I recently interacted with another Greek fellow who exclaimed in frustration about how, in recent years, groups of people like fascists, monarchists, christian nationalists (that was my interpretation), flat-earthers and other pseudoscience-ridden groups like antivaxxers, homophobes and xenophobes went from being silent and (hopefully) afraid of speaking on their positions in public, to openly and brazenly declaring their allegiances and proselytising. Furthermore, some of them were proud of being all of the above. I should clarify this was my understanding of their words, which I am paraphrasing. I realised through speaking with this person that even though we shared the same perception with regard to those groups’ recent behaviour, we disagreed on whether they had been sort of ashamed of operating in public or generally operating on a much smaller scale, and also we fundamentally disagreed on the role of police in all that. Since we didn’t have a lot of time to speak, we inevitably left dissatisfied, but i thought it would be useful for me to put some words down on paper about my thoughts.
A lot of my perception of how ethnonationalists, fascists, and monarchists operate in Greece has been informed by reflection on my upbringing and events about which I lacked the knowledge and historical context to place inside. I ended up thinking about my schooling and events in my 20s when I was in my 30s or so. I also only got around to looking deeply into pseudoscience and cults in the last 10 years or so, and I did not have the chance to see how conspiracy theories and health fads are connected to hate groups and antisemitic ideology until very recently (2-3 years).
I was raised in Greece, which is a Christian Orthodox state, not secular. I was raised by christian parents in a small christian community since I was age 6-7 and it is not an exaggeration to say that life in Gr is seeped into organised christianity. You cannot drive a route that does not encounter churches on the regular, and especially in small communities the church is a sort of a rally beacon and ceremony that ties people together. Not going to church is both uncommon and abnormal and makes it hard to be part of the in-group. The Greek church espouses some very antisemitic positions and lore, cultivates Greek exceptionalism, and ethnonationalist fairy-tales (see ‘Krifo scholio’, ‘Megali Idea’ and so on). The orthodox christian positions on creation are similarly well-known. As if it were enough to stay out of Sunday service to avoid these, christian proselytism takes place in mandatory Greek school classes. The thin veil of ‘learning about every religion’ is all too recent, barely of legal drinking age. I did not have a shred of critical thinking when, at age 10, I put together an essay on Alexander the Great’s exploits, full of admiration and convinced that throughout the centuries something had been passed on from him to me. Thankfully, I am recovering.
Homophobia was a very mundane “learning curve”: the first time I ever was aware of it, it was because someone mocked a gay man in front of me. It’s very easy for a child to buy into mockery. Participating into shared hatred is the quickest green-flag of them all, even if the trust it buys doesn’t live very long. Even today, in the Greece that ratified same-sex marriage into law, it is very common to mock gay people of all ages for being gay or even any tiny variation in dress code - from whatever idea of dresscode developed in the ether by an amalgam in the form of a Greek Beau Brummell.
I came into contact with pseudoscience in my early days, as well. My grandfather kept a copy of one of Erich Von Däniken’s books, and the fantastical things described inside fascinated me, although at the time I read it I could not verify literally any of it. I would not have internet access for another four or five years, at that point. People around the village I grew up in were all but in open rebellion against agronomists trying to curb waterbed overexploitation, trusted engineers to build a house but not to condemn it due to earthquake damage, and after my closest uncle died my aunt quickly denounced all doctors and turned to whatever shit “eastern medicine” and homeopathy is. Honestly kind of a miracle I escaped this one - I really can’t explain it.
A lot can be written about police and I could not possibly summarise all of it completely. Suffice to say I see it as an institution with no use except to protect power, and I disdain the people in it on a fundamental level. I am convinced that the institution attracts and reinforces pseudoscientific beliefs, is a breeding ground of ethnonationalist doctrine which combined with the power it affords leads into the development of fascists, and the Greek police specifically has a well-documented history of repression, torture, and close links to neo-Nazi and neo-fascist organisations. Therefore, when I hear of the right-wing government expanding their powers and funding, I look at the repression of the press and its freedom, and see them violently repressing all kinds of protests, I consider the police the poster child of all the aforementioned groups. This police violently displaces Roma people inside Greece, oppresses immigrant minorities with any cause and occasion regardless how minor, cracks down on local grass-roots organisations that aim to serve small communities as well as any left-leaning individuals or groups, violently beats up global warming protesters, has killed children that posed no threat other than moderately loud screaming, ordered blanket bans on assemblies with any pretext (e.g. COVID measures), see the commemoration of November 17 celebration of the Polytechnic uprising against the military junta as a chance to beat people up, and now becomes more and more powerful as policing, border control, and prison facilities become integrated under its apparatus (for more, see Jacobin’s excellent 2021 feature).
I have been conscious of Greece’s history for at least four decades now. I think I honestly make the assessment when I say that for the time that I spend inside its borders, I am bombarded on a daily basis with state propaganda, rooted so deeply that the majority believes it to be true, of ethnic Greek superiority and exceptionalism. Somehow trying to coopt ancient Greek culture and ancient ignorance to stand above everybody else. Fed reactionary nonsense on social media that Greeks are a unique and unblemished people, which somehow happened in a country that is a crucial hub between multiple cultures and religions, that has been conquered and held by all sorts of different empires, the words of which we use to this day as we stay away from the awkwardness of their Greek translations. Begged for money from the preachers of a religion which does nothing but ask, extracting coin from people who suffer inequality, injustice, and abandonment from an increasingly neoliberal political system.
It has all become such a commonplace occurrence that I have never had any anger or frustration at it. It has always been there since before I was conscious of it, and so it’s just what the world was, for me. I can’t make anyone see into my mind, and unfortunately I lack the power to express what I actually think, so I will never be able to convince anyone of it, even the people closest to me who trust me with any other thing. For instance, I forgot to go into how pseudoscience and fascist mythology go together. I could recount events but what use is that? That is already done by reporters and book authors and I hope they have an effect, I could never do it at a better level. I just have this sinking disappointment when I hear someone claim these things have become more commonplace, that they are not aware of the scale that these things have been happening around us for decades. Of course, they are correct that some things are happening “out in the open” now, much more brazenly after a right-wing government gained legitimacy by practically eliminating their political opponents and any sign of a Greek middle class. They truly are in the process of consolidating political power, and it’s good people are perceiving this. However, I fear that with an incomplete knowledge of the problems, and how intertwined they are, we are bound to once again stop short of dealing with them, once the immediate issues and dangers are addressed.
I wish I could put some book suggestions here. But first, I’d have to track them down, and one of the recent “wild”fires has claimed my library. Pulling titles from memory is not something I’m able to do at the moment, when intrusive thoughts about a life that is now gone pop up. Hope everybody else has better days.
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