Chris Jones

Stories in the mainstream media, both abroad and in Greece, say that the Greek government is not cutting hard enough or quickly enough. In reality, wages have been slashed by 40 percent as have all benefits and pensions. Work has evaporated. Seven percent is the projected reduction for this year alone and we are in the fifth year of recession. This is disaster time for ordinary Greeks.

Over 1.3 million Palestinians live within Israel and constitute nearly 20 percent of its total population. Can you give us some indication of your situation today?

What you refer to as Israel we refer to as 1948 Palestine. This is the land of Palestine that was occupied by Israel in 1948. The West Bank we refer to as 1967 Palestine, following the Israeli occupation in 1967. And Gaza is Gaza. The three together form Palestine as far as we are concerned.

There are now two significant groups of people travelling to the Greek island of Samos, which lies close to the coast of Turkey. One group is known as tourists or travellers. They come here conventionally from many parts of the world either on the summer charter planes or the ferry boats. They spend most of their time on the beach and rarely have any contact with the authorities. The second group also spends time on the beaches and in the sea.

In common with many social science undergraduates in the early 1970s, I read Peter Willmott and Michael Young's Family and Kinship in East London. Published in 1957, it was regarded as one of the classics of British urban sociology. Although I cannot recall in fine detail all of its arguments, the book was one of the few around at that time which gave space to the varied voices of the working class in east London.