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Overview
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781908120458 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Oval Books |
| Publication date: | 05/01/2011 |
| Series: | Xenophobe's Guide , #16 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 96 |
| File size: | 543 KB |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
Xenophobe's Guide to the Greeks
By Alexandra Fiada
Xenophobe's Guides
Copyright © 2011 Oval ProjectsAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-908120-45-8
CHAPTER 1
Nationalism & Identity
Forewarned
The Greeks are the personification of contradiction and nowhere is this more pronounced than in their view of themselves. A Greek, speaking to other Greeks about the Greeks, more often than not will be outspokenly critical, even downright rude about how fellow Greeks conduct themselves in any given situation. His pronouncements will be received by his cronies with much head- nodding, appropriate expletives of acquiescence and, further, with even more disparaging remarks. But woe betide the hapless foreigner who takes any line other than that of the classicist Rex Warner: 'If you cannot love the Greeks you cannot love anything.' The same Greeks, who a minute ago were so disparaging of themselves, will turn on him – like a tigress defending her cub – and, while extolling Greek virtues, accuse him of all the sins of omission or commission his country has committed against Greece since the dawn of civilization – and beyond.
It is not that the Greeks do not acknowledge their shortcomings; it is rather that they do not recognise any outsider as having the right to point them out. "When we were building the Parthenon," they might well declare, "you were painting yourselves blue."
Modern Greeks pat themselves on the back because, although they fall short of what their ancestors achieved, they managed to come through a 400-year Turkish occupation (one of the cruellest in history) with their identity, their religion, their customs and their language virtually intact.
However, this occupation prevented them from enjoying the benefits of the Renaissance (for which they provided the means) and precluded their taking part in the Age of Exploration, the Enlightenment, and the Social and Industrial Revolutions. When they threw off the Turkish yoke in 1827 they found themselves not only living in a country that had lost more than three quarters of its former territory, but pitched headlong into the industrial age without the know-how or cash to cope with it. They have been trying to catch up with the West ever since.
The transition was traumatic for Greek psyche. They feel a sense of inadequacy compared with ancient and Byzantine Greeks because they have failed to recreate the 'Great Greece' of their forefathers, and they carry a burden of resentment towards the West. It's a state of mind continually fanned by what the Western world has achieved through the exploitation of Greek heritage, which makes the Greeks feel as if they have been robbed of it. The result is a bizarre inferiority-cum-superiority complex vis-à-vis the West. 'We gave them the light of knowledge and we have been left with the light from cheap tallow candles' is one of their favourite sayings.
On the other hand, nothing shakes their fundamental belief that they are the most intelligent and the most ingenious people on earth, and also the most brave.
So when in Greece, avoid looking down your nose at anything Greek because it will get you nowhere. The Greeks have famously long noses to look down.
How others see them
'We are all Greeks,' declared Shelley. 'Our laws, our literature, our religion, our arts have their roots in Greece.' Yet, until recently, slang dictionaries defined a 'Greek' as 'a gambler; a card-sharp; a cheat; a highwayman' – probably because so many of the refugees who fled to the European capitals after Constantinople fell to the Turks had to live on their wits to survive.
The Greeks' dual personality has fascinated historians and travellers for centuries. Some saw them through rose-coloured spectacles, some through dark, distorted lenses, while others did not see them at all, but wrote as if they did. The laurel goes to an American, Judge N. Kelly, who managed to contain all their contradictions in a nutshell:
'In the tribunal of relentless history, the Greek has always been proven to be less than equal to circumstances, although from the point of intellect he has always had supremacy.
The Greek is most intelligent, but also conceited; active, but also disorganised; with a sense of honour, but also full of prejudices; hot-headed, impatient, but also a fighter. [...] One moment he fights for the truth and the next he hates the man who refuses to serve a lie.
A strange creature, untameable, inquisitive, half-good, half-bad, fickle, of uncertain mood, self-centred, foolish-wise – the Greek. Pity him, admire him, if you wish: classify him, if you can.'
Whatever the case, as former French President Giscard d'Estaing said, "Europe without Greece would have been a child with no birth certificate."
Special relationship
A Greek-American used to hand out visiting cards that stated in bold letters: 'I'd rather do business with a thousand Turks than with one Greek.' On the reverse was the name of his business, in handsome copperplate: Mike's Funeral Parlor.
The word 'Turk' alone raises the hackles of even the most cosmopolitan of Greeks, though what they really detest is Turkey as a concept and not individual Turks. Their reasons are understandable: they have had a surfeit of Turkish treatment since the mass slaughter of Greeks at the fall of Constantinople in 1453.
Throughout the resulting occupation, bands of white-kilted resistance fighters from the Greek highlands staged revolt after unsuccessful revolt. In 1821 they were lucky: they liberated part of Greece, but at a heavy price. 'Better an hour's free life,' ran the revolutionary anthem, 'than 40 years in bondage.' Their slogan, 'Freedom or Death', still rings in Greek ears and their martial songs blare from every radio on emotion-charged anniversaries.
In a second round of warfare with the Turks, the Greeks liberated Epirus, Macedonia and West Thrace, but, after ten years of victories, their campaign in Turkey ended in 1922 in a complete disaster at Smyrna.
In more recent times, the Turkish occupation of almost half of the island of Cyprus added considerable fuel to the embers of the ancient fire, with the result that whenever the question of solving the Cyprus problem is raised at the United Nations, vociferous demonstrators march down the streets of Greek cities in support of the Greek-Cypriots.
Modern Greeks not only behave as if the events of those years happened yesterday, they also blame the Turkish occupation for all the faults in their character.
How they see others
Apart from the Turks, the Greeks harbour little ill-feeling towards any other nationality. In pre-E.U. days they loathed the Bulgarians for their expansionist intentions, but now this is no longer a threat they are busy building factories in Bulgaria to take advantage of the cheap labour. However, they still do not like the F.Y.R.O.M. Slavs (see map) who insist on appropriating the name 'Macedonia' for their country – a dispute as yet unresolved. Nor are they over-fond of the Albanians, who, having managed to capitalise on the Greek Civil War, dragged the region of North Epirus behind the Iron Curtain with half a million Greeks in it. Yet Fate takes unexpected turns, and now these former aggressors are flooding Greece as economic refugees – and the Greeks are busy trying either to assimilate them, or keep them out.
As for other nations, the Greeks have a collective word coutófragi (meaning 'stupid Franks') which encompasses the whole Western world. In all probability the word is a remnant of the 13th-century occupation of Greece by the Franks of the Fourth Crusade – a real clash of civilizations since the uncouth, iron-clad knights crashed into the highly sophisticated Byzantine Empire, smashing wantonly whatever they did not understand.
Of later date are various generalities: the Turks are boudaládes – that is, fat and stupid; or ápisti, meaning 'infidels'; the Bulgarians are gourounomítes, that is, 'pig-nosed', or kommitadzídes, after the especially murderous bandits who roamed Macedonia and Thrace in the late 19th century, trying to coerce the Greek population (then living under Turkish rule) to turn Bulgarian. Bulgarian women did a great deal towards establishing more cordial relations with the Greeks. After the fall of the Communist regime, they came over the border (along with assorted East Europeans) to ply the world's most ancient profession among affluent Greek peasants. Their impact was such that Greek wives demanded the government take preventive measures, while provincial bars and cabarets posted signs proclaiming: 'Tonight: Fresh Bulgarian Women'.
Having now been part of the European Union and the Euro-zone for a number of years, the Greeks avoid calling their fellow-members names, but old generalities endure: the Italians are considered to be macaronádes – 'spaghetti-eaters', meaning good-for-nothings (the Greeks have not forgotten that they soundly beat the Italian army in the Second World War). The French are known for their elegance and culture, but they are seen as 'gigolos' or 'cocottes', depending on the gender, or 'cunning diplomats' (which is not meant as a compliment); the Germans are workaholics, the Spanish are passionate lovers; the Irish are alcoholics, the Scots are stingy, and the English are the embodiment of punctuality but emotionally cold ('cold-arsed' is the word the Greeks use).
Outside Europe, the Latin Americans are either footballers or sexy samba dancers or cocaine barons; the whole of Africa is peopled by lazybones; the Egyptians are illiterate 'fellahs'; the Jews are penny-pinchers, but fantastic bargainers; and the Arabs are all Bedouins who would steal your fingers if you offered to shake hands.
The Americans are 'cowboys' who try to rule the world as if it were the Wild West. The Russians are hahòli, meaning clumsy mountains of flesh; the Chinese are as inscrutable as their language (the Greeks obviously do not say "It's all Greek to me". They say "It's all Chinese"). The rest of the world may go hang.
Surprisingly, the Greeks do not use other nations as the butt of their jokes. They keep the sport in the family, so to speak, reviling each other from province to province, from village to village and from island to island. The Cretans dislike the Peloponnesians, the Macedonians dislike the Rumeliotes, the Epirotes dislike the Thessalians, the islanders the mainlanders, the Athenians all the rest, and so on – until every rock and hamlet is covered.
The international jokes which question the intelligence of one people or another are directed towards the Greeks from Pontos (the refugees from the former Greek lands on the Black Sea). For example:
Q: Why did the prostitute from Pontos who had been in the business for twenty years commit suicide?
A: Because she found out that all the other prostitutes were getting paid for it.
Or, an announcement at the airport:
'The Pontiots are requested not to spread corn on the runway. The big bird will come down without it.'
Greek gypsies are another popular subject because of their penchant for pilfering, their peddling, their innumerable children and their unspeakable dirt.
"Wife," asks the gypsy, seeing in the rear-view mirror that one of his countless brats has fallen off the back of his Datsun pick-up truck, "shall we stop to pick him up, or shall I get you with a new one?"
Long memories
The effort to sustain their identity through adversity has bequeathed to the Greeks a characteristic quite peculiar in modern times, one that could be called 'historical timelessness', or an overdeveloped sense of history. They are aided in this by the well-documented fact that there are instances when you may be reading the works of some classical author – such as Plutarch – and have the impression that you are reading an article in a modern Greek newspaper.
Allusions to events and personages of the past – no matter how remote or obscure – are part of everyday talk, newspaper editorials, radio and television commentaries, popular shows, song lyrics, and so forth. In coffee houses or in sitting rooms, should you mention some current event, invariably someone will bring up comparisons with a much older one and you will find political decisions of the past century being thrashed out, or battles re-fought, with a vehemence and attention to detail (actual or rumoured) generally only to be expected from history professors. One Minister of Education, after a nation-wide hue and cry, was voted out of the Parliament in the national elections because she had authorised a 6th grade history book that toned down the 1922 Smyrna disaster, the fight at the Albanian front in the Seond World War and the Greeks' resistance against the Germans.
The Greeks still call themselves 'Romans' (in colloquial Greek) which just goes to show how long their memories are. They will remind you that the Byzantine Eastern Roman Empire was the only descendant of the earlier, Roman, one and lasted for a thousand years after its Western half had disintegrated – a distinction that makes them feel a cut above the rest of Europe. Indeed, no sooner had the Greeks joined the European Union than they suggested to the European Parliament that the Greek language be adopted for all deliberations.
The fact that history permeates Greek thinking to such an extent does not prevent the Greeks from being open to modern influences. Furthermore, it helps them resist the uniformity of globalization. But it has a darker side: it prevents them from forgetting or forgiving past slights or injuries. For instance, the anti-American feelings that prevail today do not stem from current world politics or any real antagonism towards the United States, but because, back in 1967, the U.S. supported the military Junta (who imposed a seven-year dictatorship in Greece), and then turned a blind eye when the Turks invaded Cyprus in 1974. From then on, the Greeks have blamed the U.S. for anything unpleasant that may happen to them – even bad weather.
CHAPTER 2Character
The character of the Greeks, even at the time of Homer, could best be described as schizophrenic.
Neither education, upbringing nor wealth maketh the man in Greece; nor does their lack produce the knave. From the highest to the lowest walks of life, you may encounter both Alexander the Great (noble, brave, sincere, warmhearted, intelligent, broadminded, generous) and Caliban (mean, cunning, selfish, garrulous, conceited, slothful, envious and greedy) – often in the same person.
Individuality is the chief feature that characterises the Greeks, which precludes any attempt to box and label them as a people. After that comes their temperament which flourishes uninhibited throughout their waking hours. From Achilles (whose wrath caused so much unnecessary slaughter under the walls of Troy) to 19th-century Admiral Miaoulis (who torched the Greek fleet simply because he was at odds with the government), the Greeks give full vent to their emotions and damn the consequences.
This is probably why the ancient sages saw fit to carve their maxims 'Nothing in excess' and 'Know thyself' on the portals of the Delphic Oracle in an attempt to persuade their fellow Greeks to curb their emotions. They were not heeded then any more than they are now.
Individualism
As the Greek joke goes: 'Why is the best business enterprise in Greece a kiosk? Because only one person can fit inside.' The Greeks nurture an outsize ego, which hinders any collective enterprise (unless a national disaster stares them in the face, whereupon they band together in a rare display of domestic unity). They possess an outsized passion for freedom of choice – which has turned law circumvention into an art and has rendered them incapable of comprehending words like 'discipline', 'coordination' or 'system'.
Every once in a while some idealistic prime minister produces plans for re-shaping the Greek psyche from an individualistic and egocentric entity to a more collective-minded and disciplined one. There is little sign that this has had any affect on the older generation, but younger people show glimmerings of change. However, 'I' is still the Greeks' favourite word. When a Greek poses the rhetorical question "Do you know who I am?", he clearly considers himself the centre of the world. He feels as if all the Greek heroes, sages and statesmen of old are ranging themselves behind him and therefore he expects you to pay homage to him. And to them.
Extreme emotion
Self-control – althouh invented by the ancient Spartans – is not only unknown but also incomprehensible to the modern Greeks. They are eager in everything: their joys, their sorrows have no moderation. Enthusia in everything: their joys, their sorrows have no moderation. Enthusiasm comes much too easily to them. They shout, they yell, they rant and rave about important and unimportant issues alike, in happiness and in sorrow. No emotion is considered private enough to remain unexpressed. Their exuberance is often translatedinto a burning need to express themselves in some physical form. All over the world, the Greeks dance when they are happy. They are also liable to get up and dance away the deepest anguish from their heart, in a rhythm so solemn and heartrending it makes expressionist ballet seem joyous by comparison.
"I have a devil inside me," explains Zorba the Greek in the homonymous novel by Kazantzakis. "Every time my heart is at the point of bursting, he tells me 'Dance!' and I dance. And my heartache goes away."
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Xenophobe's Guide to the Greeks by Alexandra Fiada. Copyright © 2011 Oval Projects. Excerpted by permission of Xenophobe's Guides.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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Table of Contents
Contents
Title Page,Nationalism & Identity,
Character,
Attitudes & Values,
Behaviour,
Manners,
Obsessions,
Leisure & Pleasure,
Culture,
Language,
Conversation & Gestures,
Sense of Humour,
Custom & Tradition,
Eating & Drinking,
Government & Systems,
Health & Hygiene,
Crime & Punishment,
Business,
About the Author,
Copyright,