GREECE: GLORY AND SHAME

Stroll down town Athens and ask any of the Greeks strolling along if they are proud
of their country. Yes is how your question is answered. Ask what it is that makes
them proud and they gesture towards the Acropolis saying that Greece gave the
western world its civilization, its culture. Ask what other contribution Greece has
made to the world and they are quick to answer…the 2004 Olympic games, the best
ever staged Olympics, they add. Talk to many Greeks of various ages and
backgrounds about twenty century achievements and they become thoughtful at first
(obviously because they are at a loss to put their finger on something specific) and
then you get various answers. The impression you get is that (and that’s interesting)
many are proud of Greece’s contribution to the allied effort in WWII. Talk to a
number of Greeks about this and the story unfolds as follows: At 6 in the morning of
October 28. 1940 The Italians invaded Greece. Although vastly outnumbered and
poorly equipped the Greeks pushed back the Italians and advanced in to Albania, then
an Italian dominated country, battling the Italians nearly half way to the Albanian
border with Italy, prompting Winston Churchill to state in the House of commons
that: from now on History will write not that the Greeks fight like heroes but that
heroes fight like Greeks: to this day the Greeks talk about : the Albanian Epic : But
Hitler became impatient with the failure of the Italian campaign which had delayed
his plans for more than five months; he ordered the advance of his armies down
through Yugoslavia, which was overrun within three weeks, and through, German
ally, Bulgaria. The Greeks thus found themselves defending their country all along its
borders with Bulgaria and Yugoslavia, from Thrace to Macedonia and up in to
Albania, a battle front stretching hundreds of kilometers and pounded by the
Luftwaffe. They were overwhelmed.. But it was not over. The British were in Crete
and together with Greeks fought the Germans fiercely, but there too they were
overwhelmed by the German superiority in numbers and firepower. The six months
delay to Hitler’s plans was of invaluable importance to the Allies. GLORY be to
Greece.
A few Greeks remember that long before the war ended there was an attempted
mutiny in the Greek fleet stationed in Alexandria, from where it and the remnants of
the Greek Air force, one hears, continued the war at the side of the British. The
mutiny was of a limited scale and was quickly dealt with. But units of the Greek
Army, formed with the hundreds of Greeks that were continuously slipping away
from German occupied Greece, also staged a mutiny forcing the British to confine
them in barb wired camps. Instead of focusing on the war effort they were swayed by
p o l i t i c s. In German occupied Greece two guerilla forces were fighting the
German and Italian occupation forces, both supplied by British air droppings. The one
was loyal to the Greek Government in exile the other was loyal to its communist
supremacy cause. When the allies, including Greek Forces, landed in Italy it was of
vital importance to impede the Germans from rushing their army and equipment from
Greece, where it had concentrated, to Italy. The most expedient way for the Germans
to rush to Italy was by rail through Yugoslavia, but to do this they needed to secure
safe passage through Northern Greece. The British had to drop an officer to convince
the two guerilla forces to collaborate, not an easy task given that the communist
guerilla force had attacked a unit of the loyal to the Greek Government force and put
most of who it captured to a tortuous death. Fortunately for the war effort the officer
succeeded and parts of the two forces collaborated in the destruction of the only
bridge over which the Germans could move, to the detriment of the German defensive
of Italy. In the midst of war against the invaders of their country the communists were
also warring against fellow Greeks… p o l i t i c s above all else. SHAME for Greece.

By October 1944 the Germans had pulled out of Greece. December 1944, while the
war was still going on, a communist offensive started in Athens. They were in a hurry
to take control of the country and so a civil war started later which went on for years.
While Europe was licking its wounds and reconstructing the Greeks were tearing their
country down and savagely treating one another. SHAME for Greece.

Smart, enterprising and industrious, that the Greeks are, they caught up with the rest
of Europe, even becoming a member of the Euro zone, but not before going through a
7 years dictatorship of an army junta, which put an end to the political turmoil of that
time and created the mess in Cyprus. To its credit, it moved the country forward,
economically, (but backwards politically). Again p o l i t i c s had become so
contentious and damaging to Greece that it took an army intervention to settle things.
SHAME for Greece.
The history of Greece has always been shaped by disunity, rivalries, fractious politics.
The GLORY that was Greece was really city-states (Athens-Sparta-Thebes etc) with a
common ethnic and religious foundation, language and culture. They united their
forces triumphing over a common enemy, but they also fought one another…Athens
versus Sparta primarily. Even when Alexander the Great formed an army of all the
Greeks to invade Asia, reaching as far as India and creating a huge Empire, the
Spartans did not join.
Fiercely independent and cherishing freedom the Greeks, nonetheless, spent 368 years
under the Turks before starting their war of independence, enticed and supported by
Greeks who had gained distinction and riches in other countries, most in Russia. It
seems that indifferent, as they may have been, to others outside their communities
they had made their lives tolerable by creating, each community, a working
arrangement with the local Turkish lord. It took Greeks of the Diaspora to unite them
to a common cause, a revolution. Even after gaining their independence they carried
on in their usual ways…divisive politics which makes for substandard governance a
malfunctioning state mechanism, no vision, no consensus…problems. In 1893 a short
71 tears after independence Greece declared bankruptcy. SHAME for Greece.

Presently Greece has avoided bankruptcy thanks to its Euro zone membership. How
did it get so close to catastrophy? P o l i t i c s as usual, a corrupt, grossly
incompetent public mechanism, yet better paid than the private sector, bad
governance unbefitting a member of the EU and the Euro zone, as it became evident
lately, acute lack of common sense and party-centered policies. True to form the
politicians of Greece continue their nihilistic approach to the task. Polls have clearly
indicated the national mood which is lack of faith in politicians and institutions, low
credence to the media (!) pessimism and a lack of orientation. If a new breed of
politicians can emerge, devoted to the good of the country, knowledgeable, capable,
inspiring, motivating, who can set about curing the country’s problems and step by
step altering the Greek frame of mind from highly individualistic, that it has always
been, to one of consensus and collaboration, then the talents of these gifted people,
that they are (witness the success of Greek scientists and academics who thrive in
conditions of meritocracy and acclaim of achievement

abroad…absent such conditions in Greece to a great extent, also witness the success
of Greek ship owners whose activity spans the globe and is not much affected by the
state of affairs in Greece and the success of, alas a few, internationally oriented
Greeks) these talents will bring a change of face, restore the tarnished reputation of
the country and create wonders that will bring again GLORY to Greece.