A few days ago, a strange sight appeared of the coast of
Greece, a light moment in the midst of dark times. A dolphin breached off the
coast of Kalamos in the Ionian Sea. On the underparts of this dolphin, a
precarious octopus was clinging for dear life.
Dolphins have a unique history for the Hellenes.
The god Dionysius frightened a barge of uncouth sailors who disparaged
the God of Wine, women, and song. When they leaped for safety in the expansive
presence of the Dionysius, he transformed the disrespectful seamen into
dolphins, thus sparing them a death by submersion in the wine-dark Aegean.
Yet the odd photograph of the unexpected eight-legged
traveler on the dolphin exposed nothing less than the mammal attempting to
wrest away this octopus, which had attached itself intimately along the
underbelly of the lithe creature.
Could this dolphin be nothing less than a symbol for the
struggling nation of Greece, a land once sleek in its exotic origins, adept at
sea, though not so much with finances, a place of great frolic and feasting,
now forced into austerity measures which witness and increasing number of
Greeks jumping the ship of state and swimming for safety.
And what of this octopus? What is holding back the Greeks?
The multibillion dollar debt which threatens with long-term insolvency? The
culture of spending and tax-dodging which the Greeks have swum away from, only
to find that creditors, international as well as nation, will hold on for dear
life until they get their pay?
Whatever one makes of a the dolphin with a “naughty octopus”,
the Greek people are learning that austerity as necessity can be as easy to
remove as an eight-tentacle cephalopod with a penchant for hanging on, and
nothing else.
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