In the eye of the storm: the political odyssey of Yanis Varoufakis season 1 episode 1
A spark of hope
It’s 1946. Yanis’ father, Yiorgos, is arrested as a young man for protesting the fascist dictatorship in Greece. Decades later, when the teenage Varoufakis is himself arrested on a protest, his parents send him to study in Britain for fear of history repeating itself. This chain of events sets him on a path to becoming a world-renowned economist. Fast forward a few decades and it’s 2015. The Greek economy is imploding under the weight of huge debts and stringent austerity. A new political party – Syriza – is about to take power. Varoufakis tells the story of this crisis and why he transitioned from academic economist to controversial dissident. We learn that his efforts to inform the Greek public about the state’s hidden bankruptcy provoke serious threats to his family and result in them fleeing the country in search of safety. Varoufakis returns to Greece to accept – reluctantly – Syriza’s invitation to become the nation’s next finance minister.
