Iason, You're One Crazy-Brave Greek
I've known Iason Athanasiadis for a few years, but we've only met in person a few times because Istanbul is just that crazy and everyone's always too busy to see each other. He's known for doing things that are either brave beyond reckoning or stupidly reckless (his friends debate this); whatever the case, they lead to headlines such as "Wrongly accused of spying for the British, photojournalist tells of his 18 days imprisonment in Tehran’s infamous jail."
He published a piece yesterday about his disillusionment with Greece that's worth reading in full.
Tottering on the brink of default this past week, Greece once again hit the headlines as its government was reshuffled and angry crowds rioted in central Athens.
Greece fiddled statistics to get into the European Union, then over-borrowed to fund the exaggerated lifestyles of corrupt politicians, a pliant and distended civil service and an elite rentier class for whom paying tax was somehow unmasculine.
But rather than shouldering the blame, many Greeks still blame the West, its banks, the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, Zionism and assorted other scarecrows for their travails. Although some blame can also be apportioned at the thresholds of the international institutions that encouraged Greece’s addiction to debt, there are almost no voices asking why, for almost two decades, Greeks knowingly lived beyond their means. ...
Now I live between Istanbul (which is quite close to Greece) and Kabul (which is about right distance-wise). Istanbul is increasingly filling with expat Greeks attracted by Turkey’s booming economy while Kabul is still considered about as exotic a destination for a Greek as Istanbul used to be ten years ago. I’ve chosen suicide bombings, massive corruption and a resurgent Taliban over going back to Greece for the time being because, rather than facing brutal reality, my compatriots’ perception of themselves is still as delusional as was my childhood impression of those 'fanatics' hanging off the stadium walls.
Good piece, Iason, but a question for you--you think Turkey's any different? Or just at a different place in the boom-bust cycle? Because you're talking about a country that sounds very familiar. And I don't live in Greece.
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Apr '11
Re: Iason, You're One Crazy-Brave Greek
Demonstrators hold up a sign saying, “Thank you [Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip] Erdogan” in a YouTube video purportedly filmed overnight in Deir az-Zour, Syria
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wvLD8dEW-SI
Mar '11
Re: Iason, You're One Crazy-Brave Greek
I was recently in Greece for a couple of weeks and I can corroborate Iason's comments regarding the mix of frustration, disbelief, denial, paranoia and extreme anger than many (most?) Greeks have and express against pretty much everyone. About 20% blame the Americans(!), which has been pretty constant for the past 40-50 years. Another 30% blame the Europeans, primarily the Germans. Then there's another 20-30% who are willing to split the blame between Greeks and the Europeans. And then there's the rest who blame Zionists (of whom there have been precious few in Greece since WWII), Masons, George Soros and other conspirators. It is to despair.
On another note, I had dinner with friends who, as a family, visited Istanbul recently, part of an organized tour. They were sufficiently impressed with their trip to show me a ton of pictures. Istanbul was relatively inexpensive, their hotel was very nice, the food was great, the sights were spectacular, the city was clean (at least the parts they visited) and the people friendly.
Oct '10
Re: Iason, You're One Crazy-Brave Greek
Thanks for posting this piece. Applied learning can be very effective when absorbed as an incident to the matter at hand. It allows one to put detail into context in a way that avoids barriers to comprehension. Much as peripheral vision aids in darkness. Might you recognize similar pathologies in Istanbul for the same reason that I recognize them in Baton Rouge? If we tried to apply the full measure of his description to our own communities, we'd reject the image as, at best, a caricature. But presented as a tragicomic diagnosis of Greek decline, it's easy to see that there, but for the present grace of God, go we.
Oct '10
Re: Iason, You're One Crazy-Brave Greek
Truly insightful article from Iason Athanasiadis. Thanks for sharing it! I wonder if we in the US will do any better, as we push our currency and credit worthiness over the edge. Almost no one laments their loss of unearned privileges by recognizing the moral poverty of their own worldview or the profligacy of their lifestyle. It’s so much easier to remain convinced your ‘right’ to those privileges is being taken away by some malevolent force which, concomitantly, cannot be confronted, only shouted about while breaking windows.
Jun '10
Re: Iason, You're One Crazy-Brave Greek
What is the source of the propensity for conspiracy theory in Levantine cultures? I know we have Truthers, Birthers, and the Black Helicopter guys in the US but by and large most people attribute cause and effect very well here. So often we hear from that part of the world that any explanation (the more far out the better) is plausable for any event - except for the obvious one.
Edited on Jun 25, 2011 at 7:04amApr '11
Re: Iason, You're One Crazy-Brave Greek
"change is irreversible. The period when these regimes take their last breath is painful. In this respect, the first priority is security. A mass exodus to Turkey from Syria might bring the option of creating a buffer zone in the region. But right now it is still too early to talk about it." Özdem Sanberk
http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/n.php?n=assad-bound-to-go-says-former-turkish-diplomat-2011-06-24
Will Syria’s Revolt Disrupt the Turkish Borderlands?
"Syria has never officially recognized Turkish sovereignty over Hatay, and as recently as the late 1990s, Syria’s support for separatist Kurds in the disputed region pushed the two countries to the brink of war. Moreover, Hatay’s population has large non-Turkic minorities. There are Christians and Sunnis of Arab descent as well as Kurds; there are also Arab Alevis,"
"there has already been at least one protest in the Turkish border town of Samandag by Turkish Alevis who are against allowing in (mostly Sunni) Syrian refugees to Turkey."
http://www.nybooks.com/blogs/nyrblog/2011/jun/24/turkish-syrian-border/
Aug '10
Re: Iason, You're One Crazy-Brave Greek
Claire Berlinski, Ed.:
How is this working out? I seem to remember there's bad blood between Greece and Turkey.