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talkpolitics...Or so claims Dr. Ioannis Zelepos, a historian and philologist from the Regensburg and Vienna universities.
I really liked yesterday's post about Turkey. It's a vibrant society, an emerging economy, etc. Whereas Greece is in deep trouble. But why? Why is there such a huge difference? Well, I've heard all sorts of explanations for Greece's troubles - from the burden of Ottoman legacy, to corruption, to the Mediterranean mentality. But the author of the above book argues that the root cause is elsewhere - in history.
Citing the "mainstream" reasons for Greece's big fail, like clientelism, corruption and laziness, is probably insufficient for explaining what's happening in the country. After all, there are many other countries where clientelist structures are also well visible without this necessarily stopping them from pursuing successful policies. And corruption, as we know, was never a Greek monopoly. It doesn't make sense to speak of a "typical Mediterranean lifestyle" either, or a perverted national mentality caused by the long Ottoman rule, manifesting itself in hatred for statehood and tolerance for cheaters and frauds. I mean come on, Greece has been independent for 180 years and is one of the oldest European civilizations. So the lack of time for overcoming the old legacy can't be used as a primary factor for explaining the Greek deficiencies and flaws. The reasons must be elsewhere.
The story goes like this. It all started at the beginning of the 19th century, just before the foundation of the modern Greek state. At that time the Greek society was anything but homogeneous - both geographically and socio-culturally. There were vast regional discrepancies between the various regions dominated by Greek populations. Apart from the "classical Hellas" (where the Greek state was later founded), we're also talking of the coastal regions of West Asia Minor, also the Black Sea coast of North-East Anatolia, the thousands of Aegean islands, etc (see the red color on the map).
There was also a well established urban elite, tightly linked to the Ottoman state and gravitating to the capital Constantinople. Those were the so called Phanariotes, a merchant class that made their fortune from trade, and being friendly to the Ottoman rulers. And then, let's not forget the many Greek diasporas throughout Central and East Europe, from Venice to Trieste, from Vienna to Bucharest, from Odessa to St. Petersburg. All of them gave a significant push for the formation of a united Greek "national movement".
In result, the following happened. The newly founded independent Greek state (liberated in 1822) with a population below 1 million included only a tiny part of all Greeks, most of them remaining outside its borders, the bulk of them still Ottoman subjects. Until as late as the turn of the 20th century, Constantinople remained the much more significant center of Greek politics than Athens itself. So it's no surprise that, given these conditions at the beginning of its existence, the Greek state had a rather modest integration impact on the Greek society. But there's also another reason for that: the creation of the Greek state pursued a plan that by far transcended the goal of mere political autonomy for the Christian population around the Aegean.
Under the influence of the various European pro-Greek circles, the establishment of this state was intertwined with grand ideas of a Hellenistic revival, and that was often interpreted as a big victory for European civilization over Orientalist barbarianism. This way the national emancipation of the Greeks was ascribed almost historic significance. Meanwhile though, the Greek state remained stuck in a rather narrow framework - at that time it merely played the role of a static factor.
The Megali Idea that was articulated a few years later, remained the main motivation of Greek nationalism until 1922, and though it was pretty vague in its essence, still it provided much more than just rhetoric and hollow fantasizing. Actually it had real, concrete political consequences.
All further plans for modernization and reform of any Greek governments and social groups (like the plan of Charilaos Trikoupis from the end of the 19th century), always collided with the "National question". The main players at the time were mostly some private individuals, organized in groups and clubs and committees. Typically, they were distanced from the state and feeling alien to its institutions, some even openly demonstrating their disdain for the state. For the advocates of the "National idea" (and at that time those were most Greeks in and beyond Greece), the state they had at the time was too small and too narrow to be able to contain the whole "Grand (Megali) Greek Idea", so there was no way it could be a source of national pride and inspiration.
So the discrepancy between grand pretense and harsh reality took almost grotesque proportions. It reached a point where attempts were made to solve the "National question" by bypassing the Greek state altogether - for example under the form of the so called "Hellenistic Ottomanism", a plan to gradually Hellenize the remnants of the Ottoman Empire. It even caused a bloody war where Greece was the aggressor - and lots of pain for both the Greek and Turkish societies, and many evils and grudges for decades ahead. At least it provoked Turkey to self-reform. But did Greece transform? The author argues: not so much. So it's logical to ask the question, why should we be looking at the Ottoman legacy in Greece mostly through the prism of a "foreign yoke"? It doesn't make much sense, does it?
Ever since, the cursory, or even non-existent loyalty to their own state (and statehood as a whole) has remained a typical trait of the Greek society - including in the 20th century. The reason for the specific Greek flaws should therefore be sought mostly in the conditions that existed at the creation of the new Greek state and the forming of the modern Greek society.
And there comes another useful book on the subject, Nikos Dimou's The Misfortune of Being Greek. Quite an old book, but still very relevant today.
Ever since it came up for the first time, it has caused both enthusiasm among readers, and the hatred of the Greek ultra-nationalists. Which is no surprise, since it contains such nice sentences like, "The Greeks look at their own state in a way as if it's still a Turkish province. And they're right". And his opinion about the Greek Orthodox Church isn't much more flattering, either. He wrote that the Church has been a loyal servant to many masters, and "The other nations have their religion. We have our Popes".
But Dimou's book is not just full of witty remarks. It expands on the idea that, if misfortune is to be defined as a mismatching of desire and reality, then the Greeks should definitely consider themselves the unhappiest people in the world: "If any nation originated from the ancient Greeks, they should by definition consider themselves unfortunate. Unless it could either forget the ancient Greeks, or surpass them". Obviously, he means that it's a hard task trying to compete with your ancestors if they had been so awesome.
And though the attempts to forget the ancients are not always so unsuccessful, the new Greeks, in Dimou's opinion, are a people without a face. "And not because we don't have faces. But because we dare not look in the mirror. We have reached a point where we are ashamed of our own face. We hate ourselves because we're not tall and blonde, and because we lack the classical stature of Hermes of Praxiteles. We hate our neighbors because we look very much like them".
Dimou, who has lived abroad for a long time, including in West Europe, has looked at his compatriots of the 70s and saw victims of an outdated education system: "The Greek education is a mechanism for forceful mass infusion of knowledge, run by illiterates, by numb and underpaid teachers".
Still, we should also note that Dimou does love his Greek compatriots. Not that he doesn't. And that's exactly why he's so tough on them. Whoever opens his book today, would also find lots of curious facts that have of course been overcome since the book was written. Like what he calls Parkinson's Law: "Two Greeks would need two hours to do the work a single Greek would do in one hour, because of the discord between them". Today the Greeks seem much more united in their demands for the state to keep their benefits indefinitely, despite the harsh economic reality. Or this: "There are two national inferiority complexes at the root of the Greek misfortune. One is temporal - inferiority to the ancestors. The other spatial - inferiority to the Europeans. Unfounded complexes perhaps, but that still doesn't make them any less real".
About the economy, he says "The Greek economy mostly rests upon the shoulders of 30 big companies, in turn all of them depending on a single bank, which in turn depends on the state". In his words, "While half the Greeks are trying to turn Greece into a foreign country, the other half is leaving it". Today, Dimou the sceptic continues writing stuff on the issue of national identity, and makes attempts to explain the lack of self-criticism: "The Greeks haven't experienced any of the events that West Europe has gone through, to be what it has become now. Neither the Renaissance, nor Reformation, the Enlightenment, or the French Revolution. They were just catapulted from the Middle Ages (where they had remained until the Liberation War of 1821), right into the new age.
But, before we hurry to criticize something, perhaps we should try understanding it a bit better. Although it does have a very ancient and awesome predecessor, actually Greece is still a very young country, with less than 200 years behind its back. Even younger than America. Western democracy is something relatively new to the region, as well as the notion of rational organization of society that we se in Scandinavia for example. The good news is that the younger generations might be more inclined to thinking rationally. And meanwhile Greece isn't going anywhere, even though it might have to pass through enormous challenges. If it draws its lessons from all this trouble, so much the better. But let's not expect that everything would change overnight.
I really liked yesterday's post about Turkey. It's a vibrant society, an emerging economy, etc. Whereas Greece is in deep trouble. But why? Why is there such a huge difference? Well, I've heard all sorts of explanations for Greece's troubles - from the burden of Ottoman legacy, to corruption, to the Mediterranean mentality. But the author of the above book argues that the root cause is elsewhere - in history.
Citing the "mainstream" reasons for Greece's big fail, like clientelism, corruption and laziness, is probably insufficient for explaining what's happening in the country. After all, there are many other countries where clientelist structures are also well visible without this necessarily stopping them from pursuing successful policies. And corruption, as we know, was never a Greek monopoly. It doesn't make sense to speak of a "typical Mediterranean lifestyle" either, or a perverted national mentality caused by the long Ottoman rule, manifesting itself in hatred for statehood and tolerance for cheaters and frauds. I mean come on, Greece has been independent for 180 years and is one of the oldest European civilizations. So the lack of time for overcoming the old legacy can't be used as a primary factor for explaining the Greek deficiencies and flaws. The reasons must be elsewhere.
The story goes like this. It all started at the beginning of the 19th century, just before the foundation of the modern Greek state. At that time the Greek society was anything but homogeneous - both geographically and socio-culturally. There were vast regional discrepancies between the various regions dominated by Greek populations. Apart from the "classical Hellas" (where the Greek state was later founded), we're also talking of the coastal regions of West Asia Minor, also the Black Sea coast of North-East Anatolia, the thousands of Aegean islands, etc (see the red color on the map).
There was also a well established urban elite, tightly linked to the Ottoman state and gravitating to the capital Constantinople. Those were the so called Phanariotes, a merchant class that made their fortune from trade, and being friendly to the Ottoman rulers. And then, let's not forget the many Greek diasporas throughout Central and East Europe, from Venice to Trieste, from Vienna to Bucharest, from Odessa to St. Petersburg. All of them gave a significant push for the formation of a united Greek "national movement".
In result, the following happened. The newly founded independent Greek state (liberated in 1822) with a population below 1 million included only a tiny part of all Greeks, most of them remaining outside its borders, the bulk of them still Ottoman subjects. Until as late as the turn of the 20th century, Constantinople remained the much more significant center of Greek politics than Athens itself. So it's no surprise that, given these conditions at the beginning of its existence, the Greek state had a rather modest integration impact on the Greek society. But there's also another reason for that: the creation of the Greek state pursued a plan that by far transcended the goal of mere political autonomy for the Christian population around the Aegean.
Under the influence of the various European pro-Greek circles, the establishment of this state was intertwined with grand ideas of a Hellenistic revival, and that was often interpreted as a big victory for European civilization over Orientalist barbarianism. This way the national emancipation of the Greeks was ascribed almost historic significance. Meanwhile though, the Greek state remained stuck in a rather narrow framework - at that time it merely played the role of a static factor.
The Megali Idea that was articulated a few years later, remained the main motivation of Greek nationalism until 1922, and though it was pretty vague in its essence, still it provided much more than just rhetoric and hollow fantasizing. Actually it had real, concrete political consequences.
All further plans for modernization and reform of any Greek governments and social groups (like the plan of Charilaos Trikoupis from the end of the 19th century), always collided with the "National question". The main players at the time were mostly some private individuals, organized in groups and clubs and committees. Typically, they were distanced from the state and feeling alien to its institutions, some even openly demonstrating their disdain for the state. For the advocates of the "National idea" (and at that time those were most Greeks in and beyond Greece), the state they had at the time was too small and too narrow to be able to contain the whole "Grand (Megali) Greek Idea", so there was no way it could be a source of national pride and inspiration.
So the discrepancy between grand pretense and harsh reality took almost grotesque proportions. It reached a point where attempts were made to solve the "National question" by bypassing the Greek state altogether - for example under the form of the so called "Hellenistic Ottomanism", a plan to gradually Hellenize the remnants of the Ottoman Empire. It even caused a bloody war where Greece was the aggressor - and lots of pain for both the Greek and Turkish societies, and many evils and grudges for decades ahead. At least it provoked Turkey to self-reform. But did Greece transform? The author argues: not so much. So it's logical to ask the question, why should we be looking at the Ottoman legacy in Greece mostly through the prism of a "foreign yoke"? It doesn't make much sense, does it?
Ever since, the cursory, or even non-existent loyalty to their own state (and statehood as a whole) has remained a typical trait of the Greek society - including in the 20th century. The reason for the specific Greek flaws should therefore be sought mostly in the conditions that existed at the creation of the new Greek state and the forming of the modern Greek society.
And there comes another useful book on the subject, Nikos Dimou's The Misfortune of Being Greek. Quite an old book, but still very relevant today.
Ever since it came up for the first time, it has caused both enthusiasm among readers, and the hatred of the Greek ultra-nationalists. Which is no surprise, since it contains such nice sentences like, "The Greeks look at their own state in a way as if it's still a Turkish province. And they're right". And his opinion about the Greek Orthodox Church isn't much more flattering, either. He wrote that the Church has been a loyal servant to many masters, and "The other nations have their religion. We have our Popes".
But Dimou's book is not just full of witty remarks. It expands on the idea that, if misfortune is to be defined as a mismatching of desire and reality, then the Greeks should definitely consider themselves the unhappiest people in the world: "If any nation originated from the ancient Greeks, they should by definition consider themselves unfortunate. Unless it could either forget the ancient Greeks, or surpass them". Obviously, he means that it's a hard task trying to compete with your ancestors if they had been so awesome.
And though the attempts to forget the ancients are not always so unsuccessful, the new Greeks, in Dimou's opinion, are a people without a face. "And not because we don't have faces. But because we dare not look in the mirror. We have reached a point where we are ashamed of our own face. We hate ourselves because we're not tall and blonde, and because we lack the classical stature of Hermes of Praxiteles. We hate our neighbors because we look very much like them".
Dimou, who has lived abroad for a long time, including in West Europe, has looked at his compatriots of the 70s and saw victims of an outdated education system: "The Greek education is a mechanism for forceful mass infusion of knowledge, run by illiterates, by numb and underpaid teachers".
Still, we should also note that Dimou does love his Greek compatriots. Not that he doesn't. And that's exactly why he's so tough on them. Whoever opens his book today, would also find lots of curious facts that have of course been overcome since the book was written. Like what he calls Parkinson's Law: "Two Greeks would need two hours to do the work a single Greek would do in one hour, because of the discord between them". Today the Greeks seem much more united in their demands for the state to keep their benefits indefinitely, despite the harsh economic reality. Or this: "There are two national inferiority complexes at the root of the Greek misfortune. One is temporal - inferiority to the ancestors. The other spatial - inferiority to the Europeans. Unfounded complexes perhaps, but that still doesn't make them any less real".
About the economy, he says "The Greek economy mostly rests upon the shoulders of 30 big companies, in turn all of them depending on a single bank, which in turn depends on the state". In his words, "While half the Greeks are trying to turn Greece into a foreign country, the other half is leaving it". Today, Dimou the sceptic continues writing stuff on the issue of national identity, and makes attempts to explain the lack of self-criticism: "The Greeks haven't experienced any of the events that West Europe has gone through, to be what it has become now. Neither the Renaissance, nor Reformation, the Enlightenment, or the French Revolution. They were just catapulted from the Middle Ages (where they had remained until the Liberation War of 1821), right into the new age.
But, before we hurry to criticize something, perhaps we should try understanding it a bit better. Although it does have a very ancient and awesome predecessor, actually Greece is still a very young country, with less than 200 years behind its back. Even younger than America. Western democracy is something relatively new to the region, as well as the notion of rational organization of society that we se in Scandinavia for example. The good news is that the younger generations might be more inclined to thinking rationally. And meanwhile Greece isn't going anywhere, even though it might have to pass through enormous challenges. If it draws its lessons from all this trouble, so much the better. But let's not expect that everything would change overnight.
(no subject)
Date: 1/11/12 14:36 (UTC)Re the last para-
Having spent so many words to describe the discrepancies and diversity of 10-million country, how can we be serious talking about 'western democracy'??
(no subject)
Date: 1/11/12 14:50 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 1/11/12 19:07 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 1/11/12 19:40 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2/11/12 02:32 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2/11/12 08:18 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 1/11/12 15:52 (UTC)Turkey has also had a leadership that's decidedly been determined on pursuing the basis for ultimately being in a position to boost their power outward. Greece, since its civil war in the 1940s and the misrule of the military dictatorship that followed in the standard US definition of 'freedom', has had neither homogenous leadership nor any real economic basis outside the tourism industry, which is no basis to build geopolitical power projection from unless you're Singapore or Hong Kong and small enough to genuinely benefit it.
(no subject)
Date: 1/11/12 16:54 (UTC)Meanwhile there's a lot of negativism being poured on the Greeks, especially in the German media recently. They're depicted as chronic liars, cheaters, born thieves and slackers. Moreover, the German media are using some pretty nasty language to make their point, language that even Angela Merkel has employed in recent times!
There's no doubt that the Greeks can blame themselves for the quagmire they've gotten themselves into, but there are also other factors that contributed to the financial collapse. Like the speculations of various finance jugglers, including huge entities like Goldman Sachs who were supposedly helping Greece to defraud the EU (http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/greek-debt-crisis-how-goldman-sachs-helped-greece-to-mask-its-true-debt-a-676634.html) and lie about its deficit, while holding a knife in the other hand behind their back and betting against Greece (http://georgewashington2.blogspot.com/2011/07/goldman-bet-against-its-european.html). The Germans should probably investigate a bit more into the incredible machinations and all that sweet Geschäft carried out by some German banks who were actively trading Greek bonds, or the Siemens affair with the bribes (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siemens_Greek_bribery_scandal), etc etc.
So here's another book that I'd recommend, "Greece, A Portrait of a Country" by Eberhard Rondholz (http://www.ekathimerini.com/4Dcgi/4dcgi/_w_articles_wsite6_1_15/06/2012_447328). He sure does describe all the errors that've led the Greeks to this predicament: the lack of tax morality among the populace, the insane expenses of the state, the rampant corruption, the shameless self-enriching of the elites at the expense of the people. But that's only one half of the whole picture. A couple of years ago, when the true state of the Greek economy became evident, the German foreign minister Westerwelle visited Athens to push the Greeks to buy 60 fighter jets worth almost 4 billion Euros (http://www.zerohedge.com/news/greece-spends-bailout-cash-european-military-purchases) with the bailout money. Hmmm, WTF?
Rondholz describes the useless Greek-Turkish arms race and speaks of an absurd situation: Greek and French politicians pressuring both countries to buy more weapons, which the two fellow NATO members would then point at each other while France and Germany were making fat profit, all the while the elites in Berlin and Paris being in the know about the danger of a state default for Greece. Indeed, Greece is maintaining a huge and useless army of tanks (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_equipment_of_the_Hellenic_Army#Main_Battle_Tanks) which is nearly twice as big as the Bundeswehr - most of it originating from Germany itself. WTF, indeed!
I see you're interested about the subject, so I strongly recommend this book. Here, they have it in Deutsch too.
http://www.amazon.de/Griechenland-Ein-L%C3%A4nderportr%C3%A4t-Eberhard-Rondholz/dp/3861536307
(no subject)
Date: 1/11/12 17:22 (UTC)This guy Rondholz apparently does. :-)
(no subject)
Date: 1/11/12 17:24 (UTC)There are exceptions, yes. Shocking as it may be.
(no subject)
Date: 1/11/12 18:24 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 1/11/12 17:37 (UTC)By far the most important factors for failure. When farmers drive Porsches bought with the money from subsidies they're supposed to use for improving their businesses, while cooking oil is being imported from abroad in a country that's traditionally the world's best at olive production, then something is definitely fucked up beyond repair.
I know what will happen. Most of the Greek debt will eventually be scratched off the books, and no one will learn any lessons from the whole thing, because Greece will be allowed to sell some assets and save the day, and go on like ever before. It has already begun.
Meanwhile, the attitude to the state, and the level of social and fiscal responsibility won't have changed a iota. The grey sector will continue to dominate the Greek economy, and the word "baksheesh" that you started your yesterday post with, will continue to be very popular.
And the Greeks will still be rioting on the streets and blaming Goldman Sachs, every time someone tells them the bill has arrived. You guys north of the border would better prepare to draw some benefits from the situation. I'm sure many Greek entrepreneurs are already flocking in.
(no subject)
Date: 1/11/12 17:45 (UTC)And yes, no change is sustainable when it's imposed artificially from outside and when it happens suddenly. In order to fully learn their lesson, the Greeks would have to walk the whole road by themselves. But they won't.
(no subject)
Date: 1/11/12 17:51 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 1/11/12 18:18 (UTC)The story of arms corruption is not limited to Greece. South Africa is also a victim of the racket.
(no subject)
Date: 1/11/12 18:11 (UTC)BTW, I am a big fan of the German academy. It has a tradition of excellence that goes back to the days of Alexander Humboldt. That is not to say that all of its stars are brilliant, but the best ones hold their own in the academic constellation.
(no subject)
Date: 1/11/12 19:10 (UTC)Though I must admit, I have weakness for the German education, too.
(no subject)
Date: 1/11/12 19:15 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 1/11/12 19:23 (UTC)You might be interested in watching, I recently came across it:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IHeBr1BsuJw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D4Kwyqu188g
At some point he's speaking of Greece, too.
(no subject)
Date: 4/11/12 21:06 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2/11/12 01:57 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 4/11/12 21:35 (UTC)He describes his inspiration for the novel about 2 minutes into the interview: