Greek Issues to:>internet byzans-l@mizzou1.missouri.edu While the author is know to me, I don not necessarily agree with what he writes. However, I thought at least some of the issues discussed might be of value to subscibers of this list. ---- Of Current Issues Regarding Greeks by Aleximenes Athenian society is xenolatrous and rightist while the countryside is xenophobic and rebellious. Central highlanders have a strong obsessive, libertarian streak while the plainsmen of Peloponese and Thessaly have a strong paranoid collectivist streak and the islanders tend to be histrionic. The Kolonaki-Psykhiko-Spetsae crowd used to run the country through informal grapevine of pastry shops (Floca, Zonar,Papaspyru, Vyzantio). Athens was hardly urban when it was chosen as the capital, yet it now uncomfortably holds half the country. Greeks are herd instinct voters, and vote for "their" side rather than issues or current events. Greek attention to politcs is also highly superficial, allowing politicians to easily cover economic disasters with calls to arms. The xenophobes are more opposed to a non-Greek-blood king than to the general concept of a king. Xenolatrists even speak in an accent that is more Italian than Greek. Curiosity is for the Greek such an all-consuming passion that it makes him resentfully intolerable even to his own family, let alone to scholars trying to understand him! In this way the Greek polarises all and Greek politics cannot deviate from its zero-one mentality. Every Greek believe that he must not just win an argument or election, but that he must totally extinguish all traces of opposing views. By his very nature, the Greek cannot rest if his presumed student has even the slightest doubt about his lesson! For the Greeks, victory never comes because victory must be total. Meanwhile the Greek is so busy dreaming up ideas and convincing others of them that he can never build them; the Greek is forever cursed to watch others do what the Greek first connived and dreamt of! Not only was democracy born in Greece, but the Byzantine Senate had to approve all laws and heirs, and even impeached emperors; the best known involved the impeachment of Justinian II and his replacement by his secretary Artemius who became Anastasius II. Town hall meetings at the Hippodrome also participated in Byzantine governance. The Roman constitutional framework regarded the empreror as an elected magistrate, but this was hypocritically administered in the west, while the east was incredibly and legalistically true to the tradition, which it grafted to the Athenian democracy of Pericles. Russian Tsars likewise followed this tradition with their Assemblies of the Land, (the choice of the Romanov dynasty was by constituent assembly) until Peter the Great chose to imitate the latinist absolutism of his French counterparts. Emperors were pluralistically from various constituent ethnic groups, not just Greek. Genoan and Venetian successors to Baldwin's Phraggocracy revived Hellenism in order to make Orthodoxy appear an ethnic variant of Vaticanism but in this they were strongly opposed by Kadakuzinos and St. Gregory Palamas - so the main competing ideologies are really (red pagan) Hellenism vs (democratic Christian) Byzantinism. Unfortunately, many in the West now believe the current residents of Greece only marginally related to the Ancient Greeks. But all one has to do is compare classical statues to the ladies in rural, tourist-free beaches, and see that not only their torsos, but even their toes match. Raiding peoples tend to be fewer than those they raid (except sometimes in cities, such as Smyrna) else Turkey's residents would look more like those that gave them their mongolian language, than the Semitic Anatolian Hittites that the Turks and Greeks conquered. In this way, it is ironic that Greeks still fight Anatolians, but now call them Turks instead of Trojans. Likewise, Slavic invasions of Greece in the late first millenium, appearing massive to visiting foreigners, hardly left the genetic and lingusitic imprint suggested. Western universities study Greek with Latin, and hence suffer latinist biases which the Vatican uses to claim better knowledge of the faith. W Sydney Allen wrote a book called Vox Graeca to which he gave a latin name to match his book on latin; his failure to use a Greek name should alone make one suspicious. Allen is so insistant in promoting his latinist bias, that when coins from India contradict his theory on the pronounciation of ypsilon, he simply dismisses it because it contradicts his latin evidence. He likewise ignores Hebrew-Septuagint evidence. Ypsilon is Allen's most blatant deviation from the Greeks, but his other claims, though widely accepted in western universities, are equally farcical. One may observe the Hindu word maya, meaning magic, which is pronounce thusly in Greece today, and not magia as the latinists pretend. This argument on marginal relatedness has recently been manifested in the arguments over Macedonia, the Oblong Dorian Province, "Makos Doristi", which was originally totally within the Alyakmon and Eriyon rivers, which today are entirely inside Greek borders. Despite Herothotos and Thukythithis writing that Alexander qualified as an Argive Temenid Greek to play in the Olympic games, many in the west have fallen to a ploy invented in Bulgaria after the defeat of the Treaty of San Stefano, a ploy well documented in the 1971 text by USA foreign servants Steve Palmer and Bob King. Since Aristotle was a Stayeran Macedonian, a century ago, the Bulgarians claimed his native language was Slavic Bulgarian, despite Bulgarians not arriving in the Balkans until 679 AD. Whereas westerners refuse to believe modern Greeks are related to ancient Greeks, many of these same historians insist that Albania is somehow the continuation of ancient Illyria. Yet the Greeks left a paper trail, while Albanians left almost none. The first recorded Albanian language was by Vaticanist missionaries finding opportunity just prior to the fall of Constantinople, yet Albanians did not write Albanian until this century. Moreover, Greek Albanians, called Arvanits (who see their toungue as a proto-Greek mountain dialect), have no trouble communicating with Ukranian or Italian Albanians, yet cannot understand the Turkefied and Latinised dialect spoken in Albania. Albanians were aboriginal highlanders turned into a master soldier race by the Ottomans by including the dervish janissary children stolen from other Balkan peoples. Just as Russia was ousting one brand of Turks, the Tatars of the Golden Horde, Greece was conquered by another, the Ottomans. (The Manchus of China and the Mughals of India were also Turks.) The defeat of Serb Stefan Dushan at Maritsa River marks the start of the end, except for fifty year delay via death of Murat; Constantinople fell 29th May, 1453 - date of eternal infamy. Russia continued to battle the various Turks for several centuries, building its southern empire, finally reaching the Ottomans. Russian ethnic Greeks like the Princes Ypsilanti, foreign minister Count Capo d'Istria (Istria was Croatia; first Greek president), and Averoff-Tositsas encouraged a natural Russian support for their coreligionists. Although only Russia declared war on Turkey during the Greek liberation, Britain and France also supported them somewhat. Balkan liberators form Philorthodox Etairia included Capo d'Istria, Karageorge, Tsakaloff, Skufas, Xanthos, Genko, Semko, George Olymbios, and the Ypsilandis. Britain trecherously sided with Turkey in Crimea against Russia and after the war, Turkey turned on the Balkan Orthodox still under Turkish rule for revenge; Many Makethonian Greeks came to the USA as a result of this. The Turks gave the British Cyprus as a reward and Britain opposed the union of Crete with Greece. Venizelos led the Cretans to rebellion and union, however, in 1897. Greece increased land area by two thirds with the 1912 addition of Macedonia, Epirus, & Thrace under Venizelos; Having been granted the British-held Ionians and won Turkish-held Thessaly and Epirus earlier. Allies gave Smyrna to Greece for WWI but Greeks massacred after Attaturk revives Turkey; Resulted in compulsory population exchanges, under League of Nations supervision, between Greece and Turkey and Greece and Bulgaria. Skopyan Vardarskans whose relatives were thusly sent to Bulgaria now mistakenly think this somehow entitles them to claim Thessaloniki as theirs. Soviet agitators use Micrasian refugees to export first communist organisation into Greece. 1924-35 Venizelos Republic. Clemenceau brings jarred serpent into League, offering by analogy, to break jar if Byzantine Empire is allowed to be recreated as Balkan Entente; even bringing Albania and Turkey into Entente as common market fails to appease Clemenceau, who considers it an anti-League activity. Unable to form synod because of communists in Russia, churches agree that calendar is not a religious issue, but Greek royalists, seeking western trade, use force against Julian "Old Calendrists", generating their spiteful, schismatic resistance and eventual leftism (in contrast to rightist Russian Julians; USA church now has both Gregorian and Julian parishes under Iakovos but leftist Julian Schismatics set up own Archdiocese under heretic Paisios). 1936 king appoints German-educated Metaxas since politicians unable to form government. Metaxas sets up social security (IKA) and Viglionist (socialist fascist) industrial policy, and pressured industrialists to accept labor union demands, including minimum wage and socialised medicine. Metaxas opposed Italian invasion on grounds of Franco-like neutrality but poisoned by pro-British royalists in 1'41. George Papandreou was wartime Prime Minister, originally hidden in home of industrialist Katsambas, later Cairo & London. Germans kill ten villagers every time one German soldier ambushed. Nazis and reds instigate famines. British Mediteranean Minister Macmillan set up resistance under reds, but as Germans exit, royalists break away, spoiling Churchill-Stalin Yalta deal, thus forcing creation of Truman Doctrine. British planes drop only right shoes to royalists and gold-filled shoes to reds; According to London, 1989 Toltsoy-Addington trial, Macmillan was soviet agent who also betrayed Mihailovich and Vlasov. Papandreou promised reds power-sharing, but tricked them and didn't deliver. Lacking any semblance of military discipline, both sides were inhumanly brutal. More Greeks killed by reds than by Nazis. Red show trials executed thousands for western or royalist tendencies; Families forced to migrate to soviet block by reds holding elders hostage. 1911 contsitution revised 1951 under Field Marshal Papaghos, succeeded in 1955 by Karamanlis, who went into self-imposed exile in 1963 because Queen slapped him for his refusing to pay more for Princess Sophia's Spanish wedding. Katsambas becomes benevolent conduit for Marshal Plan funds. Unstable governments, including 1965 "Aspitha" coup by Andreas Papandreou against his father, George. Acheson plan would have allowed Cyprus to join Greece given 92% plebescite approval despite 15% Turkish minority, but Abp. Makarios cuts own deal as non-aligned; opposed by General Grivas. Papandreou government toppled by defection of Mitsotakis to Karamanli's National Radical Union. Class of 1940B (the 1941 class, graduated a year early; unusually clanish and secretive) takes control but King stages December countercoup and goes into Italian exile. Junta run by Col. George Papathopulos, whose book shows some Metaxist, Fascist, and Socialist tendencies. Group had agreed to try corrupt politicians and quickly restore democracy, but trials forbidden by LBJ; Later, unjailed juntists would point to Evren as example of their goals. Strong economic development program with major emphasis on infrastructure clearly brings Greece into industrialised club. While Greece has highest growth rate in Europe, in 1972, Papathopulos declares republic and plebescite decides four fifths against monarchy, but Polytechnic unrest leads to new coup by lunatic secret police head Ioanithies. Ioanithies, the only real source of torture under benevolent despot Papathopulos, then runs a rein of terror, slapping and demoting respected officers and arresting up to tenth of all Athens. Government nonfunctioning and paralysed, so Ioanithies makes disastrous grab for Cyprus, partly understandable given Makarios allowing soviet listening posts and Makarios violating Acheson Plebescite. Kissinger-student socialist Ecevit, needing to cover his own economic mess, sends Turk invasion force, but USS Enterprise blocks Greek flotilla and USA arms shipments to Greece turned out to be just stones. Turks, condemned for napalming women and children, reply at UN that Greeks are known to kill with bare hands. Turks ethnically cleanse north Cyprus and import Turkish settlers. Greece temporarily leaves NATO. Greeks turn antisemitic, under the ludicrous theory that Kissinger planned Cyprus as revenge for Greek noninvolvement in Yom Kippur War (no European country took sides, leading to use of Azores refueling). Politicians return under Karamanlis, with 69% antimonarchy plebescite and junta tried with death sentences commuted to life. Karamanlis-Papadreou families linked by wedding of nephew-niece, leading to Papadreou's election in 1981. Just to be sure, Karamanlis joins Greece into EEC before elections. Papadreou expands Arab commercial ties started by Karamanlis, with dubious links to Khaddafy. Arabism pronounced even in music of popular artists like Dalaras. Socialists squander development funds and infrastructure deteriorates to third world status. Mitsotakis, whose mother's brother was Venizelos, eventually succeeds Papadreou and tries to establish a true free market economy on Thatcherite lines, but one in seven drachmas earned in 1992 went to pay for Papadreou cronyist economic squander. Moreover, one in seven drachmas earned by exports went to pay for added diversionary rail mileage due to Balkan conflicts. Elitists, led by shippers, wanted to preserve the uncapitalist third world order and so supported the state socialist Samaras in the destruction of Mitsotaki's majority, bringing the return of Papadreou. [Submitted by: VasosPeter J Panagiotopoulos2d <76530.1430@COMPUSERVE.COM> Fri, 4 Mar 1994 10:42:15 EST] Up