As
Greeks look inward, they see a country that produces nothing of value
and is inferior to the rest of the world - despite evidence to the
contrary. The country has been mentally colonized, with outside
powers convincing the Greeks that they can do no better.
by
Michael Nevradakis
Part
9 - A losing battle
Greece, like
other countries of the Mediterranean, is a country whose people have
a flair for the (over)dramatic. Sensationalism rules the roost, and
in times of crisis, that sensationalism is of a highly negative,
toxic nature. A brush fire near a historic site, for instance, is
portrayed by yellow journalists and bloggers as the “DESTRUCTION OF
A HISTORICAL MONUMENT.” An increase in imports of seafood—likely
due to overfishing in the Greek seas—is headlined as “THE DEATH
OF GREEK FISHING.” This scaremongering easily permeates the psyche
of ordinary Greeks.
Exaggerations
in the opposite direction are made about everything happening in the
“civilized” countries. There is no crime – police officers
patrol every corner. There is no nepotism or corruption – all these
countries operate as total and complete meritocracies. Public works
projects never go over budget, media outlets aren’t irresponsible,
football fans never turn violent, higher education and university
campuses are models of perfection, and all these countries are, of
course, fiscally responsible and elect only politicians who care,
first and foremost, about the best interests of their country and
their people.
Constant
comparisons are made to the perceived or real shortcomings of
anything that is done in Greece with statements such as “oh, in the
civilized countries, this is how it’s done.” In none of these
countries are there economic difficulties, poverty, or homelessness,
while Greece is, as one individual recently kept insisting to me, now
a “third-world” basket case for these very reasons. I must have
imagined all the homeless people that were an everyday part of life
during my years in New York City or, say, my 2013 visit to Brussels!
In such an
atmosphere, it’s no surprise that most faces I see on the street in
Athens seem to have etched into permanent frowns. It’s not a shock
that suicides – once rare in this sunny Mediterranean nation with a
pleasant climate – have skyrocketed and are in a sense lionized,
viewed as an unavoidable inevitability and a heroic act of
“resistance.”
Meanwhile,
real resistance on the streets and the picket lines is conspicuously
lacking, as it mostly has been since early 2012, when the second
memorandum was rammed into effect. Five years later, Greece has now
enacted its fourth memorandum, or “bailout.” Protests are largely
confined to spasmodic, isolated grievances – such as over measures
permitting retail shops to operate on Sundays – which are
ineffective, quickly forgotten, typically have low turnouts, and
easily broken up by riot police if needed.
The entirety
of the political representation in the Greek parliament is pro-EU and
pro-Euro, even if this is couched in slightly different rhetoric from
one party to another. Voter abstention has sharply increased in
Greece and is likely to increase further. A significant amount of
voters have given up – and many are simply waiting for a “savior”
to arrive, or be imposed – from above, or from outside the
country’s borders.
Here, divide
and conquer rears its head again: between “Europhiles” who
believe Greece’s place is “in Europe” (where would it go,
Antarctica?); those who desire closer alignment with the United
States, NATO, and Israel; those who fall into some combination of the
first two categories; and those who believe that Russia, Vladimir
Putin, and the BRICS countries are Greece’s “saviors” despite
there being absolutely no evidence that this is the case.
This divide
mirrors, in many ways, the post-war left-right, fascist-communist
dichotomy which resulted in the civil war and the deep societal
wounds which followed, which was further exacerbated by regimes such
as the U.S.-backed “regime of the colonels” between 1967-1974.
Notably, none of these positions foresees a Greece that will stand up
on its own and assert its sovereignty. It’s assumed and ingrained
in the national psyche that Greece must be aligned with some power,
operating as a vassal state in exchange for some marginal benefits
and “protection.”
Just as with
the claims that Greece “doesn’t produce anything,” we see
nationwide Stockholm Syndrome in action again: Greece cannot survive
without being ruled from outside. In the meantime, collective guilt
abounds in Greece; guilt that frequently leads to shame, which often
results in hopelessness or depression, as evidenced by the alarming
increase in suicides. Throughout Greece, one encounters abandoned
automobiles and motorcycles, left on the street, often with personal
belongings still inside and license plates still attached. No effort
is made to even attempt to sell these vehicles, even for scrap.
Storefronts
are abandoned, often for years at a time. Mail piles up inside,
garbage piles up outside, and the owners of these properties can’t
be bothered to make an effort to clean these properties and make them
presentable, if for nothing else than out of respect for neighbors
and to prevent the neighborhood’s further decline into blight. Just
in my neighborhood in Athens, a bookstore has been closed for a year
or more, its books still on display in the window, covers slowly
fading from exposure to sunlight. Nearby, increasingly petrified
baked goods remain in the window of a suddenly shuttered bakery.
Newly-closed businesses invariably post signs in their window
announcing “renovations.” This is an attempt to “save face,”
as these signs are quickly replaced by “for rent” signs.
Increasingly, Greeks are not just giving up, they’re throwing in
the towel.
Jean-Paul
Sartre once famously stated that “a lost battle is a battle one
thinks one has lost.” The tragic reality in Greece today, most
Greeks, beaten down by the crisis and by the effects of what can be
described as savage globalization, are plagued by feelings of
collective guilt, self-loathing, hopelessness, feelings of
inferiority, and apathy. The “inferiority” of Greece and the
Greek people, and their “guilt,” are accepted as “facts of
life.” It is, therefore, no surprise to see Greece ranked fourth
worldwide in Bloomberg’s misery index for 2017.
When one
believes they have lost a battle, that means that they also recognize
some other entity as the victor. In the case of Greece, that victor
could be recognized as the EU and countries considered by average
Greeks as “superior” and “civilized.” Writing in 1377, North
African historian and historiographer Ibn Khaldun provides us with
insights which could help explain Greece’s “xenomania” and
nationwide Stockholm Syndrome today:
“The
vanquished always want to imitate the victor in his distinctive mark,
his dress, his occupation, and all his other conditions and customs.
The reason for this is that the soul always sees perfection in the
person who is superior to it and to whom it is subservient. It
considers him perfect, either because the respect it has for him
impresses it, or because it erroneously assumes that its own
subservience to him is not due to the nature of defeat but to the
perfection of the victor. If that erroneous assumption fixes itself
in the soul, it becomes a firm belief. The soul, then, adopts all the
manners of the victor and assimilates itself to him. This, then, is
imitation.”
It is,
unfortunately, this very imitation that one observes in
crisis-stricken Greece today. A society where the majority whines and
complains, or simply gets up and leaves, but does not demand. A
nation that is demoralized; defeated; consumed by hopelessness;
devoid of pride, self-respect, and self-confidence; paralyzed by
fear; hampered by ignorance; and gripped by feelings of inferiority,
cannot deliver change.
This
situation, of course, suits the powers that be magnificently. A
society of self-loathers, a nation that is defeated and demoralized,
will not pose a threat to those responsible for that oppression,
while other “civilized” countries reap the ancillary benefits of
the crisis, as the economic beneficiaries of the mass exodus and
“brain drain” from Greece. This is savage globalization in
action.
In other
words, Greece is a prime candidate for, in the words of Oscar López
Rivera, the kickstarting of a decolonization process. His words may
have been intended for Puerto Rico, but they are similarly applicable
to Greece. But will the people of Greece heed Oscar’s words?
***
Source,
links:
Related:
Comments
Post a Comment