Village resurrection

Katerina's gift

Clouds on the crags above us and on the mountains to the south, the view toward the sea opaque, glowing with trapped light, puddles in the street, ‘our’ cats sharing a shanty box of Lin’s making, others sheltering under parked cars, the sound of rain on new greenery, on roofs, streaming down the path beside the house, gouting from downpipes, dripping loudly from roof gutters onto the neighbour’s plastic sterna, soaking (or re-rinsing in soft water) Mrs L’s washing and, annoyingly, a succession of slow drips from a join in our stove pipe. “I didn’t need to water the plants last night” said Lin, waking to the change of weather. It’s been pouring steadily since early morning, damping the ashes of Easter barbeques; such forbearance after a Monday as warm and clear as we’ve enjoyed this year. I took John to his plane for Athens (and on to Australia via Heathrow) while it was dark on Monday morning, Annie with us till Wednesday. She and Lin have gone into Corfu town to shop, well dressed for the wet, while I’m trying to complete Jonathan’s bid with a note describing the uses of our proposed research:

‘Our intervention is oriented towards encouraging user reflection about power relationships in the network arena and the strengths and weaknesses of the network mechanism as a vehicle for citizen empowerment...

From me:

Dear Jonathan. Here are my additions to your draft on impact. I hope you can make sense of them. I’ve also added two files to this e-mail describing the option I’ve taught regularly on our graduate programme in case these are of interest – especially the goals. I like the way you include the iterative and inclusive nature of this approach to capacity building – involving as many as possible, including those filmed, in an exploration of power relations at what may be an asymmetric interface. Sometimes I feel that when it comes to capacity-building I should be focusing on my own experiences of political campaigning – for parks, allotments and earlier involvements – assisted by, for instance, Saul Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals and all the guidance on involvement in non-violent public protest associated with such things as the anti-road building campaigns of the early 90s, not to mention all the texts linked to ‘10 Days that Shook the World’ (:)) We are engaged in something that seems like finessed versions of this material. Best S

From Jonathan:

Simon. Thanks for both of these documents. I will update and forward the budget stuff to Jason to work into J-ES, when we'll see where we are. Alinsky's stuff is interesting. Did you see this piece on the G20 protests by George Monbiot? Best J

* * * Yesterday, Easter Monday, I took gifts round to the neighbours and, as usual, returned with more than I’d brought – delicious carrot cake topped with strawberries, soft bread from the church, sweet ouzo soaked figs, and the red egg on which Mrs L had shown me the trick of cracking each end with its twin, saying ‘Kristos Anesti’ at each tap. Mine cracked both ends; hers remained whole. Young Mrs L, over a Greek coffee in their sitting room, mentioned the vexed loss of our side balcony (μπαλκόνι). I asked her the word for ‘stupidity’ – ‘vlahas’ “βλάκας” – and repeated the word with appropriate gestures. “I promise it will be restored” I said, rubbing my finger and thumb with the need-for-money gesture. (I’m determined we should do this). We exchanged animated gestures of astonishment at human folly, muttering “βλάκας” again. “Why take it away?” “Akrivos. Yiati?” I replied (“Ακριβώς. Υιατί;”) “βλάκας” we agreed. “Balcony!” she gestured gently “You say ‘Calimera’ to the street!” Talking about this to Lin, explaining to Annie, how the English builder for the previous English owners had built on the large wooden balcony overlooking a panorama we love, but, in the process, removed the stairs on the side of the house leading to first floor french windows and a smaller balcony that overlooked Democracy Street, the neighbours and the path below - substituting private space for what had been public; especially as, until Lin replanned the upstairs room, the new wooden balcony could only be entered from a bedroom. “We must get a plan and an estimate” I said “I’ll ask around – possibly Thanassis S or Kostas A – might know of a photo from Ano Korakiana archives. There are quite a few old photos on the village website…but this all happened so recently. Hm. I’ll see if Mr Leftheris can do a sketch from memory.” * * *

Map of the village of Ano Korakiana

Koliopoulos and Veremis in their recent history - Greece: The Modern Sequel:

The Greek village, that repository of what city people like to think of as traditional customs and values, has ceased to exist except in the minds of some anthropologists. (p.215)

At about eleven on Monday morning we could hear the band playing somewhere at the foot of the village and so clambered quickly down the path and steps below Sophia and Nico’s house to the junction of the lower road with the Kato road to see the Monday celebration just arriving at the tight corner to assemble briefly, before proceeding eastward in the direction of Agios Markos. How, we wondered can they circle the village this way? Surely they’ll need to double back, but a few hundred yards down, on our left, came a steep small road signed as a cul-de-sac. Saving breath, band, priests, resurrection bier carriers walked swiftly up the incline to a small church we’d not seen before on St Jacob’s Street, which, seeing it’s tiny width off the upper road, we’d thought stopped at a private frontyard. Not so. After greetings, kisses and embraces with a family waiting by the church the procession exited on Democracy Street, at one of its narrowest points among the houses of Venetia – Little Venice - the procession reassembled and with four priests in white plainchanting, then giving way to happy music from the band, headed down through the cypresses, past the defile, to the car park where a choir of women from Fiaikon Demos, in smart suits, joined the parade and inserted - between the band’s playing and the priests’ prayers – a slow ‘Christos Anesti’ hymn, in which others joined, Lin humming its lilting refrain. As with passion we all have our resurrection – a moment of immeasurable happiness – behold I tell you a mystery…brought to heart with sweetly crafted ritual, bridging generations, passed between family, friends and strangers; celebrated in music, song and words - the village’s hope chest. One could do worse on so jocund a morning than amble along Democracy Street, holding hands (“What is it? 36 years you and I’ve been together”), between grassy banks, leafy olives and stone walls, beneath spring-flowered balconies, in the wake of such respectful joy. As the procession returned to the lower road we were amused to smile again at faces we’d passed on the upper road, of people who’d walked through one or another of the many paths that wind between the two chief roads of the village. What had me brimming with content was to feel not quite a stranger “Lin, Annie!” I boasted, “that’s the twelfth person I know well enough to shake hands and say Kronia Polla even if I’m not sure of their name.” Nico on the lower road introduced a friend, touched the centre of his forehead and said “Χέρις!”. I learned later from Nico, who is related to him, that this was Sebastian Metallinos.

A wet day in the Midlands

Cycling to Dudley the other day to run a workshop for the council, I folded my bike and caught a 74 bus which stopped for a moment over the motorway, and I thought how the cartoonist Carl Giles had this gift for evoking a wet day in an English town. I like this chilly grey damp; the bright shop fronts above reflective streets, the tear of motorway traffic pushing up spray, the damp dog smell of Harris Tweed inside the bus and the memory of dank railway station platforms. * * * Patras 12 December 08: A video of the broadcast from the occupied station SuperB Patra, a major TV station of Western Greece. The station was occupied by demonstrators and students. After the broadcast the station was left to continue normally. * * * * Email from Iason Athanasiadis:

Dear Simon. It's been some time we hadn't been in touch and I wanted to write and see how you are. Needless to say, I've continued reading your writings, even as my year at Harvard finished and I moved to Istanbul (which felt like the best thing to do). Now I'm working on a project for the Pulitzer Center on contemporary Turkish society and preparing a show of my work in LA about Iran . Also writing about the recent riots. One of the most interesting aspects of this whole business - aside from the youth Intifadah side of it - is how Greeks are calling it an imposed Velvet Revolution from the side of the West. Have you heard anything about this? How are you and how is the teaching going? Warm regards from Istanbul. Iason

Dear Iason. What a pleasure to hear from you – as good as a landmail message from a friend hitting our doormat on this rainy day in Birmingham. I’ve not “heard anything about this” but my deep curiosity is redirected. Listening to Malcolm Brabant from Athens on BBC R4’s ‘From Our Own Correspondent’ second story – 7 minutes into the programme) talking about Karamanlis and whether the international press are over or underplaying the crisis, shortly after your mail arrived – the ‘velvet riots’ phrase was used, but without reference to ‘imposition’. (conspiracy theories are proliferating tho’) Brabant argues for the significance of the unrest – “a cluster bomb of grievances against deep flaws in the Greek state”...”a highly educated generation living in an economy that is practically feudal.” He also mentions Karamanlis’ reference to the ‘pimps’ - the toxic hidden influence of the quiet powerful – he’s failed to counteract. “Statesmanship is not an abundant quality among Greece’s political establishment.... The stone throwers are just discovering their own strength – who knows what they might achieve...” I am also interested in the views and facts of Nikos Raptis (e.g. his thoughts on parecon) on Friday...I’m an engaged spectator hungry for understanding about what is unfolding in Greece. Thank you for your story in the Washington Times. We wait on the moment So far as teaching and research are concerned – you may notice, on my blog, attempts to embed videos of political-management conversations I’ve been collecting over 30 years, with explanatory texts. This is a specialised endeavour for the benefit of people who'll be working in UK local government – but I’ve always had difficulty making this material accessible outside the lecture room. This is a shame because I am intrigued by the minutiae of conversations that make government. The issue is less technical (though I’d like to improve the quality) than legal. University lawyers get worried about having research material on YouTube – even though the most august figures are now using it as simply an extended part of the public domain. Now I must mend a puncture in my bicycle and venture into the festive streets of my own city. How many of students in Athens will be going home for Christmas?. Kindest regards. Simon

* * * An e-note at the Foreign Policy Research Institute website article by Cornelia Tsakiridou, a philosopher at La Salle University in Philadelphia about current Greek myths...

'that those in positions of authority cannot be trusted; that the rebellious and poor have a monopoly on justice; and that problems facing the nation are caused by obscure international enemies and their domestic operatives... Despite attempts in the national and international press (among them Le Monde and The Guardian) to give a deeper dimension to the Greek riots and to offer a mix of elaborate psychological and sociological explanations, the truth may actually be rather plain. The riots happened because the legal mechanisms designed to protect the public interest remained idle. The reasons are not difficult to surmise. First, in Greece the public domain is the designated arena of political and personal advancement. Thus, except in rhetoric, there is effectively no concept of public interest to uphold and defend. There have been no counter-demonstrations demanding that the violence, looting, and destruction stop because they are against the public good. Second, many in the public apparently sympathize with the rioters’ stance that state corruption justifies state disruption. Third, an increasing number of Greeks across the political spectrum believe that the riots are the result of sinister foreign designs too powerful for any Greek government to deter... As the majority of New Democracy supporters have conceded in recent polls, blame falls squarely on the Karamanlis government for failure to restore law and order and maneuver conniving opposition parties, PASOK and especially the radical left SYRIZA (whose hand in the riots is all but certain) into a show of unity. But even if against all odds Karamanlis proves resilient and survives this crisis, the mindset that made it possible and the dangers it poses for the country’s internal security and stability will persist.

'Blood brings blood': The courage to be liberal

'Blood brings blood and more blood' - a line from the work of the poet and diplomat George Seferis quoted in the first chapter of The Greek Civil War: Essays on a Conflict of Exceptionalism and Silences (King's College, London) organised and edited by Philip Carabott and Thanasis D. Sfikas. On the front page there's a black and white photo, dated 1948, of a boy balancing on a railway line. If he lives he'll be my age. Work is being done which could not be done earlier. Having found Mark Mazower and his co-writers, then John Koliopoulos and Thanos Veremis, and earlier the reference to George Seferis, I've now found Carabott and Sfikas. These fascinating investigations led by Greek academics inside and outside Greece is not popular in some quarters. Last night, on getting home from the West Country, I came across a review - the only review - of Greece: The Modern Sequel. I won't quote it all here since it's bookmarked (above):

A new anthropologic specie has planted its roots on the Greek soil that of the graecosaxon liberal historian. Its main traits are neutrality, a tremendous effort to accommodate everyone's needs and wants, by massaging events, distorting the true and cutting and pasting facts .... It is a book full of elegant lies, half truths, but not the brutal truth ... the British blockade of the Mediterranean was the major cause of starving the Greek people to death. (Robin Waterfield: Athens). Blockade that was enforced selectively to target the Greek people, while the Vichy France had all the Mediterranean supply routes open ... We will never learn who are these hypertrophied corrupted babbits*, their attributes, theirs connections and by what tide of times are washed out to mortgage the future of Greece. The chapter on ideology is so fraught with self hate and reflects so a desperate attempt to please Fukuyama or Huntington that we leave the review of this chapter to the psychiatrist ... The sorry arrogant egomaniacs pseudohistorians still remain as formidable a force in rewriting Greek history as the Corleones ever were in the Mob politics of Godfather ... this existence is more than enough to unleash the banality of Mob historicism and thus become a mouthpiece of the Orwellian Neo-History in the era of globalization

. My response:

How depressing it is to read the first review on Amazon of a book that attempts to tread so gingerly through such a politically charged field. This uncivil polemic claims that "a new anthropologic specie has planted its roots on the Greek soil that of the graecosaxon liberal historian." The authors are accused of "distorting the true and cutting and pasting facts". The reviewer has no tolerance for ambiguity; no hint of Tolstoyian confusion amid the fog of war. Against the evidence, he says the writers "never miss an opportunity to denigrate the Greek people". The idea that someone describing the country he or she loves might be self-deprecating, able to acknowledge that his country is not always right, seems outside the reviewer's moral scope, as is the paradox of unintended consequence and the work of fortunae in human affairs. The authors are accused of writing "a neat essay with a priori thesis and all loose ends tied together". In fact loose ends are regularly acknowledged by these authors, but if you can't achieve coherence you shouldn't put pen to paper, and certainly not seek a publisher. The reviewer continues. This is "a book full of elegant lies, half truths, but not the brutal truth." Here we go again - the fundamentalist who 'knows'. Such people so loath the uncertainty that is part of Popperian science that some have coined the oxymoronic slander - 'liberal inquisition'. How this reviewer hates the 'L'-word! Not for him the struggle to control the inescapable risk of bias or the conscious evasion of assumption based on class, origin, gender and all the other reasons for being opinionated in matters of high importance; no respect from this reviewer for the care brought by Koliopoulos and Veremis to arriving at a working approximation of what might have happened over the two centuries of their study of Greece; no sense that the authors are the first to admit that theirs is one of many interpretations - a sound working hypothesis; the nearest any of us can ever get to truth. In that humility the reviewer sees a disingenuous attempt to flatter as many readers as possible, rather than the caution of minesweepers. The reviewer excoriates "disconnected historians". Could it be that the most courageous researcher, even as he or she picks through shallow graves is struggling to see clearly through the haze of their own tears? ['But, the bravest are surely those who have the clearest vision of what is before them, glory and danger alike, and yet notwithstanding, go out to meet it' Thucydides] Contemptuous of the authors' liberalism, the reviewer criticises them for it accusing them of having "erased ... all references to leftist terror", claiming "no one word is uttered about the killing fields". I'm not sure we were reading the same book - or did Amazon edit a review copy? I challenge the reviewer to number the page where the phrase 'heroic communists' appears. The review increasingly loses direction in the way abusive rants can wander into capitalised words, underlined sentences and serial exclamations, followed by the non-signature of a poison pen. These "hypertrophied corrupted babbits*". Long words. "The chapter on ideology is so fraught with self hate and reflects so a desperate attempt to please Fukuyama or Huntington that we leave the review of this chapter to the psychiatrist." Longer sentences. Wasn't accusing people of being insane a way to attack the curiosity and doubt that accompany research? This unknown reviewer finds open-mindedness unforgiveable. The spirit of Socrates' accusers lives. "The sorry arrogant egomaniacs pseudohistorians still remain a formidable force in rewriting Greek history as the Corleones ever were in the Mob politics of Godfather." It was a great film but an innaccurate comparison. History is forever being rewritten with pen and paper or with keyboards on screens - hardly devices of the Mafia. "The banality of Mob historicism". Do I spy spittle at the reviewer's mouth? This book is "a mouthpiece of the Orwellian Neo-History". Koliopoulis and Veremis are doing what Winston did for Orwell's Ingsoc, serving totalitarianism: "If you want to imagine the future of humanity imagine a jack boot stamping on a human face for ever." Somehow I don't see Veremis and Koliopoulos, or for that matter Mazower and his co-writers or Carabott and Sfikas and their co-writers doing the goose step, joining in the morning hate and gazing on a benign portrait of Big Brother. This is not a perfect book. How could it be when we are still debating the Peloponnesian War and the veracity and method of its historian? Koliopoulis and Veremis have striven to be loyal to their fascinating subject without being partisan. The book's freshness is reflected in a number of typos - miniscule blemishes easily corrected in a second edition. I'm grateful the authors have striven to reach a vantage point that makes sense to a wider readership in this contested area. Neutrality is impossible and, if it means disinterest, undesirable, but some professional detachment is honourable when sifting through scenes so drenched in blood. Simon Baddeley

*'babbitts' - from the Sinclair Lewis character Art Babbitt, referring to timid, uncultured, middle-aged, middle-class businessmen.