Training Future Teachers
Published by deviousdiva January 8th, 2008 in Anti-Semitism.Following my post about the Greek Helsinki Monitor and KIS activists who have been targeted by the neo-nazi defenders of Plevris, I would like to offer you some insight into some of the opinions of Professor Maria Tzani of Capodistrian University of Athens (Pedagogical Department of Primary Education) who testified in the trial.
GHM notes that Maria Tzani trains future school teachers at a state university.
Official press release from the Greek Helsinki Monitor (28 December 2007)
“Pedagogy of anti-Semitism and intolerance” by Professor of Education Maria Tzani
When Maria Tzani was asked at the opening of her testimony in the 13 December 2007 trial to take the oath on the Gospel (as is routine in Greek courts), she stated that she would
“swear on the Constitution and the flag.”
Although there is no provision for such an oath, it nevertheless was accepted by the court.
After noting that she “had the honor of having Jewish friends,” she went on to speak of
“cursed Zionism, the intellectual syphilis of the century,” adding that
“I will be the next victim who writes that there is no stone that does not have the seal of Zion.”
Ms. Tzani asked rhetorically,
“was any rich bourgeois Jew mistreated by Hitler’s regime?” and
“do the Jews repudiate their Talmud and Bible, which is incompatible with human rights?”
She then stated that
“Nazism was the creation of international Zionism, as proven by Jewish sources,”
that
“Zionist Jews did not suffer in Hitler’s Germany,” and that
“because there was anti-Semitism – unfortunately – the rich Zionists collaborated with Nazism with the intention of creating a psychological framework so that [the Jews] would not feel guilty and could pressure their little brothers, the financially non-robust Jews, to go and settle in the state of Israel – i.e., for the Jews to move to Israel out of fear.”
About Plevris’ book “The Jews - The Whole Truth” Maria Tzani said,
“A book such as this provides a valuable service. … . When we speak of Zionism, this book is paltry,”
adding that
“In the university auditorium I say a lot more about Zionism… I say, ‘misanthropy, your name is Zion’.”
[These positions inspired the title of this press release.]
In response to the statement in Plevris’ book,
“Those responsible for distorting the history of Greece and thereby putting intellectual blinders on the Greek people ought to be hanged. And if the state cannot do it, Greeks will be found to execute the traitors,” Ms. Tzani replied,
“I have said we should hang four Professors from the Pedagogical School in Syntagma [Constitution Square]. They should be prosecuted, that is,” for their positions.
It should be noted that the National Radio and Television Council, on 9 October 2007, fined the television station Extra Channel 3 with €30,000 for its program of 16 May 2007. The reasoning: “This was a program during which remarks were made such as,
“those people who in any way injure … childhood as well as drug dealers who are not users … should be put to death with a simple bullet to the temple“.
“[This] person ought not to exist, because he will go to prison, will continue doing the same things and I hope with all my heart that there will be convicts serving long sentences … to beat them to a pulp.”
These remarks together with the program’s subtitle ‘DEATH TO DRUG DEALERS AND RAPISTS,’ are capable of encouraging and provoking extreme antisocial behavior” (Violation of article 10 paragraph 4 of ESP ordinance 2/1991, which prohibits programs that aim at or result in encouraging or provoking extreme antisocial behavior).
All of these remarks were made by Maria Tzani.
Read the full press release from the Greek Helsinki Monitor (PDF)
Technorati: greece, maria tzani, education, anti-semitism, plevris
I was given a link to this video on youtube some days ago and i was really appalled by the comments i read and angered by the existence of this illegally filmed video itself.
My first wonder was why the state hasnt intervened yet. Of course that lasted only the two minutes that always takes me to think in what country i am living.
I was shocked by reading this article. The only idea i could come with was: isnt there anyone responsible in youtube with whom one can communicate this information so that he can ban the video and the ips of all those commenting and clearly threatening the lives of people involved?
I am sad. Respect to your site and to those who keep on fighting.
a blue cave troll
You can “flag” a video on YouTube if you think its content breaches the YouTube policies. YouTube does not allow hate speech. You just to have a YouTube account or Google account to flag a video, but it is easy after that. You can give further details by relating it back to the Plevris trial.
Thank you ADV, I will do that as I have a YouTube account. I felt very conflicted putting the link to it here but seeing as GHM sent a full press release with the link I felt OK to do so. I do think it is important for people to see what is going on behind the scenes but will remove the link if necessary. Thank you for your comment and welcome.
Thank you blue cave for taking the time to comment. And welcome to THIS IS NOT MY COUNTRY. Your ideas are correct. Someone should be responsible at YouTube (it’s a problem that has existed from the time it began) for the content and for illegal activity. BUT I do believe that YouTube do not know that this is illegal material. We should let them know?! I don’t think the Greek state even knows about the impact of new media outlets like YouTube, let alone be involved. And I think that even if they did, nothing would be done.
Anyway, let’s flag away, all of us who have accounts. And see what happens…
UPDATE: The flag button does not give the chance to call out illegally shot video. I will write to YouTube tomorrow.
A friend of mine had a meeting with Plevris about 12 months ago despite not being a supporter. What came out of the meeting? Panayota Dimitras and his helpers have been a great service to Plevris and his supporters. Fell right into the trap.
Po, po, Legein. We are not convinced. Sounds like pathetic justification for abominable behaviour to me. Plevris may have got some publicity, but he still has a conviction and a sentence to serve. Hardly a victory for him. Panayote Dimitras takes on issues that most people would prefer to wash their hands of, and gets results. And he sticks with it, year after year after year despite the abuse. I applaud him.
legein, I hope you will expand your comment to explain what the trap was that Plevris set. If you mean publicity I believe that most of the extra publicity that he got apart from that of his supporters, has been overwhelmingly negative.
I totally agree with you, adifferentvoice and I am extremely grateful to GHM and other activists for bringing these difficult cases to court, year after year. There are not so many people who are that dedicated to human rights issues and they do it despite the abuse and the lack of funds or support.
I applaud them too.
Your extreme liberal idealism blinds you from recognising basic human nature. Speak to the ordinary people.
Also, I believe the spelling of Mr. Dimitras first name is Panayote and not Panayota as legein tried with his juvenile games.
Life is miserable for people who have no measurable way to make the world a better place.
Unfortunately, for Greece, glorifying racists just makes the civilized parts of the world shake their head and wonder if Greece truly is ready to come out of the 3rd world.
That’s the difference, Legein. Some of us think that human nature is basically good, with a few rotten eggs. Others think human nature is inherently selfish, and that some people are badly deceived into thinking otherwise. It doesn’t matter who is right or wrong - we’ll probably never know: I know, however, which sort of world I would prefer to live in and see goodness and kindness and unselfish behaviour and love for our neighbours almost everywhere I choose to look, and in the most unlikely places too.
It is a sad day when apparently educated people praise the lowest gutter levels of human nature, whilst mocking those of us who try to make the world a better place. Of course, legeina, there are sadists, rapists, murderers who are “ordinary people” When they commit their heinous crimes, most civilised countries lock them up for life; some, like the USA, even kill them. The intention is to protect decent people from the evil that a minority exhibits. Don’t give us this crap about ordinary people, we are not interested in your cheap arguments.
adifferentvoice and Martin, do you think Plevris, a former secret service operative and fringe right wing player for over 30 years would seek personal publicity for himself as he is getting increasingly frail from old age? No. Book sales are going to increase (I am now interested in reading this book and have borrowed it from my local government sponsored library) and the issue of hate speech laws will become more widely known. One of the common gripes Plevris and his supporters have is that hate speech laws are passed without the general populace knowing a thing. They are snuck through Parliament. The latest goings on at the court house are only going to raise awareness about this issue which Plevris is counting on Greeks to react negatively.
On human nature, please do not confuse the normative with the descriptive. I too have normative views of human nature but when I am trying to understand a societal phenomena I do not confuse the two. A common mistake.
So, just to check that I’ve understood, you make two points.
Your first is that the whole point of writing the book in the first place was to write it in such terms that it would incite a prosecution (with the help of Panyote) which in turn would throw the spotlight on the dastardly way that the government had slipped hate speech restrictions in through the back door, or had restrictions imposed on it by the European Convention on Human Rights. Seems unlikely, and quite a lot of effort for not a lot of result, but if you say so…
Your second point is that I might want the world to be full of nice people, but it actually isn’t, and no amount of wishing on my part will make my normative desires come about, that actually the “ordinary people” in Greece are in favour of hate speech, and specifically in favour of anti-semitic diatribes. Actually, I wasn’t making a normative statement - or didn’t intend to - but a descriptive one. I think there is a huge amount of good in the world and I base my belief on my observations in my daily life. Perhaps there is more good in this Anglo-Saxon paradise than elsewhere, but I would imagine that you, of all people, would doubt that …
In relation to your second point, I, from this distance, am in no position to judge, but I wonder if you are any better placed, and I would comment that if you are right about ordinary people in Greece, then it is indeed sad.
adifferentvoice, Plevris is a trained and practising constitutional lawyer. A very intelligent man regardless of what you think of his politics. Do you think he would make the mistake of writing “hate speech” without knowing the consequences? Surely, you are not that naive!
Also, this provides the opportunity for Plevris and his supporters to highlight some of the hate speech in the Torah and Talmud. Their argument has, and will continue to be, if we are prosecuting Plevris and banning his book then why not ban the Torah and Talmud? The counter-argument will be that it is an old regligious text and meant to be understoond metaphorically. However, the counter-argument to that will be that modern day followers of the Torah and Talmud are inciting racial hatred by adhering to the teachings in this book. Now, I am not sure what Anglo-Saxon paradise you live in, but this is a powerful argument which may find fertile ground in a country like Greece which remains free of the philosemitism of the United States which is just another form of backwardness.
adifferentvoice: this ebate you are having with legein is typical of his fraudulent arguments. Let us put them in conceptual form:
!) We can deduce the motivations of all individuals from their personal characteristics: e.g. (taken from legein’s statements above) — older and frailer; intelligent; trained lawyer; former secret service agent.
2) Legislation limiting the right of free speech is an antidemocratic conspiracy, started by Jews in the USA, and with the complicity of all governments in Europe. Ordinary people do not support the legislation, and Greeks are so clever that they have seen through this conspiracy.
3) Millennia-old religious texts are racist and should be banned. This is the main reason for writing anti-semitic texts.
CLEARLY, these arguments are absurd and an insult to our intelligence. However, legein thinks he is clever enough to pull them off. He is not.
If one wants to call today hate speech the Talmud texts of several centuries ago against Gentiles, s/he should do like wise with the Christian equivalent, the texts of the Fathers like Basil the Great and John Chrysostomos against Hellenism. This is what I argued before the court and is available in Greek at: http://cm.greekhelsinki.gr/ind.....p;cid=3222
Mind you that Plevris has distorted the Talmud texts in many places, especially changing gentiles into Christians or arguing that goym - which means gentiles- means pigs.
Moreover, anyone who claims to know anything about this must know that the USA have no equivalent legislation and this is why a lot of neo-Nazi material that cannot be published in respectable European countries is published there, by some fringe houses and distributed among passionate neo-Nazis. No respectable library or bookstore would accept such books in their shelves and no mainstream TV or radio would give neo-Nazis air time.
See by the way an excellent article in yesterday’s Eleftherotypia: http://www.enet.gr/online/onli.....,id=604912
Martin, I think you should give Legein more credit, and (…if you don’t mind me saying so) be less ready to resort to ad hominem arguments about his intelligence. Legein likes to wind people up, gets lots of amusement from it, but he often makes a good point. It is also impossible, in written argument, to know exactly what meaning someone intended, and I think Legein profits from that.
So, take your (1) for example. What you say could be true, or perhaps he knows that I, too, was a constitutional lawyer. Who knows? So, let’s skip that one.
(2) and (3) are related, and Panayote takes up Legein’s best point. Basic texts of Judaism, Christianity and Islam all contain speech that today we would regard as “hate speech”. Why ban Plevris, and let these texts be read publicly? I don’t read sufficient Greek to be able to follow Panayote’s arguments, but wish I did as I would be interested to know how he dealt with this in the court hearing. Hate speech is about preventing harm. I don’t feel as hurt by indirect reporting of a centuries old text as I do by direct abuse, probably because I find it easier to dismiss as out of date and irrelevant. But, nonetheless, there is an argument there, and I’m glad that Panayote has dealt with it.
Now, Legein. I may be naive. I may even prefer to be naive. But I don’t think he wrote the book to highlight the unfairness of “hate speech” restrictions. The book is too long for that. I am not taken in. I am not that naive. Perhaps he bargained on the Greek prosecuting authorities being unwilling to prosecute an old man, and the judges being unwilling to convict and sentence him as they did. Perhaps he took a risk which he thought was worth taking because he believed so strongly in what he wanted to say. He wouldn’t be the first.
adifferentvoice: I have researched on Greece since 1987 and lived here since 1998. I think I know how Greek debate proceeds, and I have met many legeins in real life. I do not find Greek people to be interested in the pursuit of knowledge, but in the pursuit of self-importance when conducting debates. This approach rarely fails to explain what is going on in the country, when allied with the mass corruption which is the only thing working in Greece.
Insofar as the point about ancient texts is concerned, we have something called precedent. These texts are the basis of the West’s religions, and have some problems. Problems of who wrote them, accuracy of translations, how to interpret them, etc. To compare these historical documents with a book written recently is irrational and ahistorical — reflecting a lack of understanding of the history of our civilisation.
What is central is that the European continent, which suffered violence against minorities of all sorts in the twentieth century [and not only from the Nazis] undertook after 1945 to limit the right of free speech in the specific areas of racial hatred and denial of the historical violence against Jews. Greek people are alone in western Europe in refusing to accept these limitations: there is a clear reason, which again you need to live here to understand, which is that Greeks refuse to follow any rules on principle. Thus, state violence for the enforcement of such rules is essential, and people like legein are exploiting the gaps and lacunae of the Greek reality to promote racist opinions.
“Why ban Plevris, and let these texts be read publicly?”
Martin, just in case you thought otherwise, this sentence was a rhetorical device, not necessarily a statement of my views. I am quite sure that Plevris should be banned. I am against hate speech and can see no justification for it at all. But I’m not keen on historical hate speech either, even in religious texts. I hope that’s a consistent position.
You seem to want to “win” any discussion by saying that since you live in Greece you know better. Fine, if that makes you feel good. But it is an ad hominem argument again, you know…
I live in the UK and have one view of the UK. There are many others who insist on a view of the UK that I do not recognise. We both live here. Who is right, or is it just a question of perception?
There’s an interesting article in Prospect this month by the philosophical writer, Julian Bagini. He took time out to research what the “ordinary people” of Britain (actually he restricted himself to the English) really thought. You probably won’t be interested to read it and will need to have a subscription to read all of it anyway, but Legein might. I will probably get round to writing about it on my own blog eventually. I
wondered if you had done a similar study of Greek people, or whether your views are merely anecdotal? You don’t seem to have a good word to same for them, which seems a shame. It must be very difficult to live in a country where you find the natives so lacking in charm.
adv: I can find good things to say about Greek people, but not in the area of scientific research or rational debate. My comments are based on over a decade of working in universities and conducting research, but I have not conducted surveys. Apart from anything else, surveys in Greece are very unreliable because they are too theoretical: in this part of the world (the Balkans) you need to deal with realities. Generally, ideologies and formalistic devices are used to cover up things — mainly corruption, but also racism and anti-semitism could be included.
IMHO, In the USA, fringe groups (KKK, Neo-Nazis, Communists, etc) have freedom of expression (within reason) like any other citizens, but I think the difference is this:
Americans are a bit less taken by conspiracy theories and extreme views. When WE Americans here some neo-Nazi or KKK spout his nonsense, we just shake our heads, and feel sorry for them on how misled they are, and we make sure we tell our children to stay clear of their ilk.
In Greece, however, the scary thing seems to be that these fringe groups day-by-day suck in vulnerable Greeks living in a culture of conspiracy theories. Believing in conspiracy theories in Greece is not shunned but rather encouraged.
If you heard the things that my 19 year old neighbor in Greek University tells me, you would think you were watching an episode of “24″ or the “X-Files”. Coming from this professor, you’d think the American government was some superior race of Space Aliens who can control the world at will like God. I don’t know how healthy this type of teaching can be.
Martin–Am I right on this? Do you also find Greeks fond of conspiracy theories?
Of course Greeks love conspiracy theories and so do all sorts of racists and bigots, like Plevris.
Now I suggest to adifferentvoice that s/he reads at least the excerpts of the book in the indictment to see what the book is about. See:
http://cm.greekhelsinki.gr/ind.....p;cid=3176
At the court after I presented the “anti-Greek” texts of those Fathers, I asked rhetorically whether we should also consider racist or even ban Christianity, following the argument around Talmud. I was met with deafening silence by the prosecutor and the judge who had until then excelled in attacking the Talmud, as well as by the neo-Nazis.
As for Plevris, he has been writing those things for decades and no one ever brought him to court, and certainly not the Jews or the “Anti-Nazi Initiative” even after this last book was out -and it is still out. The difference is that we at GHM decided to ask the courts to apply the law and this is what made Plevris and the likes furious; this is why I am personally attacked weekly by their and LAOS trash papers, not the Anti-Nazi or the Jewish leaders. Also because other investigations or trials with that law are in process against them and LAOS.
I think you were brave, then, Panayote, and do not deserve the abuse. It must be hard to keep going in the face of such undeserved treatment. I’ve read the extracts from the book before (but thanks for the link), and need no convincing that they serve no justifiable purpose and only do harm. I’m glad the prosecution succeded.
May I remind Maria Tzanni supported the myth that jews are behind 9/11 ? Just look at the end of Ios article - http://www.iospress.gr/mikro2001/mikro20010929.htm
At least she’s consistent… lol
ps.DD please delete the previous post cause the link didn’t come through right - thanks!
Yes, the Jews. Greeks love that conspiracy theory the best. The Jews were behind 911, the Jews were behind the Tsuanamis, and if we press hard enough I’m sure that you can convince the Greeks that the Jews were at fault for the earthquake the other day.
I have a good friend who is a retired US Military officer and he heard a conspiracy theory that beats all. Apparently, during the 1970s, there were Greeks who thought that the US Military aircraft at US bases in Greece were equipped with radiation emitting devices to bombard the Greek cities with radiation.
For those of you in the reading audience who may wonder about whether the Jews were involved in 911, the US State Department has officially responded to this nonsense: (But I’m sure the Greeks will say it’s another conspiracy)
http://usinfo.state.gov/media/misinformation.html
NOTE: You can look on the menu on the left and see a bunch of common conspiracy theories espoused by our Greek hosts. YES, I realize that there are some Americans who also espouse them, but the difference is that the Greeks espousing these views are supposed to be SERIOUS people, and not the AMERICANS espousing these views are generally the “aluminum foil hat wearing, black helicopter sightings” crowd.
Conspiracy theories….sigh…. There is some sort of cultural problem in Greece, and it seems to exist also in Serbia, Romania and Russia [all Orthodox countries, you will note], which is that the entire population is paranoid. One of my earliest memories of Greece is being asked by people I had just been introduced to, at a social event, “Have you seen any miracles recently?” After I had recovered, I politely explained that, to the best of my knowledge, I had not seen a single miracle in my entire life!
Why is is this relevant? I think that the Orthodox religion has shaped this cultural nonsense, and completely lost track of the teachings of Christ as well. I have tried having intelligent conversations about the new Testament, and realised that almost no Greeks have ever read it. Yet they are the most religiously observant population of western Europe? How does this make sense?
Mazower explains it to us: religion for the Balkan countries is a form of insurance, to protect us against bad luck, and has little to do with what we ignorant Europeans think Christianity is about. God is there to help us, to protect “us” against the heathen and terrible Turks, or bad weather which might damage our harvest. This is why modern Greeks cross themselves when passing a church — not out of respect for God or Jesus, but for their own benefit.
When an entire society is based on superstitious religion, with a low level of education to boot, is it any surprise that conspiracy theories predominate? The worst problem is that the education system has never done anything to modernise the country — and if anything drags it back into an inglorious past. Meanwhile, the Greek Church sits there smugly, along with the few families who own and run Greece, and add further fuel to the conspiracy fire. You see, nothing is honest and nothing is rational here: conspiracies abound, and obviously the whole world is the same as Greece. Quod erat demonstrandum.
adifferentvoice, is that you Margaret? If not, what is your blog?
Some fairly racist claims made against Greeks and Orthodox believers above. But if I remember correctly, the United States has the highest proportion of people who believe the Earth was created about 6,000 years ago. Greece would probably be not far behind.
We should never ban books of any sort.
adifferentvoice, is that you Margaret? If not, what is your blog?
Some fairly racist claims made against Greeks and Orthodox believers above. But if I remember correctly, the United States has the highest proportion of people who believe the Earth was created about 6,000 years ago. Greece would probably be not far behind.
We should never ban books of any sort.
And why not, legein? Tell us what the justifications for allowing free speech are? What is lost if these books are banned?
And your name is?
Margaret, the classic “freedom of speech” argument i.e. arbitrariness in deciding what is acceptable and what is not. Unless the books endanger a large part of the community such as the distribution of national military secrets then they should not be banned. I have not read the whole book but Plevris does make some good points and he also makes some spurious ones. Let it rest and it will go away.
Leigein (what is your name, btw?), you can make good points without straying into hate speech. Lawyers do it all the time, so presumably Plevris knows this. “Ordinary people” are quite able to make the distinction too. Facts (not gratuituous insults or unfounded assertions) speak for themselves and I don’t have a problem with facts. Proper facts backed up by evidence.
I think your last sentence if often sensible advice, but sometimes it is necessary to draw a line in the sand.
Plevris, has been making good points for many years and he has not strayed into hate speech. This time he took he took a different tack that was deliberate - see my first post above. As for gratuitous statements he does not really say anything worse in terms of generalised hate speech than a standard gangsta rap CD and most people on this blog would be absoloutely horrified if we tried to ban this fine “expression” of the black American urban ghetto.
Margaret, do you see how banning books (and music) starts getting us in to all sorts of trouble? Do you see the contradiction?
I am sorry, legein, but I see nothing of the sort. Much of the verbal content of rap music is highly offensive, unacceptable to civilised people and should be banned.
I am not able to say anything about what this Plevris has published, although the little that has made it into the blogsphere disgusts me. Perhpas you could enlighten us as to what the “good points” are, exactly.
Plevris does make some good points
Please, enlighten me.
All the “good points” are here:
http://cm.greekhelsinki.gr/ind.....p;cid=3176
I also forgot to highlight that as is obvious from the above he was tried and sentenced for the content. No decision to ban the book has been taken by any court.
I assume this is a dig at me and other black members of this blog. Your assumptions and stereotyping of us is offensive and extremely childish. Please grow up…
That didn’t occur to me, DD, and clearly you are right. In that context, we can say that his comments are racially motivated and highly offensive.
DD, It didn’t even occur to me that Legein’s comments might be racially motivated and aimed at you particularly, and I hope they weren’t. Perhaps, Legein, you’d clarify whether that was what you intended, or apologise if it was not …? Or were you just getting at why you perceive to be woolly liberals? Or am I really naive?
I do find the lyrics of some songs very offensive and can see no justification ever for the use of words like “bitch” and “whore” relating to women. I’d ban them too, but then I’m becoming less liberal by the day. I don’t imagine any readers of this site would wish their children to listen to them either, so I’d think you were wrong, Legein, in your suppositions.
It was the basic assumption that legein has that I would be an advocate of or defend or even listen to offensive gansta rap simply because what ? Because I’m black ?
If that wasn’t the intention I wish he would make it clear because that’s how it reads to me. And that comment made me very angry. I haven’t taken the bait with some of the comments here but this one really stuck in my throat.
At the very least legein, give me the basic respect of being an individual and not a cardboard cut-out stereotype of your choosing.
I am still waiting for your reply. I notice you are not so quick to defend this latest comment of yours ? I wonder why.
DD, I can see why - if Legein meant what you fear he might - that you would be very upset and angry. Let’s hope he didn’t. But check his IP address … is he possibly asleep, and thus not able to reply?
you’re right, adifferentvoice, I was perhaps too hasty writing that last sentence but I haven’t known legein to leave so long to respond to a comment. I know, people have a life outside this blog but I am allowing myself to make an emotional response because it touched me personally. I would (and have in the past) be the first to apologise if I misunderstood someone’s intention.
Anyway, I’ve said enough for now I think.
I think you are right, DD. And bear in mind that no Greek will ever admit to doing anything wrong, or making an error. legein will just disappear for some time, then reappear later and pretend that nothing happened and there is no need for him to explain, let alone apologise.
From what I have heard and read of Plevris’s work, which is not much, is that he tries to instill pride in Greeks by highlighting their achievements and putting the achievements of other peoples into perspective. In doing so he makes comparisons between Greek and Jewish people. He also makes comparisons between Greeks and other peoples. In doing so he highlights the way their relative positions in the ancient world resulted in different perspectives being represented in their holy or hallowed texts. Greek texts are generally outward looking, display curiosity of Others, invite debate etc. Jewish texts are generally inward looking, insular and dogmatic. He also highlights that Jewish people are not the only victims in history. In fact, Jewish mobs are estimated to have slaughtered over 100,000 Greeks in Cyrene and Cyprus. Although he makes some good points; personally, I find Plevris to be too polemical to be taken seriously. This does not mean we cannot take something away. Likewise, I find Marx and Gramsci makes some good points but I am not a Communist. I find Croce, Berlin and Mann make some good points but I am not an ardent Liberal. I find Gentile, Primo de Rivera and Pound makes some good points but I am not a Fascist. Anyway, my personal preferences are not important. The point is that we cannot dismiss everything one has to say because we find some of the things they say distasteful. This is too coarse leading us to fall into the same Manichaean understanding of the world which we sometimes find so abhorrent in people like Plevris.
DD, like I have said before, please make sure you check your kitchen cupboards, chest of drawers, laundry for any racists in there. Oops, maybe now I will be accused of being sexist!
We should not ban gangsta rap nor should we ban Plevris nor should we ban Papariga.
That was not an apology or explanation, legein. It was a refusal to deal with the issue, alongside an accusation that DD is paranoid. As I posted above, no Greek has the personal capacity to admit doing wrong or making an error of judgement, and you show yourself to be a typical Greek.
Martin, never mind Legein.
It is your comments that are racist and offensive. You had absolutely no need to stray from the particular to the general.
Your comments are also wrong. I know Greeks who have no problem apologising. I have also known Greeks who were as you describe. I know English people who would die rather than admit they are wrong, and English people who apologise for taking up space in the world. Those who cannot apologise are narcissists. The shame of admitting to themeselve that they are wrong (which necessarily precedes an apology) is too much for them to bear. But there are narcissists of every nationality, size, age and gender.
Now let’s see if you can apologise …
adv: you have no idea what you are talking about. Please stop trying to impose your mistaken English ideas on this situation. I made that mistake when I first came to Greece, and I have no intention of being so foolish after decades of working on the country. You are just out of your depth and making matters worse. legein has not apologised, and deliberately so. End of discussion.
ok, so legein said something stupid and insulting and does not want to admit to it or apologise for it. that’s his problem.
but “no Greek has the personal capacity to admit doing wrong or making an error of judgement” ???
martin from what I gather from the comments on this blog you are very frustrated from working in greece and from certain attitude issues some people have. even so, it is childish and unfair to put all greeks in the same box. I don’t think I need to tell you to replace “greeks” in your sentence with another group of your choice, just to see how bad it sounds. and no, the fact that you are a foreigner is irrelevant. that statement would be simplistic and discriminatory no matter who it came from.
DD, you don’t have to take this crap from anyone. if in the middle of a conversation I said something that even though I thought was harmless someone else found insulting, I would immediately apoligise for it, as I think any goodwilling person would do. Legein is clearly not goodwilling. If I was in your position I would not engage in conversation with someone who does not respect me enough to apologise. As the moderator of this blog I think you would do quite a few of us a favour by sparing us from delphi-type oracles who cannot answer simple questions without incessant blabbing, name dropping and strawman arguments that are supposedly an application of ancient greek dialectics
anybody who wants to hear that can simply turn on the tv and watch paranoid booksellers go at it, in about 5 different channels…
Since my comment has attracted so much venom, I shall tell you that it is a quotation from a Greek colleague. When she first told me this, I was a little surprised: then I checked, and discovered that NOBODY in this country is prepared to apologise for their mistakes.
This is my experience of living in Greece, and if anyone should apologise it is the Greek nation. Interesting, too, that danilena makes nasty personal attacks on me, simply for making a general and correct observation. This is another Greek habit, to attack personally and viciously any foreigner who dares to comment. I am not intimidated by Greek crap, and I am not prepared to self-censor my views. These opinions are not racist: they are the practical experience of a liberal and open-minded person who has decades of working in Greece. If you don’t like it: tough!
martin,
your observation is not general and correct. it is simplistic and insulting. and you being a foreigner has nothing to do with it, nor saying you quoted a greek person makes it right.
if you think greek-bashing is ok, and responding to is nasty and vicious and intimidating then you are clearly not liberal or open-minded.
I had doubts about your good faith, just as I had about legein, and I am now convinced that you have no good faith against greeks whatsoever.
oh, and I forgot to collectively apologise on behalf of the greek nation for being greek…
Generalisations and stereotypes, however true you think they are, however based in truth you think they are, are hurtful and dangerous. Let us not make the mistake of countering one wrong-headed statement with another. The Greek friends I have in real life and here on this blog are as diverse and individual as any other group of people. I have had apologies right here on this blog from Greek commenters for situations arising in this country. Let’s not confuse the shortcomings of the country with its people.
Secondly, I think it is more constructive to point out legein stand out as an individual who obviously has problems with me and more generally with black people, or foreigners or Jews or whatever “group” is the current target. He speaks entirely for himself not for the people I know or have come to know.
I did not expect an apology because legein cannot see what he said was insulting and hurtful, so it is obvious that he would resort to pointing back at me and calling me paranoid. He has accused me before of seeing racism where it doesn’t exist. Only two other people have done that before here and they were both (it turned out) self-confessed racists.
One of the defenses I have here is to ask people to get back to the topic of the post or to close comments if the discussion derails. In this case, because the post is about someone in a position of power being able to spread her hateful ideas to future teachers. I think this discussion is relevant and I am going to leave this one open for now as a place to discuss the issues.
Martin Baldwin-Edwards, I also dislike your generalisations of Greeks just as much as I dislike ANY generalisations. They are hurtful and serve no purpose but to deflect the real issues. If you were talking about the way the state operates that is one thing, or if you were talking about the extremist element here that is one thing as well. Or even the naivety of the issues in Greece as a whole, that would be something. I really do believe that this is the beginning of the discussion of racism in Greece and the racist attitudes that are on the rise here. I would like to offer here an opportunity for people to discuss those issues (because there are not many places where people can do that) in a way that they can ask questions and perhaps get some insight from those of us that experience racism firsthand. Without being written off from the start.
Legein, I do not include you in my wish to engage reasonable Greek people in discussion because I do not believe you are being reasonable. You seem to have your opinions set in stone and no amount of reasoning or explanation is going to help. Your comments are not helpful in the scheme of things because they keep referring back to you and much time and energy is being drawn towards yourself rather than the issues. It is perhaps my mistake to imagine that I could make you understand or that I could make a difference, but that’s me.
DD, I think you do a great job!!
DD: it was not my desire to distract attention from the issue here or to make hurtful remarks.
If Greek people think that my general experiences of this problem are wrong, then they can start to correct them by apologising whenever appropriate. As I do. But at this time, I stand by my very clear and unpleasant experiences of dealing professionally with things in Greece, where it is absolutely exceptional and radical to get an apology.
Thought some of you might like to read this :).
http://www.fivelovelanguages.c.....ology.html
I’m afraid I have nothing significant to add on the subject, that isn’t there in the original post already. I can have a pseudo-debate with the ancient greek loving likes of legein, or I can just bow my head in sadness that this is going on in my country.
Although I agree with DD that generalizing or painting all Greeks into one corner is not fair.
However, I also have to agree with Martin, that my personal experience with Greeks (living in Greece for 22 years) seem to indicate that apologizing is considered a sign of weakness in Greek culture.
Now, I’m sure that there are Greeks on this blog, or in real life who apologize, but it’s not really in significant numbers to be a majority or even close to it, otherwise it would be the commonly known. For example, you NEVER hear that Greeks are not generous in their homes. They are extremely generous when you go to their homes and will give you the last bite of their food if you ask. If the opposite was true, I’m sure it would be something in the collective that people who live here share with one another.
This is just a premise based on many shared experiences of people living here, as is the “Non-Apology” thing.
Yes, there are Greeks who probably do apologize. I just have not been fortunate enough to see that with my own eyes yet.
Another Shared experience I have with other foreigners in Greece:
Greeks abroad are much different than their compatriots here. One way to test my theory is to watch how they act at Athens Airport compared to how they act when they arrive at the destination (foreign) airport.
As a frequent traveler to London, and the USA, I am amazed how such surly, pushy passengers immediately tame upon their departure from Greek air space. (Again, if this is a generalization, I apologize, but it’s definitely a phenomenon I’ve seen time and time again, and I have no other explanation for it).
Anyone??
Thank you for your moral support in this, George. As an individual, I am the first to apologise when it is clear that I am at fault, so it has been a difficult learning experience in Greece. These days, I give as good as I get: I have even had Greek people complaining that “British are not supposed to behave like that”.
Your observation about the tranformation of Greeks as they go abroad is very accurate. The obvious sociological answer is: “When in Rome do as the Romans do”. Most Greek people know that the sort of things that go on in Greece [or Athens, anyway] would not be tolerated in the rest of Europe, so they calm down and behave. The cultural setting is critical, and people react to it.
Anyway, this is all a distraction from the racism issue, although perhaps in terms of primary education they are not so far apart…
A djudio-espanol proverb that was common among the jews of salonica before the war was:
con un “pardon” mata un Franco
meaning that with a “sorry” you could kill a westerner, showing the western phlegm and insistence on good manners and that if anything, it’s a common eastern charateristic. :->
To get back on the subject I remind everyone that M.Tzanni, a university prof that teaches the future teachers in this country, believes that jews are responsible for 9/11, supports the views of convicted neonazi Plevris etc
The surprising thing is NOT that M.Tzanni says these things since in many countries people of her kind are fairly common, but that nopbody seems to mind about her with the exception of GHM here in Greece.
Diva, there is nothing I have written which would be considered racist in a court of law.
But I am glad you have finally gotten the courage to rebuke Martin for his continually overt racist comments about Greece and Greeks. As your website states “The only thing necessary for the persistence of evil is for enough good people to do nothing”.
Considering our concern for human rights you’ll be glad know the following:
The European Court of Human Rights yesterday found Turkey guilty of violating the rights of nine Greek Cypriot missing persons and their families.
Since the Turkish invasion of Cyprus in 1974, 1,555 Greek Cypriots and 64 Greeks have been unaccounted for and, until recently, both Ankara and its puppet regime in occupied northern Cyprus have refused to cooperate with any investigation into the fate of the missing persons, claiming they were all killed in fighting.
However, in a case brought before it on behalf of nine of the missing and their relatives, the ECHR rejected Turkey’s claims that the missing – comprising 60 percent soldiers/reservists and 40 percent civilians, men, women and children, aged between seven months and 94 years old – were casualties of war; accepted evidence which showed that the missing were arrested, captured alive or had been in the custody of Turkish or Turkish Cypriot forces; and found that Turkey’s refusal to account for the missing persons violated several articles of the European Convention on Human Rights, including:
Article 2: Failing to ‘conduct an effective investigation aimed at clarifying the whereabouts and fate of the nine men [in the case before the court] who went missing in 1974’.
Article 3: Condemning relatives to ‘live in a prolonged state of acute anxiety [enduring] the agony of not knowing whether family members were killed in the conflict or were still in detention or, if detained, had since died. The silence of the Turkish authorities… attained a level of severity which could only be categorised as inhuman treatment’.
Article 5: Depriving the missing men of their liberty and security at the time of their disappearance.
The judgment took into account that last year the Turkish occupation authorities in cooperation with the UN Committee on Missing Persons in Cyprus excavated the remains of 38 missing persons and returned them to their families for burial in the free areas of the island; but determined that Turkey was still obstructing the CMP’s work.
Diva, there is nothing I have written which would be considered racist in a court of law.
But I am glad you have finally gotten the courage to rebuke Martin for his continually overt racist comments about Greece and Greeks. As your website states “The only thing necessary for the persistence of evil is for enough good people to do nothing”.
Considering our concern for human rights you’ll be glad know the following:
The European Court of Human Rights yesterday found Turkey guilty of violating the rights of nine Greek Cypriot missing persons and their families.
Since the Turkish invasion of Cyprus in 1974, 1,555 Greek Cypriots and 64 Greeks have been unaccounted for and, until recently, both Ankara and its puppet regime in occupied northern Cyprus have refused to cooperate with any investigation into the fate of the missing persons, claiming they were all killed in fighting.
However, in a case brought before it on behalf of nine of the missing and their relatives, the ECHR rejected Turkey’s claims that the missing – comprising 60 percent soldiers/reservists and 40 percent civilians, men, women and children, aged between seven months and 94 years old – were casualties of war; accepted evidence which showed that the missing were arrested, captured alive or had been in the custody of Turkish or Turkish Cypriot forces; and found that Turkey’s refusal to account for the missing persons violated several articles of the European Convention on Human Rights, including:
Article 2: Failing to ‘conduct an effective investigation aimed at clarifying the whereabouts and fate of the nine men [in the case before the court] who went missing in 1974’.
Article 3: Condemning relatives to ‘live in a prolonged state of acute anxiety [enduring] the agony of not knowing whether family members were killed in the conflict or were still in detention or, if detained, had since died. The silence of the Turkish authorities… attained a level of severity which could only be categorised as inhuman treatment’.
Article 5: Depriving the missing men of their liberty and security at the time of their disappearance.
The judgment took into account that last year the Turkish occupation authorities in cooperation with the UN Committee on Missing Persons in Cyprus excavated the remains of 38 missing persons and returned them to their families for burial in the free areas of the island; but determined that Turkey was still obstructing the CMP’s work.
I do not accept that describing the general social characteristics of a country that I live in amounts to racism, whereas the attitude to foreigners and minorities displayed by certain people, such as yourself legein, is clear racism. The fact that you [and others] do not like what I say is your problem, and its characterisation as racist is just a pretence.On the other hand, I am bored with hearing Greek racism every day and becoming less and less tolerant of it.
Martin, I am curious about one thing. You obviously have some very serious and important credentials which I noted very easily by using google on your name. I’m very intrigued why someone of your stature would waste their valuable time sparring with people who obviously are so undermatched to debate with you.
I find that by having you in the blog sphere of Athens is like the equivalent of having “Michael Jordan of NBA fame” playing on a junior high school team when dealing with local bullies.
Thanks for taking the time to enrich the local blogsphere with your wisdom, and for keeping the nonsense at bay.
Folks, we are really fortunate to have Martin in our court. Google his name and see the many projects he has worked on for the advancement of immigrants.
After the release of the European Commission against Racism and Intolerance (ECRI) Second Report on Greece, in June 2000, which included a categorical and impertinent rejection of ECRI’s criticism, Ms Papazoi stated “that there are only isolated instances of racism in Greece and the Greek society is not possessed by an inclination to xenophobia.” A few months later she added that “Greece has nothing to fear i