a small island as far away from Athens as he could go that the country is saved by the IMF. This salvage has resulted in a country wretched by violence, social injustice, racism, poverty; a country that is in the verge of a serious and total breakdown - a generalised bankruptcy (which, ironically, will again exclude the bankers). Of course all these phenomena already existed in the society - the IMF simply brought them to fruition.

I couldn't help but think that the reasons that keep me away from Greece were not really related to the particularities of Greek society, but to the flaws of an economic system and its subsequent social formation that will follow me no matter how far I will go.

'The "Exit" [...], seems like a desperate fantasy, because, simply, there is nowhere to go! Wherever you go the "city (polis) will follow you"'

(Petros Papakonstantinou)