Yet Athenians were also saying, with wistful smiles, that it had been a good party while it lasted. The backdrop to the riots was that, in a mixed mood of resignation, black humour and bitterness, Greeks were bidding farewell to a decade in which everything good and bad about their country grew feverishly. There were sporting and cultural extravaganzas, starting with the 2004 Olympics. Archaeological sites were spruced up, new buildings erected. The middle class grew larger and more sophisticated. And many people at the lower end of the pile breathed a bit easier, if only because immigrants from poorer places came to harvest their olives and work in their restaurants.
At the same time, Greece’s worst habits—the plundering of state coffers, the hiring of cronies, the abuse of public office, impunity for the powerful—were multiplied on an ever larger scale. A handful of Cassandras said it would end in tears but, while the party lasted, nobody listened. Now, with the announcement on May 2nd of loans from the IMF and the European Union worth a total of €110 billion ($144 billion), plus an austerity plan, the party is well and truly over.
