The Ruins Of Greece Seen From More Ways Than One

Planning a trip to an area where there is considerable poverty always exposes the traveler to the uncomfortable sensation of feeling uncomfortably comfortable in the midst of a sea of want.  In the last few years the economic collapse that has spread from the outrageous and criminal behavior of America's banks and major financial institutions has devastated the economies of southern Europe none more so perhaps than that of Greece which entered this period of extreme economic uncertainty with an economy in every way already frail by virtue of the outright lies with which their leaders managed their entrance into the European Union's economic framework and the commonplace tax evasion and other anti social economic behaviors which have been traditional in this country.  The unemployment among the young is staggeringly high; things don't get better and the people in Brussels are calling for ever greater austerity, not the best recipe to get the ball rolling again.  Add to this the large number of immigrants, refugees from countries of Africa where living conditions and brutalities make it imperative to escape; anything elsewhere seems better.  There is no love lost between the Greek nationals and these mostly unwanted guests who compete for social services or more to the point begging on the street or taking the bottom level job.  They say that parts of Athens look like the south Bronx of the eighties, that there has been minimal upkeep on buildings and storefronts in the area of Omonia Square and further out by the National Museum of Archeology.  As someone whose reverence for the contents of that Museum is passionate I do not look forward to seeing this disbasement.  I sometimes wonder at the new Niarchos Foundation project by Renzo Piano which is building a gleaming elegant new musical hall and national library south of the city  center on an abandoned race track.  Tarting up that tacky part of town is all to the good but it will shift the notion of "desirable" ever farther away from the Museum of Archeology which ought to be the very center of people's interest.  The Greeks of antiquity created a culture which, as we all know, is the fons and origo of western civilization (so alright, your Latin is a little slow this morning; just wanted to introduce a catch phrase for your pretentious ripostes at cocktails this evening [the wellspring and origin].  Following the adoption of the Christian faith the Greeks moved radically away from things heathen, and thereafter even more so when they became subjects of the Muslim Turks who conquered their territory.  The people of this area slumbered in ignorance of their noble past until a few bright lights aided by European romantics such as Lord Byron liberated them from Byzantine control emanating from Constantinople now Istanbul the capital of the Muslim country Turkey.  The Greeks' increasingly passionate embrace of antiquity in my view is more kindled by the profits envisioned from the tourist trade than any honest understanding of what this legacy is and or appreciation of what the culture was.  The sad state of the National Museum of Archeology is just a symbol of this neglect.