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
4 - Greece: The worst in everything?
Contributing
to the general sense of helplessness and hopelessness is a
commonly-held view that Greece and Greek society are inferior to the
“civilized” – as they are often called – countries of the
West. This inferiority complex deeply pervades the Greek psyche and
every aspect of present-day Greek society.
Such a
mentality has long been present in Greece. Successive waves of
immigration out of Greece throughout the 20th century and into the
1970s resulted in a mentality which still lingers, that the “grass
is always greener” overseas. With the onset of the economic crisis
in 2008-2009, a new wave of emigration out of Greece commenced and
approximately 600,000 individuals left Greece during this period.
This new wave of emigration has resulted in the re-emergence of these
old mentalities.
Old
attitudes die hard, and in hearing many Greeks describe their
country, one detects an overriding attitude, a prevailing sentiment
that views Greece as a “banana republic” and “uncivilized”
and that everything is better overseas in the aforementioned
“civilized” countries of Northern Europe and the West. There is
indeed a Greek word for this mentality: “xenomania,” literally
meaning a fascination with anything foreign. Xenomania is rampant in
Greece: ranging from the use of “Greeklish” instead of the Greek
language, to the all-encompassing preference for seemingly anything
foreign, from food to music to fashion.
A common
refrain that is heard in Greece whenever anything negative occurs in
the country, no matter how minor or inconsequential, is that such
things occur “only in Greece.” These assertions often reach
epically absurd proportions.
In February,
a horrific car accident on one of Greece’s national highways
resulted in the death of four people, including a pregnant woman and
her three-year-old child who were sitting in an automobile parked at
a rest stop. Immediately, a chorus of comments was heard throughout
the traditional and social media about how terrible Greece is in all
aspects. An ex-race car driver and current driving school owner,
known popularly as “Iaveris,” stated on national television in
response to the tragedy that “Greeks are the worst people in the
world,” a remark which was met with overwhelming agreement in
Greece’s public discourse.
This same
“logic” is regularly and consistently applied to every real or
perceived negative story, event, or facet of life in Greece. Cost
overruns on a public works project? Only in Greece! Government
corruption? Nowhere is it worse than in Greece! Major bankers and
politicians going unpunished for their crimes? Only in Greece!
Destructive forest fires? Football fans rioting? Doctors practicing
medicine without a license? Workers being obliged to work unpaid
overtime hours? Crooked taxi drivers that overcharge passengers?
Cruelty towards animals? Small businesses that don’t issue a
receipt for a minor purchase? Unfair judicial decisions? Low quality,
sensational media outlets? Garbage strikes, or strikes of any
variety? You get the point. Apparently, all of these terrible things
are the exclusive traits of, exist in, or occur only in Greece.
Compounding
this confounding line of thinking, most Greeks seemingly do not want
to hear anything contradicting these widely-held beliefs that Greece
is a corrupt, worthless, useless nation, the worst in anything and
everything. Evidence or arguments to the contrary are not ordinarily
received in a positive manner.
Indeed, it
is quite likely that one will be attacked, frequently quite nastily,
for pointing out that, for instance, German aviation workers were on
strike for more days than their Greek counterparts, or that
corruption and crime and violence exists in other developed countries
and are not the exclusive realm of Greece. When all else fails and
they find themselves devoid of a counterargument, a simple “yes,
but we’re worse anyway” serves as an all-purpose catch-all to
continue insisting what a horrible species Greeks are. It truly has
attained the status of a fetish.
Related to
this mindset is a longstanding need for positive affirmation from
“outside.” The opinions of foreigners and visitors to Greece are
held in high regard – certainly much higher than the thoughts of
fellow Greeks. Evening television newscasts invariably accompany
significant stories about Greek economic or political developments
with a rundown of how the foreign press and overseas news agencies
are evaluating these stories.
A favorite
of the news media are the seemingly never-ending “evaluations” of
the extent to which Greece is meeting the fiscal targets set for it
by its “saviors” in the troika of Greece’s lenders: the
European Commission, the European Central Bank and the IMF. Like a
teacher lecturing a wayward student, the Greek media breathlessly
report on the evaluation of foreign bankers and credit rating
agencies, pedantically informing the public whether Greece is a
“model student” of sound finance or not.
Ironically,
when hatchet jobs have been performed against Greece by the
international media – such as during the onset of the crisis, where
numerous foreign (particularly German, British and American) media
outlets published highly derogatory and racist accounts of the Greek
crisis, portraying Greeks as lazy, culturally deficient and reckless,
there was nary a word of organized protest out of Greece. The same
was true in the 1990s, when Greece was, for example, absurdly blamed
by Western media for the TWA Flight 800 disaster and described as a
hotbed of terrorism, or deemed too incompetent and incapable of
organizing the 2004 Summer Olympic Games prior to the event.
The
evaluation of foreigners is valued, so long as they are foreigners
from “civilized” countries which, in the eyes of many Greeks, are
paragons of virtue and rule of law and can do no wrong. By
comparison, Greece is viewed by Greeks themselves as a country that
can barely do anything right.
Even
positive news is often dismissed. Stories of Greek students who
earned an award or distinction are met by comments about how they
should “go abroad” to “save themselves.” A significant
sporting achievement, such as Greece’s recent gold medal in the
European under-20 basketball championships, inevitably leads to
comments such as how “basketball is the only thing that functions
properly in Greece.”
As with
purported self-criticism, so-called self-deprecation is popular in
Greece. Dating back well before the economic crisis, the material of
stand-up comedians and television satire programs airing on outlets
owned by corrupt oligarchs with specific political and social agendas
invariably focused on corrupt, thieving or incompetent Greeks, the
crooked government and the “dysfunction” of “Greek reality.”
As with many stereotypes, there is a degree of truth – but when
repeated ad nauseum, even in satirical form, such portrayals attain
the de facto status of being the whole, entire truth.
Indeed, the
media, just like the politicians, love to foster hopelessness and
despair in the populace, whilst pushing a globalized diet of
programming down people’s throats. Television newscasts frequently
feature stories about Greeks who “made it” abroad, with their
success generally attributed to the fact that they left Greece and
found their fortunes in a “civilized” country. The “success
stories” of those who opened a café in Helsinki or landed a job
with NASA in Houston are touted; accounts of the less successful are
ignored.
Life in
these countries is idealized, and is often accompanied by stories of
the Greek “brain drain,” or of innovative Greeks who found their
entrepreneurial ideas stifled by “Greek bureaucracy”—without,
however, ever performing any deeper investigation into exactly why
the bureaucracy and public sector operate in such a manner. Foreign
movies and TV series further paint an idealized portrait of the
“civilized West.”
Years ago,
pre-crisis, I recall being asked, in one conversation, if my family’s
home in the United States was similar to that of “the Winslow
family” (referencing the TV series “Family Matters”). This
mentality is further reinforced by the experiences of many Greeks,
whose only time spent abroad may have been a shopping trip to London,
a vacation to the tourist attractions of Paris or Rome, or a few
years spent in the artificial bubble of the “ivory tower” of
academia, studying at a foreign university campus.
Exceptions
do exist, and where they do, ridicule oftentimes follows. In a 2011
interview, Greek-American actress and television presenter Maria
Menounos, who resides in the United States, stated her desire of
eventually making Greece her permanent home. Reporting on this
interview, privately-owned national broadcaster Alpha TV—at the
time owned by the German RTL Group—heavily ridiculed Menounos for
her interest in moving to a country whose residents all wish to
leave. Through the tone of its report, Alpha TV portrayed Menounos
(and by extension, anyone else who might harbor similar thoughts) as
delusional, while reflecting the status quo school of thought that
people are better off leaving the country, rather than staying –
or, for that matter, moving to Greece from abroad.
In another
example from 2012, Greek actress Katerina Moutsatsos, who also
resides in the United States, produced a YouTube video titled “I Am
Hellene,” a production which was meant to raise the spirits of the
Greek people and to express some pride that was (and still is) sorely
lacking. The video quickly went viral, soliciting a tremendous
response from the media and the public – largely consisting of
derision, insults, and vitriol. Some accused Moutsatsos of being a
“fascist,” others mocked anyone who would even consider saying
anything positive about Greece.
One
particularly insidious form of conditioning is performed by Greek
sports journalists. Knowing that they are reaching a demographic
largely comprised of young men who are often frustrated and jobless,
and resentful towards the Greek state for obligating them to spend
nine months performing useless and menial tasks as military
conscripts, these journalists, somewhat subliminally, use their
platform to play with their audience’s frustration while delivering
messages meant to further perpetuate the Greek inferiority complex.
For
instance, the beautiful football palaces of England or Spain, the
“well-behaved” spectators, the amazing and superior athletes, are
all touted ad infinitum, which constant references to “corrupt
Greek athletics” and “decrepit stadiums” and “incompetence,”
messages which are taken to heart by a demographic that likely
doesn’t watch television newscasts or regularly visit online news
portals. The behavior of, say, British or German or other European
football fans outside the stadium and outside the country is
conveniently overlooked, while Greek spectators are lectured about
their “lack of civility,” criticisms then parroted by legions of
sports fans across Greece.
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