[BTW Steph, happy to hear that the skink is doing well and seems to be rather busy!]

It reminded me of my father who immigrated to the US in 1970 and continually whined: “God, do I miss Greek coffee”. He stayed there for many, many years and always had a rant that even though he bought imported greek coffee it still “didn’t taste as good”. I think he was using this as an excuse to reminisce his former life in Greece, the cafes and his friends.
When he finally “returned to the homeland”, 30 years later, he’d ask my Mom: “Don’t we have any REAL american coffee?” My mom would just shake her head and roll her eyes.

Σε βρισκω να βαζεις ταμπελες,

σε κατι που δεν του αξιζει,

κανε τον κοπο , και ξαναπερασε

το μπλογκ της ΝΤΙΒΑΣ,

ισως διαμορφωσεις καλυτερα

την αποψη σου…………………

== Ζ ==

Another question I’d like to make is why does her place of birth have to do with the problems she describes ? (I always say Iceland, just to confound people). Only Greeks have he right to comment about Greece and the rest of us have to keep our mouths shut, even though we pay taxes, provide useful services and do our best to fit in ?

I often wonder what I’d miss if I ever decided to emigrate. On reflection a good cup of tea would be among the first things, along with my local spit and sawdust pub.

There is a qualitative dfference in criticizing Greeks for yelling all the time, for driving like morons, for idiosyncratic business practices, and in criticizing Greece for allowing/forcing some of its citizens to live in dire circumstances. You will not find many Greek-bashing British expats who give a toss about the Roma. Diva’s writing has a different nature, it’s unfair to classify her with the rest of the chattering set. And I think it’s a bit much to compare her writing with the threat of military force.

Diva does not hold up British values as something all Greeks should emulate. She does hold up basic, universal values of humanity. In this day and age, it’s shocking to see that an entire category of Greek citizens is obliged to live in the 12th century. There are very, very few Greek reporters who will go out and report on a story like that, it’s just way below their radar.

So, yes, old colonialist habits need to be spotted and condemned and I’m sure there are blogs for people who just want to complain about the bloody Greeks. This isn’t that.

I think that if you’re criticising something you better be sure you are well-informed about the object of your disapproval, because in the absence of knowledge, what remains is prejudice; what remains is melusina who defends her right to ‘criticize what we aren’t used to’ – as good a definition of racism as I’ve heard in a long time.
Yes, I think ex-pats in Greece, or anywhere else for that matter, should be very careful about condemning the country they live in. These people should be even more careful if they come from countries like England or the US which have a continuing tradition of traipsing around the world telling other people how to live their lives and bombing and shooting them when they don’t pay enough attention.
DD defends her right to fight, without regard to borders, against ‘injustice’. It is not a totally invalid argument. I just point out that it is not so different an argument from that deployed by Bush and Blair in the so-called ‘war on terror’ and by every other colonialist and imperialist there’s ever been.

As for ‘the image of an Englishman dismissing the locals with a well-cut turn of phrase’, you’re right, I agree, it is distasteful. Why do I need to think about it for a minute?

If we Greeks are the only ones who can see ourselves and our country’s problems clearly, then we need glasses. Everyone develops a certain tunnelvision in the place where they live, we tend to blind ourselves to things we prefer not to think about. I’m sure there’s lots of weird stuff in London that you don’t see until a Greek friend says something. But I dare you to come live in Athens for a while and not notice the shit. Bet your blog would be more critical than this one.

Greeks have a tendency to keep their worst problems in-house (that’s to say there isn’t an English translation) and we are not the only ones. But Greek newspapers are bursting with articles and opinions about all the problems every single day. There’s not enough ink in the world to print all the bitching. Corruption, white collar crime, black market, profiteering, you name it. Even one TV screen isn’t enough to hold all the yelling, we’ve developed picture-in-picture into high art.

And yet the problems persist. I can’t think of any one problem - like corruption, like price-gouging, LIKE PARKING!!!!, let alone racism, sexism, etc.. - in the last 15 years that has been resolved. There is an indolence and a ridiculously short attention span here that allows this stuff to go on and on and on. After a while, society as a whole stops being a victim and becomes an accessory. The tunnelvision closes in. We need outside voices to provide some perspective and well, you know, kick some ass.

You are right that there is something really distasteful about the image of an Englishman dismissing the locals with a well-cut turn of phrase. Think about that for a minute.

Much ado about nothing dude. Chill out.

As for “There are plenty of nice things about Greece too. Just give me a few days to think of something” – if I were to go to India or Jamaica and say this I would be accused of racism and bigotry. I thought this site was for people trying to fight perceived racism and bigotry in Greece, not a platform for those who think Greeks are a ’safe’ target for their prejudices.
‘Whenever you hear anyone abuse the Jews, pay attention, because he is talking about you.’
Franz Fanon said this in reference to how uncomfortable he – a black man from the Caribbean – felt when his French friends indulged in anti-semitism.
He knew that you cannot be an anti-semite without being anti all other races too.
Thus, if you think it’s funny to be bigoted against Greeks, then I believe, after Fanon, you think it’s funny to be bigoted against black people, Chinese, Asians and so on.
I enjoy reading this site – otherwise I would not bother to contribute – but I do think there is a lot of self-satisfaction here, people willing to challenge others’ beliefs but not their own, people who proclaim they are devoid of prejudice when in fact they have displaced it, found other means to express it.