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The Forum > Article Comments > Without Greece there is no Western civilisation > Comments

Without Greece there is no Western civilisation : Comments

By Evaggelos Vallianatos, published 28/11/2011

Humiliating and punishing Greece by the West is matricide.

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I've often heard it said that the Greeks still think that the world
owes them a living, for what their ancestors achieved 2000 years ago.
This article kind of confirms that.

But at the end of the day, it was the Greek people who lived beyond
their means. It was the Greek people who dodged taxes and retired
early. It was the Greek people who elected corrupt politicians.

Now that the chickens are coming home to roost, the Greek people
have to accept that they are responsible for the consequences of
their actions and its pointless trying to shift the blame somewhere
else.
Posted by Yabby, Monday, 28 November 2011 10:25:02 AM
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Evaggelos Vallianatos wrote 28 November 2011:

>The West has always been perplexed by Greece ... modern Greeks, are they really Greek? ...

The North Eastern Mediterranean contributed much to western civilization, but this has little to do with the modern Greek state.

In 2008 I attended a wedding at Palaios Panteleimon, a village near Mouth Olympus, in "Greece". I started from Istanbul and traveled clockwise through Turkey, across the Aegean, Athens, Delphi, up the spine of Greece and back to Istanbul: http://blog.tomw.net.au/2008/07/malaysia-turkey-and-greece-technology.html

My first surprise was that Istanbul was a civilized and prosperous city, (with mosques which looked like Greek churches): http://www.tomw.net.au/travel/istanbul.shtml

The next surprise was that the Greek islands off the Turkish coast were previously Italian. The islanders have had to adapt to the customs of whichever external power is dominant at the time: http://www.tomw.net.au/travel/rhodes.shtml

"Zorba the Greek" turned out to be from Crete, with author Nikos Kazantzakis was born in Heraklion (Crete) when it was part of the Ottoman Empire. I visited a recreation of his library: http://blog.tomw.net.au/2008/10/zorba-greek.html

On the way from Delphi to Mount Olympus, I stopped at Thebes (Thiva), which has not recovered since being sacked by Philip II, father of Alexander the Great. In his book "Philip II of Macedonia: Greater than Alexander" (Potomac Books, 2010), Richard A. Gabriel argues that Phillip II created a unified Greece by bringing the Greek city states under Macedonian control: http://blog.tomw.net.au/2011/07/phillip-ii-of-macedonia-has-lessons-for.html

When I got to Palaios Panteleimon, I found I was in Central Macedonia. Traveling further north, Greece's second city Thessaloníki, turned out to be the capital of Central Macedonia. Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, is named for a Macedonian teacher, who came to fame later in Athens. From Thessaloniki it was an overnight train ride back to Istanbul: http://blog.tomw.net.au/2008/07/excellent-thessaloniki-to-istanbul.html

After this trip, my suggestion for dealing with the Greek financial crisis is not to distance Greece from Europe, but to bring it closer, by allowing the Republic of Macedonia and Turkey to join the European Union. This would then allow more trade across the current national boarders, restoring ancient trade routes.
Posted by tomw, Monday, 28 November 2011 10:39:42 AM
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Ancient Greece and its legacy to Western civilisation has, like Rome, been vastly overrated.

The Greeks pinched democracy off the European Celts, who had been running their societies as egalitarian mini-republics with elected chieftains for at least a millenium before the Greek classical period. The supposed legacy of classical Greece to the West has always been the insular preserve of the European artistocracy, who used the ancient Greek and Roman empires as blueprints for creating their own. Europe's lower orders, on the other hand, remained attuned to the egalitarian ways of Old Europe.
Posted by Killarney, Monday, 28 November 2011 12:23:52 PM
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Unfortunately for nations as well as individuals, glorious achievements in the past don't make up for rational behaviour and good economic management in the present. Just ask all the geriatric rock bands who are still touring the RSL clubs in order to pay their alimony and child support bills.
Posted by Jon J, Monday, 28 November 2011 12:29:40 PM
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Agreed Killarney,

We could also say that without...

The Minoans, The Romans, the Etruscans, the Babylonians, the Sumerians, the Arabs, the Indo-Europeans, the Phoenicians, the Persians, The Indians, the Chinese, the Germanic peoples, the Celts...there would be no Western Civilisation.

The Greeks didn't invent democracy (they don't seem to understand it) it's really an invention of NW European culture.
Posted by mac, Monday, 28 November 2011 1:52:38 PM
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Well said Mac.

I'm just gobsmacked by the author's claim that without Greece there'd be no Western civilisation. Unless, "western civilisation" is a euphemism for 'catastrophic financial crisis'. In which case, I agree completely.
Posted by David Jennings, Monday, 28 November 2011 2:42:37 PM
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