This text was written to mark the presentation of the book ‘To Imerologio Enos Anergo (Diary of the Unemployed) which contains 155+1 selected stories from the eponymous website, imerologioanergou.gr, edited and with comments by Christoforos Kasdaglis.
If someone really wanted to know why I started (together with Iraklis) ThePressProject, I would tell him that after 4 years I am now certain that TPP was created in order to fight for the right to remain shocked. For our hair to stand on end, as we used to say. It seems unnatural to me, that is, to accept the harsh reality, chiefly due to its harshness. Inaction in the face of a horrifying status quo of unemployment and poverty is more awful that the situation itself, the unemployment and the poverty. How can you not weep when a child promises not to get hungry again? How can you go on?
The imerologioanergou.gr was a wonderful idea of Christofors and I feel tremendous honour that I contributed to its realization exactly because it breaks the silence. Because, as was proven, it creates a it creates a safe environment where people who are unemployed do not feel stigmatised. 2,000 real stories by real people with an authentic power have already been posted to the website. And because Christoforos is a tireless perfectionist, today we will be presenting a one-of-a-kind book. 155+1 stories together with others – hundreds – woven in the accompanying texts.
This is the voice of your fellow human being. The family that you saw move out of the neighbouring apartment, the woman who waits in line for two hours to renew her unemployment card, your friend with whom you lost contact suddenly and then saw going into a soup kitchen. This is the voice that you must not forget.
But that isn’t even what is most important. Christoforos and I did not begin (in collaboration with other sites such as tvxs.gr, koutipandoras.gr, ellinofreneia, etc.) imerologioanergou.gr only to break the silence. Now we want to make those voices even louder. And just as you can easily snap one match, while 20 together are unbreakable, so too the voices of the unemployed will become deafening when they are united.
Whatever you had planned for this afternoon, postpone it. Come by the building of the Society of Archaeologists (Ermou 134) at 19.00 to hear the unemployed themselves. Listen to their stories today because from tomorrow we will begin running in parallel the ‘Manifesto of the unemployed’ – a new wiki application in which the community itself will for the first time attempt to establish a common voice.
We reserve the right to be shocked by reality, because there may come a point when we will have to say, ‘ENOUGH’ and it would be good to have rehearsed a few times so that we are not left speechless at the most important time in our lives.