Greece and another summer of hunger

 

Helena Smith in today’s Guardian reports from Greece on the “unravelling social fabric” of that country. The draconian austerity imposed by the European Union has made beggars of many Greeks and according to a UNICEF report earlier this year, nearly 600,000 children live under the poverty line – more than half that number lack basic daily nutritional needs.

I wrote last summer (here and here) about the crisis interviewing academics, NGO’s and those queuing for meagre hand-outs recently impoverished by the cuts. I focused on community action and how people were feeding each other from their gardens – survival strategies against the onslaught of NeoLiberal bankers set on profit and punishment. Here was the shock in action, the management and manipulation of crisis, the confiscatory deflation (see Chile, Argentina, Mexico etc, etc); the revenge of the elites; here was the project to destroy social cohesion (because there is no such thing as Society).

Here’s a picture of that idea failing.

Volunteers prepare and serve potato soup for the poor and homeless in a Municipal Soup kitchen in Athens, Greece
Volunteers prepare and serve potato soup for the poor and homeless in a Municipal Soup kitchen in Athens, Greece

 

My last paragraph tried to sketch the scene outside the Municipal Soup kitchen in a way that photography couldn’t.

“In the afternoon, the municipal soup kitchen has a slightly carnival atmosphere. Africans, Kurds, Arabs and Bangladeshis all congregate in their little groups talking animatedly about their troubles. Who knows their tortuous routes to Europe, but they are being fed. There is a blur of grubby children running this way and that. Women in headscarves picnic on the grass with chunks of Greek bread. Men of all shades discuss politics and perhaps wonder about the families that they have left in yet more difficult, dusty places.
Natassa has returned with her husband to help carry more potatoes home in a shopping basket on wheels. He is tired and a little resigned, never imagining that his dotage would be like this. “We are good people” he says. The lowing sun casts long, sharp shadows that cut the ground into the jagged shapes of the railings around the building. Arm in arm. Two old people as if on promenade. Then she turns and her face lights with something that is between pride and humour.

“I may be a beggar” she says, “but I am still a lady”

She is, for that moment, all of Greece.

©Stuart Freedman 2012

Tearsheet – Eating Pests

 

Here’s a recent tearsheet for the German Magazine, Effilee of an article that I wrote and photographed about a particular response to non-native invasive (alien) species – Muntjac Deer, Grey Squirrel and American Crayfish… the German headline has it best – something like, “Who is a stranger here is eaten”. Less sensationally, the piece explores the environmental fallout of introduced species and a discussion about both ‘speciesism’ and, the realization that we now live in an age that may come to be known as the Anthrocene.

Many thanks to the very excellent Crayfish Bob, Fergus Drennan (aka Fergus the Forager) and Mike Robinson

 

 

 

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Tearsheet – Laverbread – eating seaweed

 

Here is a recent tearsheet from the wonderful Effilee Magazine for whom I  wrote and photographed a really interesting story about seaweeds – an important and potentially significant food source across the world. I focused on the Welsh tradition of Laverbread and had the most wonderful time experiencing Welsh hospitality and a delicious new food.

I’ll be posting (as usual) the 5000 word text on my website in due course.

 

 

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Another Effilee Magazine spread

 

I’m delighted to see another of my pieces running in this month’s excellent Effilee Magazine. It’s a story I shot and wrote for them a couple of months ago called The Englishman and the Eel. It deals with the traditional London food (which is not fish and chips) of eels, pie and mash.

The piece attempts to look at (amongst other things) the significance and the decline of the eel and its fading from the changing London consciousness. For the story I photographed those palaces of Cockney culture, the Pie and Mash shops.

I will post the 5500 word piece on my website in the near future.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Effilee Magazine spread

Here’s a recent tearsheet from the May/June 2011 edition of the rather lovely German Magazine, Effilee with my long term piece about the Indian Coffee House in New Delhi.

Effilee is a food and lifestyle magazine who commissioned the images and a 5000-word piece from me. The English translation can be found under the Writings section of my website here.

The piece is called The Palace of Monkeys and Memory