Writing in October 2011, economist James K. Galbraith depicts a nation trapped in a debt prison, serving a sentence of indeterminate length (Galbraith 2018: 31). The road map to economic recovery that was drawn up by the European Union foreshadowed at least a generation of hardship. The austerity measures international lenders forced Greece to implement in return for the record-sized loans were meant to service its record-sized debt, but were also meant to instil economic discipline and responsibility on a society widely castigated for being lazy, profligate and unwilling to pay its fair share of taxes. Yet four years after Galbraith made his sombre observations, conditions had worsened. A BBC report entitled ‘How Bad Are Things for the Greek People?’ described a country in ‘an economic crisis on the scale of the US Great Depression of the 1930s’.

Much of the Greek population was reluctant to accept its fate, as seemingly incessant protests and the occasional riot made international headlines. Most protesters simply wanted manageable loan arrangements, but some were also calling for the overthrow of the political order. For its part, the EU’s greatest concern was that Greece might default. It had done so several times in its history, but this time such a move might jeopardise the EU project and especially the euro. Hence Greece was also regarded as a potential vandal. Headlined ‘The End of the Euro’, the 17 May cover of Newsweek showed a protester with a gas mask throwing stones with one hand, while holding a red flag with the other (Figure 11.1).