Following my post about the demonstration at Mount Athos, I did a bit of research into the subject and came across this YouTube video. The comments that follow are typical of discussions of this type.
Can I also remind people that the demonstration by the local residents was focused on the illegal land seizure. but it has succeeded to bring the issue of women being allowed to visit Mount Athos to the public arena. These are separate issues. This from Balkan Travellers
The female protesters jumped over the fence in defiance of the ban, which is upheld by the Greek constitution. The group was reportedly part of around 1,000 demonstrators who oppose claims by several of the monasteries to around 20,000 acres of land on the Halkidiki peninsula, Reuters reported.
Local mayors and residents of different Halkidiki villages dispute the monasteries’ large real estate portfolio outside the Mount Athos borders, which includes hotels and land on Halkidiki and other assets in the Greek capital Athens and in Thessaloniki
I also found this article in the Guardian from 2002 by Sean Thomas.
If you do sail down the coast, you might notice that many of the 20-odd monasteries – populated by just over 2,000 monks – are looking sprucer than they have done for centuries. This is because they are being lavishly refurbished with EU funds. As a result of the EU’s largesse, most of the monasteries now have plumbing, electricity, and shiny new balconies.
This EU involvement has created controversy. Questions have recently been asked by MEPs as to how Athos can now justify its gender discrimination. Various MEPs have even threatened to take the monks to court unless they abandon their centuries-old strictures. The next few years will show whether the Athonite authorities have the will to hold on to their arrangements
This for me is one of the problems I see with many of the issues arising in Greece. The country accepts millions of euros in funds from the EU for improvements and infrastructure (of which a good deal seems to “go missing”) and then turns around and flaunts the laws set by it. Seriously, you can’t just benefit from the money and ignore the rules, can you ?
In the article, Thomas writes about the temptation that the monks might suffer if they were to catch a glimpse of a woman. He doesn’t attempt to ask what happens when the monks are tempted by the sight of a man. I guess he just assumed that they wouldn’t ? He asks
But what is it like never to look at a woman? Hector gazes across some olive groves at the sapphire Aegean: “Well, actually, once every few years, one or two monks may indeed see a woman. Sometimes, you understand, women come to the beach here, for an adventure. It is illegal, but they come swimming. They wear bikinis, and then… then is difficult for us
He concludes his article with this
Leaving Athos, it is difficult not to have mixed feelings. Yes, its extraordinary laws are discriminatory. Yes, the region is a ridiculous anachronism in a world that has, for the most part, swept away such egregious misogyny. And yet, and yet. In a way Athos is a kind of courageous test, a brave, ridiculous, 1,000-year-old experiment to see what the world would be like without the destabilising effect of sexual desire. And so perhaps we should allow the Athonite monks just a few more centuries in their strange, unreal, pristinely beautiful laboratory
Well, I think Alexia Amvrazi answers some of the issues that Thomas is grappling with in this article A Woman in Mount Athos.
Technorati: greece, mount athos, women, european union
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DD, I really enjoyed this post, and thanks for sharing your research. Mount Athos has p***ed me off for years, probably ever since Prince Charles started going there.
I don’t have any objection to men shutting themselves away in monasteries and trying to overcome all their desires, including their sexual desires. I am open to the idea that they might in so doing come closer to God, though I am also not sure that I can see the point of lots of people doing it when there are so many other practical things they could be doing in the world. After all, if I objected to male monasteries I would have to object to female convents. I object to neither.
What really really p***es me off though is the smugness of the men who’ve been there, and the myth that is maintained that there is more spirituality there than will be found in any similar female establishment, as if men have some God-given super highway to closeness with him that women cannot reach. And why the EU should give it money I will never understand.
When I was working as a solicitor, all my male partners used to go off to their private (all male) memebers’ club for lunch. Most of them also belonged to the rugby club, the cricket club, and were old boys of some all- boys school, and my senior partner was the chief Mason. That’s how business was done. I suppose I see Mount Athos as just another one of those male clubs. For those that live there, there may be some benefit in excluding women, but for all those who simply visit, hoping to find God, I think they would be just as likely to find him in a mixed congregation, or in the smile of their child.
I am an atheist, and have very strong anti-religious feelings. for me ALL religious traditions are nothing more than irrational and ridiculous. In that sense I cannot see why we should focus on this particular one. It is very simple. If you call yourself an eastern orthodox woman then you believe in an interpretation of the scriptures offered by orthodox theologians, and among other things, you accept that you cannot go into the “iero”, take communion when you have your period etc. so you probably accept avaton as well. if you are not an orthodox woman, then why would you want to go there anyway ? sightseeing ?
I am not well versed on the property status of the agion oros, but if the whole thing is indeed considered monastery property (and not some sort of state concession) then I think there is no legal issue here. they can do whatever they want.
I have very strong issues with church property in greece, and to me that is the only significant point in this case, because remember that these women started this as a protest against land claims OUTSIDE mount athos. in athens alone, there are some very hot-environmental-potato issues with church property, such as moni pentelis and kareas to name but a few. this is what we should be focusing on, and not the gay retreat that is mount athos.
as the lady in the video said, as a taxpayer I do not want my money to go somewhere I am not allowed to. However, I think the solution to the problem would be for my money not to go there, not me trying to break in. to paraphrase groucho marx(or was it woody allen ?), I would not want to be in a club that doesn’t accept me as a member.
It is hard for me to tell if you have feelings just against religious traditions or religion too in general. Sometimes the two meet. Even though you are an atheist and I believe atheists can be just as moral as religious people and as contributing to society, I think it is good for everyone to keep in mind that religion does perform some useful functions in society, sometimes in part even due to its traditions and traditional nature. For instance, I have heard of drug addicts in the United States who were only able to give up their drugs through going back to their Christian faith, after exhausting all other avenues. That is very useful to society. One time I met a former convict from the U.S., some sort of a major drug smuggler caught hiding in his swimming pool by the F.B.I. with three million dollars cash hidden for his escape, who had converted to a religion because the American government offered him a course on religions. He actually cleaned up his act and has been a good guy for thirty years. It costs society less in deaths and money to have such guys change and sometimes religion does the trick.
I’m not a Christian even and don’t even have a single friend who is of the Greek Orthodox faith, and I know next to nothing about it. Just out of respect though for people who have taken a vow of celibacy no matter of what faith, I wouldn’t call this island a gay retreat or any other kind of sexual retreat. It hurts people who do believe in their faith and I’m sure nobody really wants to cause pain to others whether they be atheist or religious.
Anyway, take care.
thanx martin
“Seriously, you can’t just benefit from the money and ignore the rules, can you ?”
Yes you can. Just think of illigal immigrants. And it is not against the rules as you falsely and malignly attest. It is part of Greek tradition for centuries and enshrined in the national constitution which takes precedence over EU directives.
This is a concern for the Greek Orthodox and you are neither. Learn Greek, convert and then we can have a discussion. Untill then your opinion is at best irrelevant and at worst offensive and patronizing.
You can try looking for laws more to your liking in one of the crime ridden, morally bankrupt and imperialist countries of your own culture before you dare criticize the Greeks. We are an older and wiser civilisation than you and that we have endured so long should be testament enough to the value of our traditions.
We are happy to have legal immigrants and extend them full rights under law but no varvaros is going to dictate to Romioi their own traditions. You are citizens of Greece not Greeks yourselves. Hence you presume too much if you think you can dictate to the people who built this country as a home for the Greek people and a refuge for their culture that they should now abandon the later.
Diva, is not interested learning or living in Greek culture. She comes to a country and expects it to bend to her rules rather than the other way around.
A couple of centuries ago European powers did the same in Africa.
Martin, you sound excited! Calm down there little buddy. All 178cm!
Barbaros was a generic term used for any non-Greek person who could not speak Greek and partake in Greek culture. Also, it was not a derogrotary term.
“We have had this discussion elsewhere on the blog: if you idiots think that you are the direct descendants of Ancient Greeks, you need to get a mental health examination”
I would like to say that I am surprised at the temerity and vileness of people who on the one hand claim to lecture Greeks on racism and on the other spout this kind of antihellenic and racist assertions.
I won’t however since that would be lying.
BTW could someone post a link to that discussion the antihellenist is refering to? Thanks.
John or Legein, do you actually live in Greece?
The reason I ask is that it’s easy for armchair playmaker Greeks from the diaspora to spout how great Greece is while living high on the hog in one of the “morally bankrupt countries” like the USA or the UK. Those hyphenated Greek types forget that even the local Greeks make fun of them. The commercial for the candy “OH MAMY” comes to mind for those that have seen the commercial on Greek TV here in Athens.
I’m sure Diva can see your IP addresses and confirm if you do live in Greece, but I suspect you don’t. Your English is too good!
Hello George.
What is the commercial like? Could you please describe it in detail? If it is in Greek, I won’t be able to understand it even though I have started learning Greek.
Why do you call the U.S.A. or the U.K. morally bankrupt? That doesn’t sound nice at all. And why on earth, would people make fun of “those hyphenated Greek types?” Some of those hyphenated Greek types may love Greece just as much as the people living in Greece who have never left it. I am sure that people from the Greek diaspora have put in a lot of money into Greece at some point anyway.
Anyway, have a good day, George, and please tell me about the commercial as I am intrigued by you mentioning it.
George,
I wasn’t aware this blog practiced spying on its visitors and it certainly won’t speak very highly for its democratic credentials should it do so. I doubt that the owner will thank you for making this suggestion. To answer your question I live in Greece. Thank you for your comment on my English though.
You might find it surprising but Greeks have always placed a high cultural premium on education and today Greeks are one of the best educated ethnic groups in the world. I understand that you might find it surprising and I presume this has something to do with the varvaroi perception of Greeks and in particular that of western non-Greeks. The West first defined itself as “west” in opposition to the Greek “east” and has pretty much retained its antihellenism ever since.
As for the moral bankruptsy of the UK and US I really wasn’t even aware the use of this characterization would be contentious when applied to two of the world’s wealthiest nations murdering hundreds of thousands and displacing millions of poor civilians in order to acquire the wealth of the country they resided in. Clearly we seem to have somewhat diverging notions of morallity.
John, your choice of words and your style makes me think of someone who lives in the USA or at least spent time there. But, I have to tell you that I found comment that you mentioned humorous. You said you don’t want to discuss Athos with a person until they learn Greek, and convert.
Well, I say the same things to local Greeks when they try to discuss US Foreign policy with me. I tell them that I don’t discuss US politics with individuals who are not US tax payers.
According to the EIU report which places Greece 8th for highest percentage of tertiary enrolment for the relevant age group, at 74%. The corresponding figure for the UK is 64% ranked 16th. That is not exactly “well below those of western Europe”.
The first secular university in Europe was founded in Constantinople in the 5th c. and the City housed Greek secular institutes of higher learning until the fall of the City to the Ottomans in the15th c. By comparison Oxford was founded in the 11th c and even then as a theocratic institution.
It is not surprising that the west is unaware that almost all Greek classics that survive today were preserved by the Greeks themselves and they were only introduced to most of them starting in the 13th c. when some were looted from Constantinople during the western colonisation of the Roman empire and when Greek scholars moved to Italy in the 14th and15th setting of the rebirth of classical learning in the west or Renaissance. Interestingly the Parthenon was used as a church and was the third most important Greek pilgrimage until the 15th century when the Ottomans closed it down. It was only reduced to its present state in the 17th c. when a westerner bombarded it and later when another removed most of its sculptures in the 18th.
A crowd had gathered around, watching and laughing, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_.....194136.stm
Is this morally bankrupt or just temporarily insolvent?
BTW what is your opinion on the Greek Genocide guys, do you think it really happened?
“Well, I say the same things to local Greeks when they try to discuss US Foreign policy with me. I tell them that I don’t discuss US politics with individuals who are not US tax payers.”
That is quite lame but I am not unreasonable and will concede the point. So I agree that if and when the Greek monks of Athos embark on large scale murder sprees it will be fair for you to comment on the issue as well. Untill then give me a break.
COMMENT DELETED BY DEVIOUS DIVA
John, you put a requirement in place that if someone wants to talk to you about Athos, that you request that they speak Greek, and covert. My point is that it’s not unlike what I request of Greeks who want to weigh in with their “conspiracy theory” views on US foreign policy. My requirement is for them to be US tax payers so that at least we are on a level playing field.
I don’t see how stating that Monks need to be mass murderers play in this discussion, or bringing up some random act of violence in the UK. Don’t forget that random acts of violence occur everywhere in the world, including Greece.
Again, I am almost positive you are a Greek-American, or have taken advantage of the American education system. Come on now, your use of the English language is not consistent with the typical Greek “Frontistira English” which populates the Lekanopedio.
George
Your point rested on what is called a false analogy and I had hoped that was made clear. The UK and US’ interventions around the world affect everyone and hence legitimize and invite comment. By comparison a closed monastic Greek Orthodox community hardly interacts with the outside world, that’s the whole point, and doesn’t force its will on anyone outside their border.
Similarly you could complain about the fact that Greek Orthodox take precedence in visit permits or that only Orthodox are allowed to live there permanently and then only as monks or in Karyes or that only Orthodox are allowed to perform liturgy.
Again no one forces anybody to become or remain Greek Orthodox and if any such take issue with some position or doctrine they are free to either seek to change that position within the church or join another one.
As regards the incident I linked to again you missed the point even though I took care to quote it above the link. It is not the actions of one, probably disturbed, individual that are criticised but those of the gathered crowd that stood and watched, laughing, as a dying human was desecrated.
Commenting on what the genocide denialist wrote
Until the 13th century the Greeks were literate at a much higher percentage than Westerners in whose lands literacy was confined to the clergy. After the destruction of their state by Westerners and Turks this trend was reversed and Greeks only again achieved parity in the mid-twentieth century.
“This is particularly true of women, who were denied access to even basic education”
The assertion on Greek women’s education is wrong. Quoting from the UN in Greece women’s share of tertiary enrolment is a slim majority of 51% and while it is lower than the UK (57%) that is because the British are pursuing university education at much lower rates than Greeks. Additionally a much higher percentage of Greek women get a university education than their British counterparts.
Tertiary gross enrolment ratio (M/F) and women’s share
Greece 2005 95 83 51
United Kingdom 2005 70 50 57
http://unstats.un.org/unsd/Dem...../tab4d.htm
A 2001 UNstats survey across all age cohorts found that 46% of third level educated citizens in Greece are women while the ratio is 48% for secondary education. The same 2001 survey in Germany found 38% and 50% respectively.
vol.2 table 3
http://unstats.un.org/unsd/Dem.....ybcens.htm
The only serious discrepancy is in less than primary education and even then only in the older age groups (above 50)where (a) longer lived women predominate numerically reflecting a time when poverty and war reduced opportunities for schooling (b) there was indeed a tendency to allocate scarce school funds to male children first. It in no way reflects a conscious decision on the part of Greek parents not to educate their daughters when they had the opportunity to do so, much less on the part of Greeks themselves.
“Where did…(more hatefull tripe)…well below those of western Europe”
School life expectancy (in years). Primary to tertiary education
Norway 2005 18
Greece 2005 17
Netherlands 2005 17
Belgium 2005 16
Switzerland 2005 15
Bulgaria 2005 13
Croatia 2003 13
Albania 2004 11
http://unstats.un.org/unsd/Dem.....cation.htm
Again Greeks seem to be educated on par if not better than most Westerners and significantly better than other Balkan people. This is a result of both economic factors (communist economic past in the rest of the Balkans) and cultural (e.g. Switzerland, Belgium are much wealthier than Greece yet lag). It is also interesting to note that even in Ottoman times the people within the empire most active in the fields of education and trade were the Greeks.
To the owner:
I don’t see how genocide denial and antihellenism as exhibited by one of your guests square in with promoting human rights. You might almost say they are mutually exclusive.
This is typicall antihellenic rhetoric. Some mentally challenged person speaks out of his ass bringing no data to substantiate his hatefull claims and then expect to be taken seriously when he dismisses the data I brought from the UN statistics agency because they clearly disprove his stupid assertions and don’t conform to his prejudices.
At any rate I am hardly going to waste more time debating the kind of bigots this place seems to attract. Anyone who reads these posts will be able to ascertain for themselves who is speaking rationaly and discussing facts and who is motivated by bigotry and hate, things that of course cannot be substantiated with facts.
“I do not have prejudices about these things, because I am not a Greek”
This is in fact an oxymoron, which is rather fitting since you have proven to posess the qualities of both an ox and a moron. It just goes to show that you are a bigoted mentally small man who exhibits the typical racism and antihellenism that has always characterized people of a certain mentality in the West.
“and do not think like that”
You have so far failed to present any evidence that you think at all.
As for your appeals to authority (namely your own) these are predicated on the authority being there in the first place and in your case this is clearly abesnt. You are a johny come lately who only started studying economics by what, age thirty? A joke! According to your CV you don’t even have a masters degree let alone a Phd like I do and you are almost twice my age!!
You are a paid hack pushing political agendas for various think tanks. That is politics in the guise of scholarship,no wonder you are so quick to accuse others of abusing data for propaganda, you assume everyone is engaged in the same enterprise as you. Protomyristis kai protoklastis!!
You uneducated little creature, no wonder you are so arrogant and aggresive, you are hiding your academic nakedness and vile antihellenism and racism behind the gross and anxious arrogance of the trully incompetent.
I can’t believe I wasted my time with this person!!
Diva, John asked “To the owner: I don’t see how genocide denial and antihellenism as exhibited by one of your guests square in with promoting human rights. You might almost say they are mutually exclusive.”
Do you have anything to say?
John, so, you are saying that with your comparison that until the Monks in Athos are mass murderers then they are not on an even footing with the US/UK who supposedly murder with their foreign policy. Did I get it now? I guess I don’t agree with that one since I support the US/UK governments and don’t think what they are doing in Iraq or elsewhere is wrong.
Now, as far as complaining about the UK situation where the bystanders just stood by and watched, unfortunately this is not only unique to the UK, but rather (again unfortunately) connected to human nature. I’ve seen the same thing in Greece quite often, seeing people lying on the street near Omonoia and no one bats an eye to see if these people need assistance either.
I guess overall, I don’t agree with you. But, there is room for all opinions; However, why do you have to be so mean to Martin. My wise old grandma always said, “If you have to rant and rave to prove your point, then maybe you are not as confident yourself with your views”. Just a little grandma sense and she didn’t have a PhD.
To Martin: I was pleasantly suprised to see your name in the Athens News today as an honored guest of the Athens News 50 year party.
You lucky guy! I only wish I could hobnob with the rich and famous! Do tell, was it a nice event, good food?
Diva, if this is off topic I do apologize.
Once again the discussion has derailed into an argument about who is cleverer than who and is full of personal attacks (again) and not helpful or interesting to anyone. I have been away the last few days and only managed to have a proper check here today.
COMMENTS ON THIS THREAD ARE NOW CLOSED.
It has nothing to do with mysogyny, so get your facts right before you speak. Women are prohibited because the peninsular was dedicated by Mary, Mother of God to herself, and hence no other female creature is worthy to step foot there. NOTE: ‘NO OTHER FEMALE CREATURE’
that means animals as well; so it has absolutely nothing to do with all these things you keep yaddering on about monks not being able to look at a woman.
I have read back this blog and I have to say I almost fell to the floor laughing! Leave it to men to turn any discussion into a “we are better than you are” situation! Thank you Martin, John and George for making it abundantly clear that it is very rarely women that ever disturb the peace of an environment. We leave that up to the men who, sure as the sun rises in the east, will take any discussion, flex their muscles and start trying to decide which of their nations, races, educational systems etc. are the best! My message to the monks of Mount Athos, if your fear of allowing women to visit is a worry about disturbing the peace of your residents then I think you may wish to rethink this as it looks to me like allowing some of these men there would be the mistake! Carry on boys!
As to the comment from Eugene about no women being allowed because it was dedicated to Mother Mary. Check your history. Nowhere is it written that this dedication excluded women. This was brought into it as a reason long after the dedication. There is not a women in the world who could possibly imagine Mary would approve of a ban on women in her name. This is an insult to her in the grossest manner not a way of honoring her. Once again, according to the legend, when Mary dedicated the peninsula to God and God made his answer to her, nothing, NOTHING, was mentioned in history or legend that this meant a ban on females. This was added by men to justify their desire to not allow females.
Wow, i just re-read this thread.
Apparently, this is allowed from Brits:
But similar comments from Greeks gets this treatment:
Hmmm…….
Sorry to go back to this again, Cinzano, but do you actually know what comment or comments were deleted in these cases? Because I have a bunch of death threats, threats of violence against my family and general hideously racist comments that some people actually saw before I had a chance to delete or edit. Horrible. I have apologised many times now for mistakes I have made and hope that seriously, we can move on.
I’m going to be offline for a few days now. Probably until Thursday earliest, So, let’s move on, be nice and talk soon.
Thank you
I find your comments offensive even though I am not a Greek. What is it with this typical Greek peasant mentality or calling people idiots? If you are so smart, why do you keep coming back to argue with people you think stupid? Also, you seem to be quite arrogant yourself though you call other people so. Maybe you shouldn’t speak on Greek issues if you can’t even be civil to Greek people. There are people who are hurt by your hateful stereotypes. Keep them to yourselves, or better yet get yourself educated enough to lose them.
That’s a fine response Gurmit. I wish everyone responded to offensive comments like that. It really is sad that these negative stereotypes of Greeks were allowed to be made in this blog for such a long time. It’s almost as if these comments were secretly agreed with. A constant stream of vile rcist filth from the same posters and absolutely nothing being done about it.
The only thing necessary for the persistence of evil is for enough good people to do nothing.
Cinzano, I am shocked at this Martin Person’s arrogance about being educated. He even seems to beat “educated” Indian people who openly go around attacking those who haven’t gone to college or university (educated Indians are so arrogant about their education that at one point the Indian government had programs for university students to engage in manual labour in an attempt to counteract this attitude, so said my Grade 11 Social Studies book in Canada).In a way it is good he came on. He does illustrate how arrogant and rude someone can be. The thing to do is tell such people that they are being offensive and hope it sinks in. As for this peasant thing. Weren’t most people in whatever country this person is from peasants too just a few centuries ago like everywhere else? I’m sure sure he isn’t descended from a line of kings and queens but probably has peasant roots too, not that there is anything wrong with peasants. In Canada, we don’t hold with this kind of superiority complex. Tommy Douglas, one of our best politicans and voted the greatest Canadian of all time grew up on a farm. He introduced free health care in Canada and worked for so many just causes.
Cinzano, I think I have to thank you for making the response. You made me more aware that it is a necessary thing and I do find Martin’s attacks offensive. I might have just thought “how unpleasant” and walked away before for that was my strategy, just try to get away from unpleasantness. I do think, unlike you, that it is ok for this guy’s comments to be left on, especially as people have responded, so we have done something. It is good also to know that some people think and communicate like this rather than not know. As well, there can’t be anyone who can’t pick up on his arrogance and sneering, nor is anything he says new. May life teach him that there are better alternatives and academics alone do not make one smart or a better person.
You know, back in Vancouver, there was this man, a friend of my dad’s who somehow suckered and conned me into helping him do this stupid phd thesis by correspondence from India. I don’t even remember agreeing to it, but he would tell me he assumed I would help him when I told him to go for it and it was the only reason he started, and I would be stuck proofreading and editing his chapters until I just stopped near the end. I told him I can’t even count on myself and nobody else can count on me (which is true, Cinzano. I am a failure in a lot of ways.). Anyway, he did end up getting the degree and he actually dedicated his book to me. But getting the degree and getting to be called doctor, BOY IT TURNED HIS HEAD. I met him after that and thought, oh my God the guy has gone nuts. Even the way he walks and talks and looks at people is different, and not in a good way. He also writes all these nasty articles about people, like real people, old men on buses, and prints them in pseudo-, newspapers or gives speeches. His attacks are vicious and have upset people,but when you see the guy you have to forgive him for you can see he is no longer even sane, purely due to conceit.
Wow, just wow!! Reading some of the above mostly racist & nonsensical comments about greeks coming from certain quarters, indicates that intelligent discourse is often a rare element on this blog.
On to the topic at hand. The church is not without it’s faults, it certainly can do more to bridge the gap between the genders. The Greek Orthodox Church to all intents and purposes is a patriarchal institution. It can change but only to a certain degree. The other problem is that the church is often a soft-target to blame many of society’s problems. We need to ask a serious question. In a country such as Greece, is the church responsible for indignity towards women?
If I was a woman I would be far less concerned about the church and more with say the mainstream media’s attitude towards the fairer sex. Anyone who has tuned into any of the greek tv channels will be bombarded with morning and afternoon shows that are only a few steps aways from something akin to soft porn. Now I’m no prude and like any red blooded male I enjoy watching beautiful women but I can’t help but notice how much they are objectified, especially on the various greek tv channels.
The objectification of women in greek media must be amongst the highest in the world. And it doesn’t stop there, one just needs to take a drive down any of Athens’s main roads or any other city and take a look at the billboards. Apart from the numerous ads for stripclubs & nightclubs which show plenty of young semi-naked playboy wannabe’s, some ads for washing machines to motorcars are not far different. These very same brands would never advertise their goods in such a manner in many other countries.
Here’s the infamous Greek BMW ad that pissed off a lot of women worldwide:
http://www.automotivetraveler......8;Itemid=1
Let me remind everyone that this ad clearly states that it’s for used BMW motorcars. Nowhere does this humiliating piece of advertising say that it’s for the Greek Orthodox Church. That’s an important fact to consider, the church would never condone such degradation of women. Nevertheless BMW’s are sold by the truckload, especially in Greece. Seems to me people are more than happy to forgive & support a faceless corporation that produces luxury automobiles. Monks that wish to live their lives in a certain way are in some way an affront to our society. As if Greece doesn’t have plenty of nunneries and at stunning locations like Meteora, so much for the ladies being left out in the cold.
Excellent points, Verve.
It isn’t just images in the media, and everywhere in the world, that women (and men) need to focus on, there is also stuff like sexual harassment in workplaces. I used to work as a first aid attendant for a company where a boss touched dozens of women and he knew he couldn’t get away with it with me, so he would talk about sexual things in loud tones after devising tasks for himself beside me. Just the fact that there are so many young girls and women in every country willing to go around or stick around with the worst kinds of controlling and abusive men because of low self esteem is something to focus on. Disparity in wages due to gender, informing girls about safe sex practices, etc. all need to be worked upon in every country, including Greece I am sure. I understand abortion is often a means of birth control in Greece and that needs to be dealt with.
I pay taxes for places I can’t go to in Canada. There are the public men’s bathrooms, rooms in hospitals during surgeries,meeting and staff rooms in public institutions, military bases (though my friend Erin and I sneaked onto one time on Dead Man’s Isle by Stanley park in Vancouver and walked past the old guard at the bridge upon exiting just to see what he would do. He did nothing, so she wanted to go return our empty pop cans as we had gone into an unlocked and empty building too and bought the pop from a vending machine. We were young and foolish and would never do such a thing anymore.)court rooms during sensitive hearings, and the list can go on. However, I don’t have a problem not be able to go to these places whether as a woman or an individual because I value and respect that what is going on in there is important, meaningful, and necessary.
You probably know that I am not a Sikh from my other posts. You may not know Sikhism is dead against celibacy as a spiritual value and reclusion from the world and that the founder of Sikhism actually used to climb up really high mountains to tell the yogis, celibates and recluses, to stop being cowards and come back down and live in the world and stop their hypocrisy about staying away from women when they had no problem begging alms from them, but I still value the rights of these monks and appreciate they are doing something meaningful and important. They should be left alone in my opinion and other issues focussed on.
Oops, lots of grammar mistakes and in para. three, I meant to say, you probably know I am not a Christian. My email to my penpal in Greece was even worse for grammar. Stress does it.
Hi Gurmit,
Don’t worry about it, everybody makes mistakes.
I agree with you 100%. From what I hear from all my female relatives that live in Greece the work environment is not all that good. Two of my cousins are incredibly beautiful and both have encountered sexual harassment at work. The one in particular was constantly cajoled by her boss to sleep with him. She kept on turning him down and reminded him that she was in committed relationship with her boyfriend but that just didn’t get through to him. She eventually left this job as there is little recourse she could take with the way things are in Greece.
An aunt of mine who is retired today thinks things are much worse in the workplace nowadays than they were a few decades ago. She experienced no sexual harassment where she worked, the worst men would do back then was whistle at them in the streets. It just shows that society is gradually unraveling while nothing is done to address real issues. It’s far easier to pick on the church. Incidentally none of my female relatives feel in anyway threatened or oppressed by the church. Not all are ardent church supporters either but they have enough common sense to see where the real problems lie.
Verve,
In most democratic societies religious institutions have lost a lot of the power they used to have because the modern democratic nation state has taken over a lot of their functions. I personally think that is good as far as human rights go. For instance, in Canada a short while ago the issue of gay marriages arose. The head priest of Sikhism actually felt he had a right to tell the Sikh MP’s of Canada, there are like 6 or something, that they had to be against gay marriages. The young Sikh MP with the turban and the beard was the one with the courage to tell him he had no right to interfere in Canadian constitutional rights while others just tried being quiet on both fronts basically.
What people seem to fail to see sometimes is that sometimes it is also the nation state’s job to protect the rights of religious people and institutions. A lot of people have values that they see as being different than someone say who is really religious, so rather than seeing that other people have the right to different values if they choose, they feel it ok to try and stamp out anything different. By doing this they are the backwards ones. Religion has lost so much power over the centuries and is underneath the state. It shouldn’t be stamped out totally for it is useful and a lot of humans need it.
Some say in Greece religion has a lot more power. However, in Greece the state won the issue of religion not being listed on the identity cards didn’t it and in spite of the Church’s opposition? I don’t think Greece is that much different though maybe it does play more of a role in the schools since the education ministry is combined with religion. What kind of a role does it play in the schools. For example, I had grade 1 and 2 students as a student teacher who attended a meeting where they were told things about sex including a demonstration of the way a condom is used as well as stuff on how to protect themselves from sexual abusers (I felt my face going hot at several points for I grew up in a prudish sort of home). Would this sort of thing be allowed in Greece? I grew up in a small town and what was allowed in the big cities wasn’t allowed and had no sort of sex education except a few hours in Grade 12 while my friends in Vancouver were shown videos of childbirth in school about five or six years earlier. It wasn’t because of any religious institutions but just because the values of the small town parents were somewhat different.
There is probably a lot more sexual abuse now than there used to be because there are a lot more women working but also because of other factors. One thing people often rely on is a woman feeling shame and keeping quiet about advances. I know in a lot of companies including banks they pick beautiful women for the sake of attracting more male clients (I know this from insiders). I looked at that BMW ad you mentioned and yeah it was disturbing. One time I picked up a catalog of products from Body Shop for an essay. I was so pleased because their model wasn’t even a real person but a cartoon figure. They did it on purpose because of the negative effects of advertising on women, especially young women. I don’t if they still do that. I guess I will have to go check.
Have a great day.
Oh, there is this internet campaign going on to bring back the Elgin Marbles to Greece. If you go to the following website you will see how sign the online petition if you are interested. Feel free to pass the message on to as many people as possible.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k0_dN_gQmEg
Yeia sas
Sorry, Verve, I didn’t tell you sooner (sometimes things percolate in my head for a while), but your last response was a great response. It is always good to see the sincerity of men who really care about women’s issues like sexual discrimination in the workplace. I was sorry to hear what your cousins went through, especially the one who had the boss demanding to sleep with her. I can imagine what it must have been like for her for I know women who have been in nasty situations and was molested as a child by a man in a position of trust and power though I did stop it before it got really horrendous as it did for my best friend who was his former victim.
Hi Gurmit,
Thanks for the link and showing interest in the issue with the Elgin Marbles. I will be passing that link around.
My cousins are strong, independent women and they’re both doing well now. The one that got harassed by her boss now runs her own business and is very happy where she is now. Nevertheless sexual harassment is terrible and should be stamped out from all workplaces worldwide. I too am sorry to hear about your friend’s predicament. Well done for doing something about it.
The church in Greece does have some power but like in many other western countries, that power is gradually diminishing. Nor is society prudish, sex & politics are candidly discussed on the dinner table in the typical greek household. Most greek kids know all about the birds & the bees long before they reach adolescence. Sex is not viewed as some evil, taboo thing that one should have a guilt complex over….it is politics that’s dirty.
I would say that the United States and plenty of other European countries are much more puritan than Greece as far as sex & nudity is concerned.
Perhaps that may be part of the reason why ads like the BMW one exist. There is a fine line when an ad becomes tasteless and offensive. You mentioned what the Body Shop is doing and that sounds like a great idea. If only more companies would follow suit in the future.
Thanks for making it clear that the church /school link doesn’t mean kids not learning stuff. just wondered because in some religions and cultures it would mean that. The unique culture of the town I grew up was sort of like that. ( I had a high school teacher who used to really get mad saying the small town moved to get away from the dirty city stuff though he certainly didn’t seem religious.) Great for your cousin. And yup, the U.S. seems to be puritan in some ways.
Hey Verve,
I thought about it and decided it is wrong to call those marbles the Elgin marbles as if they belong to him in some way. So now I refer to them as the marbles Elgin took. I don’t know about the man and what his motivations were, but I suspect it was probably just greed and looting (God, now I will just have to find out more about him).
You know one time in my youth I was going to write the queen of England a poem about some diamonds in the British crowns, cut into two from one diamond and taken when the Sikh kingdom, an independent country, fell in 1849. It was funny when I went to the store to buy some special paper for the poem. I told the people there I was going to write the queen a letter (though I didn’t say I meant to insult her and the ending was ,” you acknowledge we are higher than you; that is why you wear us over your heads”), and everybody was trying to help out with the paper selection. You don’t usually get such comraderie from people. In the end, I got too lazy to mail it and then decided the queen had nothing to do with it and was just a harmless, old lady who really likes Sikhs anyway. It would be fun to go to a stationery and pretend I am writing her a letter and see if the customers all get involved like that time.
Anyway, I hope the marbles Elgin took come back to their home. Britian has no right to impose conditions of any sort on the Greek people and should just return the stuff.
Do you think they are worried it might cause other peoples asking for their stuff back even though Greece was not a colony of theirs when the marbles were taken? They have a lot of Sikh stuff and have returned some of it at times seemingly just on their own. Quite frankly, I don’t mind them having Sikh stuff for they acknowledge they have it and take very good care of it in museums while the Indian government has stolen Sikh treasures like a canopy of diamonds, a peacock carved out of a single large sapphire, original writings in the hands of the Sikh prophets, things made of precious woods, etc. in 1984 when it ordered the Indian army to attack dozens of Sikhtemples on one of the holiest days of Sikhism and kill and rape tens of thousands of people. The people were taken in garbage trucks and disposed of goodness knows where and the stuff was taken and never seen again and they deny ever taking it. There is a great difference among plunderers sometimes. Give me an honest thief like Imperial Britain any day over a dishonest one like the present day plundering and bloodthirsty India!
Anyway, I just posted the marbles link because one of my pen-pals from Greece sent it and asked me to spread the word around. I’ve forwarded her message to several people and the Greek community centre of Toronto too for it didn’t seem to have anything about this petition on its homepage. Once this stupid move is over, I will probably try other people too. You know I have two pen-pals from Greece now. They are really nice.
Anyway, have a nice day.
Yeia sas
Hey there Gurmit,
Things are not so cut and dry. Elgin paid the Ottoman Turks that were running the show at the time, for the marbles. They are now in the hands of the British Museum which is a private entity with it’s own stakeholders. Not even the British Government can tell them what to do with the marbles. Unless some patriotic Greek billionaire makes an offer for them that the BM accepts I think it will be a long time coming, if ever, for the marbles to return home.
After the Greeks, it’s the Egyptians that are waiting in line for their ancient artifacts to be returned. Sorry to hear about the Sikhs getting plundered as well, it seems like no one’s cultural heritage is safe from the thieving connivers of our world. Still some criticism still needs to go to many of my fellow greeks, not so much in the case of the marbles but in the way we approach our rich heritage. It shames me to know that there are plenty of my compatriots (including many Athenians) who have not set foot on the Acropolis, and have neither visited many other important historical sites that foreigners pay good money to come see.
The average greek is sadly consumed by trash culture i.e. cheap, trashy morning & afternoon tv shows, hanging around for hours at coffee shops drinking frappe (a type of ice-coffee), chain smoking for hours on end, going out late to bouzoukia to listen to the latest vapid singer sing yet another middle-eastern inspired song, drive around in the latest luxury german sedan that he/she can barely afford. Unfortunately this is the Greece of today that increasingly turns it’s back to it’s once glorious past. Then we are all so terribly angry with Britain for having some of our marbles, in some ways more people got to appreciate them this way.
Don’t get me wrong, I would still love to see the marbles returned. Athens now boasts a state of the art museum at the foot of the Acropolis to show them off properly. Greeks need to show more interest and pride in their own history. The German, French & Japanese national that visits Greece every summer makes a point of visiting every important heritage site, knows more about Hellenic history than the average Greek does, pitiful.
I’m glad to hear your making new pan-pals. Enjoy the rest of your day.
Hi Verve,
How is it going?
I appreciate that nothing is so cut and dry, especially when you have third parties like Elgin involved. I had no idea Elgin purchased the marbles. I thought perhaps his motivation might have been to save the marbles for a lot of British people in the past really were into the Hellenic past.I don’t think those marbles will be easily relinquished either for Britain has just too much stuff belonging to other people and this might cause other demands.
I remember in the 1990′s the British wanted to give something back to Sikhs ,but Sikhs said they didn’t want it and refused to take it-the body of the Sikh crown prince, Daleep Singh. The British kidnapped him when he was a little boy in the 1850′s, after throwing his widowed mother in prison in a dungeon. His grave is still in England. He was made into a Christian as a child but in his later years, he sneaked into India and got baptized as a Sikh before he was arrested and forced back to England. His wife was a German lady and a Christian, and Queen Victoria was the godmother of at least one of his kids. I guess his family wanted a Christian burial for him and that should be respected by people. In Sikh theology it really doesn’t matter what happens with a dead person’s body as far as the afterlife is concerned, and it was just considered more disrespectful to mess around with his body after so long.
I believe they offered this mouldering heap of bones because thier trading partner India probably would have felt it was a good idea for this particular body to be offered to Sikhs for cremation. The grave is frequently visited by Sikhs and it does give people ideas about an independent Sikh state for the future too, and in the 1990′s,when it was offered, there was a really strong Sikh separatist movement going on in India.
I see you are not thrilled by the consumerism in Greek society. It is like that basically everywhere. My mom was visiting my sister and her family in BC and told me one of her plans when we go back is to make my sister get rid of the toys for my niece. They fill two whole bedrooms, literally. I hate to say it for I do love my sister very much, but most of the time both parents have no time for this little girl though they throw all these toys and outfits at her. Even when they talk to her it is with their attention elsewhere, on their careers or courses or the movie they are watching if they have time to relax. She will become very materialistic if this does not stop. Now they just had a second child and the cycle will start once again. I think we all just keep going to work, buying things, and then throwing them in the garbage and getting more things to make the garbage dumps even bigger.
Anyway, I better get going. Proofreading for my brother than packing the mountains of krap we can’t bear to throw out but will leave here one day anyway.
Yeia sas
Hi Gurmit,
Doing great, thanks. Hope the packing is going well. Truly an interesting & tragic story of the Sikh crown prince. Sikh theology makes sense regarding a deceased person’s body. It’s so silly how many religions try to dictate what happens in the afterlife. With the advancements made in medicine & hospitalization, more and more people are returning from near death experiences and many report of their experiences of that hour or two they’ve spent in the afterlife which is a slap in the face to many religious institutions. Most people have experienced a pleasant brief afterlife, usually coming into contact with loved ones that have passed away before them. A few have also had hellish experiences though. What is confirmed is that it doesn’t matter what religion one practices or does not as experiences tend to corelate between folks of all walks of life and beliefs.
The consumerist culture is found everywhere these days, from the developed to the developing world. In Greece’s case, it’s obvious that consumption exceeds the country’s output, which is a bad thing. Furthermore it’s the quality of the things we consume that have a bigger effect. Too much exposure to lowbrow cultural elements dull the mind, reduce critical thinking and are just terrible for the creative spirit within us all. Most Greeks need to change their ways, they need to switch off the dumbox, stop wasting their lives away at coffee shops and start getting some positive inspiration in their lives. The coutry’s rich history is a great place to start and it’s incredibly interesting to top things off. No morning show with some peroxide blonde bimbette hostess should ever hope to replace the country’s intellectualy & spiritually uplifting heritage.
At least going to “coffee shops” is a civilised recreation. What do Americans and us Brits do for a good time? WE GET DRUNK.
At least southern Europeans don’t need to get drunk out of their skulls every Friday/Saturday night to have good time.
Especially on weekends, UK city centres are like warzones, with “sidewalk pizzas” i.e. puke all over the place and women passed out on the sidewalk due to excessive drinking.
http://img.thesun.co.uk/multim.....56110a.jpg
I think popular culture in the US and UK is much worse than in the Med. We Brits place an onus on getting drunk to have a good time (or getting high) and fighting in bars is a recreation.
Also, about the peroxide blonde bimbos on the TV, we Westerners invented this sexist image of women with the advent of Pam Anderson and other dumb blondes which American culture seems to churn out on a regular basis (Marilyn Monroe, Hugh Hefner’s Playboy bunnies etc).
Most men, not just Greeks, enjoy watching these silicone-breasted bimbos on the TV and if anyone is to blame, it’s our decadent, unsophisticated and unhealthy American/British culture that’s to blame because we export our trashy culture throughout the world.
Mcdonald’s junk food, Coca-Cola’s junk drinks, Simon Cowell’s American idol shows, get famous-without-talent shows, “get rich or die trying” culture, “it’s cool to be a pimp” disrespect of women, “bithes and ho’s” etc, this is OUR CULTURE which we spread to other countries and brand as “cool and trendy”.
So before we criticise Greeks for hanging out in coffee shops, which seems quite civilised to me, we should look closer to home when looking for negative aspects of popular culture.
I prefer the Med’s “cafe society” than the “booze-addled warzone society” of the UK or the “pimping and gang-banging society” of the US anyday.
http://img.thesun.co.uk/multim.....96314a.jpg
And one more thing, let’s not pretend that Southern Europeans watch more TV than Americans or Brits. We Brits and Americans are practically glued to the dumbox.
“…according to data from the OECD’s Communications Outlook report. American households watch the box for over eight hours a day on average, twice as long as anyone else”
http://www.economist.com/daily.....rc=twitter
I think we need to stop bashing the Southern Europeans for “wasting their lives away in coffee shops or watching TV”. I think this is just another variation on the same tired old stereotype: “Greeks, Spaniards, Italians, Portuguese are lazy and do not like work.”
@ Cinzano,
The comment was written by a southern European!
Let’s be clear here. I think it is OK to be critical of certain behaviours. I think we are all grown-up enough to know that some things are worse in other countries than here. The thing is, we live here and this blog is about Greece. We must be allowed to discuss problems without being told we are “bashing Southern Europeans” every time we say something negative and without having to put a disclaimer on every comment that says “but Britain is worse though”
Cinzano,
I know one person who would certainly agree with you about British and drinking. It is this guy named Anderson on CNN. He is a good reporter, fearless during hurricanes and such. He came to Britain when Obama and his family went there soon after being elected. He really loved the British he said, except one thing-the drinking behaviour. He went on and on about how after the pubs close there are all these drunken British people puking and urinating in the street. He was saying “the British” and stuff too. I suspect Anderson does not drink at all (he hardly ever smiles either). During the Obama election my brother and I became CNN junkies. As for Verve’s comments,Cinzano, he is Greek and just wants his people to be even better than they are. If he didn’t love his people he wouldn’t feel frustrated with them for habits he thinks are negative. People can do their 8 hour or 10 hour shift and then hang around for hours in a coffee shop or pub ,as you mention, or on the weekends. Whether it is a waste of life or not is an individual judgement. Coffee shops are a life saver for me because I sometimes wait for calls for work at them and they keep me warm in winter, have a washroom if I need it, and maybe even safe for I leave the house to get into Toronto by bus by 5:00 am. I read or learn Greek while waiting in them. I think more people would certainly agree that coffee shops can be a waste of money judging by how expensive some of those coffees are. You also get addicted going to them through classical conditioning.
Anyway, have a great day. Yei sas
Have a nice day. Yeia sas
Hi Verve,
You know sometimes, I wonder about these near death experiences. I wonder if the people are not just hallucinating,with neurons being set off in similar patterns being responsible for the commonality of some of these experiences . I had this professor once, a really neat man and originally from Greece actually, for an abnormal psychology class. One time he told us that after his mother died, he went to Greece and was extremely stressed and saw an image of himself standing at the foot of the hotel bed and staring at him. The guy was no kook. He did research on this when he came back and found that it is a hallucination that can happen during stress and is called the image of the double. Just as there are common hallucinations for people under times of stress, maybe these near death experiences are something like that too. I have trouble thinking that it is actually an afterlife they are in and not just experiences created by their neurons that seems like a reality. The brain after all can make people with missing limbs feel as if they still have them. I’m not saying that any of the religions are right about their ideas of an afterlife either.
Anyway, have a great day.
Yeia sas
Being a southern European doesn’t necessarily make his comments about southern Europeans correct or any less offensive. And his comments regarding your blog contributors i.e. the “as.holes” on your blog are very insulting. I would’ve thought you’d be critical of anyone making those sorts of comments towards your contributors. But i knew you’d run to protect GHM just like you protected the British racists for three years – you always protect and support those who criticise southern Europeans – you’ve failed to ban anyone who makes offensive or negative comments towards Greeks.
The trouble with many human rights activists is that they focus on criticising a certain group of people (in your case, Greeks) but you don’t apply the same principles of human rights to the people you accuse of committing them i.e. you never address the human rights issues of Greeks. Your blog is focussed on human rights issues of those living in Greece, but you neglect Greeks themselves. Your blog is solely focussed on human rights breaches caused by Greeks. There’s a big difference.
This was proved in your tacit approval of British racists making offensive comments about Greeks’ religion, Greek work ethic, Greek culture, and the many insults to Greek national character and southern Europeans in general which you allowed to go UNPUNISHED for three years….
Is it ok to criticise “certain behaviours” even when those certain behaviours are negative stereotypes? Is that why you allowed comments such as “Greeks have a peasant mentality”, “Greek culture makes them homophobic”? Do these come under the banner of “criticising certain behaviours”?
How would you like it if someone said: “Blacks are inherently aggressive and unpredictable”, “Africans have a peasant mentality”, “Black culture makes them more prone to be homophobic”? Would you find these comments acceptable and place them under the banner of “it’s ok to criticise certain behaviours”? I doubt it. Double standards again.
That old chestnut. You lived for many more years in the UK but you didn’t even care about the UK Roma community when you lived here. I bet you don’t even know about the Hatch eviction in Bedfordsire where the roma were subject to systematic and repeated abuse by Bedfordshire council.
You go on about Greece being terrible for all these things, which is ok to an extent, but you have hardly made even one reference to our country. We have massive historic problems with local councils evicting the Roma community thoroughout the UK and demolishing their homes and lives YET YOU NEVER MENTION THIS. You don’t even know the name of the Roma spokesman in the UK yet you pretend to be some sort of Roma saviour.
This makes me believe that your human rights blog is borne out of the very British trait of “going abroad to educate the natives” and your motives for having this blog is more for your ego-stroking rather than trying to address the real issues faced by the Roma community. Add the negative and sanctimonious title of your blog and your rather mischievous nom de plume “Devious Diva” and it doesn’t take a genious to work out that you are more in it to cause resentment and antagonise people rather than address the real issues faced by the Roma worldwide.
No-one is “disallowing” you from talking about anything – you exercise total free speech, just as the british racists were allowed free speech on your blog. The only people who weren’t allowed this privelege were Greeks who you banned for similar offenses.
Just as you must be allowed to talk about negative things, we must also be allowed to discuss your blog’s double standards and negative stereotyping.
@cinzano
Why don’t you actually READ anything I write?
The as..oles comment was written by a different person than the one who wrote about the Greek cafe/TV culture. Both are Greek and I defend both of them and their criticisms. The comment about as..oles, AS I SAID, was not the kind of LANGUAGE I like on my blog but it was directed at PEOPLE IN GENERAL WHO ACTUALLY ACT LIKE THE WORD HE USED. (ie people who harass, threaten and have even sent death threats to me and my family.
You have NO idea what I was doing while I was living in England. I have also stated that I had never had the opportunity to visit the Roma community before coming here.
The thing is Cinzano, anything I say will be misconstrued, misread and misinterpreted so I think I’m going to stop replying to your rather snide and unnecessary comments. I’ve spent enough time justifying things to you, trying to discuss things with you and EVEN apologising several times for past mistakes. All to no avail.
Before you explode… I haven’t banned you. I just can’t spend any more time answering your negativity on every single thing I write.
No you weren’t. Be honest, you were simply waiting for another “mistake” on my part. I stand by my last comment.
deviousdiva´s last blog ..Normal Blogging
I can 100% guarantee that you weren’t fighting for the human rights of the Roma community in the UK. Am i wrong? You didn’t even know about the Bedfordshire eviction and dozens of others, you didn’t criticise ONE local council for the systematic abuse of Roma rights in the UK – you haven’t even been in touch with the Roma spokesman in the UK to see if their experiences can aid the Roma in your neck of the woods in the Greece.
You allowed the British authorities to systematically abuse the Roma in the UK right under your nose and you did nothing – you saved all your contempt for those pesky Roma-abusing Greeks when you moved to Greece. Once again, it smells of sanctimonious Brits going abroad “educating the natives”.
That’s another way of saying you can’t come up with reasonable explanations for your support of negative stereotyping on your blog. Your only answer thus far has been that “you are sorry” and “mistakes hae been made” but you continue to defend those who wish to make negative stereotypical comments (Look at the Women on Mount Athos thread where defend the right for people to make stereotypical comments about Greeks).
I ASKED YOU WHETHER YOU WOULD ACCEPT THESE NEGATIVE STEREOTYPES IF THEY WERE MADE AGAINST BLACKS OR AFRICANS BUT AS USUAL, YOU DIDN’T REPLY.
(The caps lock is actually because i want you to see my question and answer it for a change, not because i’m shouting).
Are you a mind-reader as well? How do you know who GHM directed his comments to?
As i said, you ALWAYS defend those who attack Greeks and their culture. The only other person who was allowed to repeatedly use offensive and vulgar language was Xenos, and you allowed him free reign in here to spout his racist filth.
Why did you write that? What do you want me to say? Thank you very much? It wouldn’t look too good if you banned me now, would it? I really don’t like making you squirm but i feel that i owe it to my integrity to expose the glaring double standards in your human rights blog. . I can almost feel your desire to ban me through my PC screen….damned if you do, damned if you don’t..
Your “mistakes” have been so numerous over the years that it seems your mistakes are actually how you operate rather than a one-off error of judgement…
What happened to my last post?
Cinzano,
I think you have a point when it comes to comments like that Martin guy’s earlier in this post as being really offensive. I may be wrong, but I don’t even think the guy cared if he was making people feel hurt or angry. Those sorts of comments should definitely be condemned by people. The as–oles comment too was inappropriate, especially for a person involved in human rights. Hopefully, he won’t do it again. Now, I don’t think Verve was trying to be a racist. I’m a Sikh and I’ve said negative things about Sikhs on this blog, women being sexist and superstitious It doesn’t mean I want to spread stereotypes or hate Sikhs. It is because I care about them that I get frustrated by this. Verve is entitled to his opinion and so are you. It is great that you commented about the coffee shops and tv. Your comments offer a different perspective, and you are right about Americans watching the most tv. A recent survey on the laziest countries revealed that Americans watch the most tv, consume the most calories , and are the most unlikely to engage in sports. Canadians came in number one for internet use, over 42 hours a week. Greece actually wasn’t in the top twenty for any of these four dimensions (though some other Med. countries were in the top twenty for some dimensions).
Anyway, have a good day.
Gurmit
@ Cinzano,
I thank you for sticking up for greeks and I do agree with points you’ve made. In particular with human right’s organizations and double standards. If one condemns the mistreatment of illegal immigrants in Greece at the hands of detention officials, one should also condemn the cold-blooded murder of greeks at the hands of illegal immigrants. I do agree that if one wants to speak of human rights, one simply cannot include one group and exclude the other.
My criticism of fellow greeks comes down to some of the negative aspects I see in what constitutes the mainstream greek society of today. There’s nothing wrong with frequenting a coffee shop, but is it necessary to will away 2 or more hours, on a daily basis, often during office/work hours like many young greeks do? Folks that should be working or studying should not be spending so much time in coffee shops, especially in a country that is suffering from one of the lowest rates of productivity in Europe and the inevitable problems that helps to cause, like the current financial crisis.
What’s funny is that I come across fellow greeks who gloat about Greece being a world leader in shipping. That’s great and all, most of those shipping companies are owned by greek billionaires living in London & New York. Their ships are registered under every flag under the sun, rarely the greek flag. Most of those ships are not even manufactured in Greece, a country with a once proud shipbuilding tradition. Many ships are now built in countries by people who don’t have such a close connection to the sea like greeks do, go figure. Furthermore most of the employees working on these ships are not even greek.
That’s billions of dollars of revenue and jobs that Greece has lost. As long as there are good times, the EU willing to be a good suggar daddy to foot the bill, the average greek couldn’t care less. Greeks need to wake up from their self-imposed hubris and realize they are also part of the global economy, which requires a country steps up it’s game in order to be competitive. At least the Italians manufacture Ferraris & Lamborghinis and renowned the world over for their quality clothing brands. They know how to stay relevant in a modern world, something Greece has failed to do and should learn from.
The Verve,
Don’t do yourself or your people down. I’m sure Greeks have a great many things they can be proud of and a great many things that they are more productive and more successful than many other more resource-rich nations.
For example, off the top of my head and without wishing to sound patronising, i remember when your small country surprised the sporting world when they lifted the European Champions Cup in 2004. Grit, determination, organisation and team spirit epitomised that victory. And i can probably name at least a dozen famous Greeks off the top of my haed – Nana Mouskuri, Telly Savalas, Demis Rousos, George Michael, Vangelis etc.. which goes to show that the stereotypical view of Greeks being uncreative, unproductive and lazy is simply a racist generalisation.
I’m sure that the Greek shipping magnates going abroad to register their ships are just exploiting the tax laws and getting the most bang for their buck – this is business and happens all over the world – businesses often to look for tax havens in the interest of profit. It’s certainly not an indictment on the Greek people (although i can see where it may be the fault of your goverments who apply stringent taxes for shipping owners, though i don’t know for sure).
The point is, don’t allow sanctimonious foreigners with delusions of superiority to make you feel inferior to them in any way. They are racists and they enjoy reinforcing negative stereotypes which simply are not true and are offensive. You’ll find many examples of offensive steretyping in this blog (with the full connivance of DD unfortunately, which is the most disappointing bit of it all really).
Cinzano,
I don’t know much about you, but one thing I guess at is you must have seen some pretty bad stereotyping against Mediterranean people in Britain to be so aware and to stick up so much for Mediterranean people.
I know in the little town I grew up in there were very few people with Mediterranean backgrounds, maybe ten or twelve families. I went to school with some of the kids. There weren’t many stereotypes around but I did hear one one time from a high school classmate one time. At the time, I attributed it to the fact that she had to say these sorts of things about people because of her bad home that included an incestuous father. My mom had some stereotypes about the Italian people in town. She to this day seems to think all Italians are extremely hard working, have very nice gardens, and successful children. The only negative thing she thinks is that sometimes Italians can be, let’s just say a little stubborn and tough (and she doesn’t think that is negative but positive). If anyone says anything negative about them she starts fighting with them (she had good relations with this one Italian family, they weren’t tough or stubborn at all but just really nice and friendly, that is from the media going on and on about the mafia probably and this Italian-American guy, Sat Atama Singh, who converted to Sikhism in jail due to some course he was taking and had to fight racists off with a shovel in Canada because of his Sikh appearance when he was free. He came to our house and made her and himself some special tea good for healing bones too because the racists did break some bones. He wanted us to move to Ecuador with him and start banana plantations. He wanted all the Sikhs in town to go. One guy and his family got ready. I’d be scared of all the poisonous snakes and arthropods or whatever spiders are (every time anyone calls them insects in this house, my brother starts fighting because they really are not insects) stuff in the banana plantations or I would have gone had I been an adult.)
Anyway, I will shutup now and get back to packing. I hope you don’t think I am spreading stereotypes. I really can’t believe it, we are almost done packing, still several hours of little odds and ends and then all the trips to dump what we are throwing away. Truck comes in the morning.
Yeia sas
Yeia sas, Verve,
Since you are into music, I was wondering if you know about Owl City. (Forgive if you did. I didn’t and can’t even remember the name of the musician. I know next to nothing about musical groups, especially modern ones.) tutor this 11 year old girl who is a gifted learner and goes to a special school for academically advanced students. She really likes this Owl City singer because he doesn’t go on about the usual heartache over love usually. He is also insomniac and does songs from his own experiences. Do you think there is anything unique about this guy’s music or is it just superficial?
Hey there Gurmit,
Yeah I’ve heard some of Owl City’s stuff – not bad. Not terribly unique though, mostly synth/electro-pop stuff which is very trendy these days. It also happens to be a genre which is dominated by the french, they pretty much own this genre. After all France is the home of Air, Daft Punk, Justice, Cassius and Sebastien Tellier to name a few, these guys are the heavyweights.
There seems to be a huge musical divide between the US & Europe, with the US being mostly rock country and Europe having a strong bent towards electronica with the French leading the charge. These days more American artists are jumping on the electronica bandwagon because rock music has reached an evolutionary dead end, whereas electronic music doesn’t seem to offer any creative limitations at this point in time. There’s only one problem, the Americans are 30 years too late.
Why the French are so ahead of the game is because they accepted disco with open arms back in the day and they ran with it. They never lost love for the genre and inspired many to dabble with electronic instruments and spawn the talent & other sub-genres they have today. In the US, the success of disco was short lived mainly due to homophobia. Disco was popular amongst gay commuities but also latino & black heterosexuals in many cites like New York, Chicago but there soon was a backlash by rock loving whites. They started rioting and burning disco records as a form of protest and gradually the popularity of this form of music declined and was even ridiculed by the American mainstream…quite dumb if you ask me.
DD, I’m wondering why there are no articles being posted about the human rights of the ordinary Greek people whose working rights and pensions will be slashed as part of the austerity measures imposed on them. It’s all over the intrernational news but apparently, this is not news for “a blog about Greece”.
Is this blog about human rights breaches in Greece or human rights breaches caused by Greeks?
Why do you seem to concentrate on issues which show the Greeks breaching others’ human rights but you do not deal with the issues when Greeks’ human rights are being abused?
Your refusal to tackle subjects such as Greek workers rights, especially at this time of social and economic upheaval, suggest that your motives for running such a blog are not because you want to address the human rights issues of everyone in Greece. It’s clear that your using this blog to stroke your ego while proclaiming how uncivilised the Greeks are and how badly they treat people of colour and immigrants.
For example, I saw a snippet of news on my TV about Greece today. The BBC news programme were saying something about 30% cuts in wages and a bomb going off outside a bank etc…I wanted to find out more because i only caught a bit of the news.
I came to your blog to find out what was happening because your blog purports itself to be “a blog about Greece” but all i see is articles about how “refugees are people too” which is ok but i would’ve thought that you’d be covering the human rights of the ordinary folk in Greece which are being currently being p*ssed on by the Greek government and IMF.
But you don’t really care about breaches of Greeks’ human rights. Please don’t say that your blog is about “human rights issues in Greece”. This blog is about how Greeks breach others’ human rights and you can’t stop putting them down with your negative articles.
Suuuuure you did! And not at all to pick holes in what DD has written. Because that would be sooo out of character for you.
Thanks for the laugh Cinzano!
Substitute “Britain” for “Greece” in this sentence (that’s a game you’re fond of playing, right?) and this sounds like a BNP supporter complaining about human rights activists who never pay any attention to the indigenous population!
pj,
I thought a blog which is “focussed on human rights in Greece” would have at least covered the protests and social disruption happening right now in Greece. It’s all over the international news but it hasn’t even got a mention here. Doesn’t that seem a little strange to you?
It seems that this blog is more focussed on blaming human rights abuses on Greeks rather than addressing human rights issues for everyone in Greece. There’s a big difference.
Cinzano,
Honestly, no. I don’t find it strange at all. The focus of this blog seems quite particular and well defined and I think it would be stretching a point to say that the current financial crisis and its consequences constitute a human rights issue. If DD wants to discuss it, then fine, it’s her blog and she can do that, but there are lots of big issues here in Greece that she doesn’t cover, so why this one. Surely it is the value of a blog like this that it looks at issues that tend to get ignored by the old media.
(And by the by, if this blog really was as anti-Greek as you seem to think it is, wouldn’t this be the perfect opportunity to lay into those ‘lazy tax-dodging Greeks’? In fact, it seems to me that DD goes out of her way not to generalise and criticise Greeks.)
Hi Verve,
Thanks for getting back to me on Owl City. I listened to a couple of songs but they really didn`t move my spirit as the cliche would be. I think I could churn out lyrics like the guys sings by the yard. I have to try listening to that Orthodox music you suggested again. My computer keeps on stopping in the middle of a lot of you tube clips and did that with that piece too about 4 times.
Today at work I learned something that really effected me. I had to take some Grade 7 kids to an assembly and they had a presentation on the eighth continent. I think I should share this with as many people as I can even though I am sure many people probably have known about it for years while I just heard about it today. I remember Earth day was spoken about on this blog and this sort of ties in with that.
The eighth continent, also known by several other names including the garbage patch, is a very large area with seven million tonnes of garbage in the Pacific ocean between California and Hawaii. It is garbage from everywhere on the planet and brought there by the ocean currents. It is an area expected to grow and grown and grow.
The plastic bags resemble jelly fish in the ocean and turtles eat them for that reason and die. The six pack rings around pop bottles choke birds and fish. Turtles also slip into them as babies and grow up with extremely distorted shells like a figure eight. Sea birds feed their young with things like markers and cigarette lighters and end up killing them. Some of the dissected birds were chock full of these smaller items of garbage. Plastic bags and strings also get wrapped around birds and render them immobile and thus unable to survive. Other garbage also traps some animals including large turtles. Plastic bottles injure very badly and have even been found stuck on the heads of large mammals like deer. All in all it was quite disturbing to watch all this. Even the boys pretending to be really macho and tough were visibly affected by the images. It certainly makes one think that one has to be much more responsible about reducing, reusing, and recycling. Even a single plastic bag we don`t pick up can end up destroying some poor, innocent animal that plays a vital role in the ecosystem to ensure our survival.
All our stuff has been trucked away but I am staying in this almost empty house to work a couple of weeks to ensure I have enough for student loan and cell phone payments, etc. for the few months I might be unemployed in BC. One thing I have to try to do is go to Niagara falls on the weekends. I`ve been here for six years but never went to see the falls and it seems like a crime to just leave without seeing one of the few beautiful things in this fairly ugly province (at least the big city area seems to be aside from Lake Ontario).
Anyway, have a good day.
Gurmit
pj,
I think we’ve already established that this blog is only concerned with human rights breaches which are caused by Greeks. This blog’s focus is not “human rights issues in Greece” but “the breaching of human rights by Greeks“.
For example, there is currently a great deal of social unrest in Greece due to the austerity measures imposed on the Greek people. It’s all over the internnational news.
As i understand it, there is an issue of very deep anger and rage against the planned attacks on jobs, wages, conditions and pensions and tax rises in Greece. The austerity measures include a freeze on public sector pay and serious cuts in bonuses, lowering of pensions so that workers are forced to stay working longer. Journalists are describing the recent marches in Athens and Thessanoliki as “rivers of fury”.
Yet, DD does not mention this historic event in Greek workers’ rights on her blog.
On the other hand, there are threads on here which
criticise the Greek government’s breaching of Philipino migrant workers’ rights such as overtime etc..Please see this thread:
http://deviousdiva.com/2009/03/20/workers-rights/
Please explain this dichotomy. If this blog was truly an exploration of human rights issues in Greece, surely both of the issues of Greek workers and Phillipino migrant workers would have been treated in the same way i.e there would criticism of the government’s current treatment of Greek workers as there was with Philipino workers in Greece.
The truth is, this blog is not what it purports to be. It’s a blog which exists to highlight human rights abuses caused by Greeks, which in itself is not necessarily a bad thing but i think DD should clarify what her blog is really about and not pretend it’s a blog which deals with “human rights issues in Greece”. A blog which doesn’t even mention the historic and unprecedented decimation of Greek workers’ rights which has prompted violent protests and “rivers of fury” in Greece cannot pretend to be a blog about “human rights issues in Greece” when it neglects to address the most historic and monumental abuse of worker rights ever to have taken place in Greece.
No, I think we’ve established that you are determined to find fault with whatever DD does or does not write on this blog. You are misreading what she writes either deliberately or because you truly do not understand what she is talking about and I don’t think any unbiased reader of this blog would get the impression that DD is criticising Greeks as such.
There is a clear difference between illegal discrimination against a minority and legal measures which, however painful they are, affect everyone. Again, I have to ask whether you are pretending not to understand the difference or whether you are so caught up in your one-man crusade against DD that you seize on any ‘evidence’ to make your point, however insubstantial.
In your efforts to prove your point you also end up adopting startlingly contradictory position. Here you talk about
whereas a couple of posts back you were defending
and criticizing
.
So which are you? Friend of the workers or defender of the plutocracy? Or doesn’t it really matter as long as you can find a stick to beat DD with?
Why do you and DD always seek to minimise and downplay a crisis which has hit the Greek people where the greek workers’ rights are being abused? I would have thought that human rights advocates such as yourselves would be extremely sensitive and understanding of the complete decimation of workers’ rights currently happening in Greece. I’m wondering why you don’t share the same understanding for Greek workers’ as you showed for foreign workers when their rights were abused.
“Furious Greeks have likened the three-year austerity programme and the attendant international monitoring of their public finances, to a foreign occupation.”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/busi.....CMP=AFCYAH
Yet, this blog doesn’t even mention the single biggest decimation of Greek workers’ rights since the second world war.
Strange. Very strange.
I’d have thought that the Greek crisis would at least have been mentioned on this blog which purports to be “about Greece”. But then again, this blog has never highlighted the abuse of Greeks’ rights. It only caters for rights which are abused by Greeks.
Cinzano, I think DD and I fully understand what is happening to workers’ rights here in Greece, because (unlike you) we actually live here and are subject to exactly the same austerity measures as the Greek people. We, our friends and our families are the ones who are going to be suffering through this crisis, not you, so kindly don’t accuse us of not understanding what the Greek people are going through.
I also think that there are plenty of places that people can go to online if they want to read about this issue, so why does DD need to cover it as well? If she wants to talk about it, then fine, but if she feels she has nothing to say, then that’s fine too as far as I’m concerned. At the end of the day, this is a human rights blog, and as I’ve said, I don’t think many people would view what Greece is going through as a human rights issue.
Because this blog purports to be a human rights blog “about Greece”? It has dealt with workers’ issues in the past e.g. the overtime issues for foreign workers – therefore, i don’t know why DD is totally ignoring the issue of Greek workers’ rights which are currently being decimated.
It’s like having a blog focussing on “environmental issues in America” and then totally ignoring the huge oil spill currently decimating the coastline of Louisiana. It’s absurd.
You don’t get more “about Greece” then the current crisis which is plastered all over the international media but not on DD’s blog, which is supposed to be “about Greece”.
This blog is clearly about DD stroking her own ego and all about a Brit going abroad and “educating the natives” – DD has consistently swerved the subjects which highlight the human rights issues of GREEKS and Southern Europeans – she focusses only on human rights when Greeks are the perpetrators of abuses.
She is completely self-obssessed to the point of being totally disingenuous when she says that this blog focusses on “human rights in Greece” because she ignores the rights of millions of people who live here.
An indication of this, is her total self-indulgence and snobbish arrogance when SHE TALKS ABOUT HER OWN EMPLOYMENT PROBLEMS AND ASKS FOR A JOB IN THIS THREAD:
http://deviousdiva.com/2010/03...../#comments
DD:
“If anyone has any ideas, contacts or actual work offers, please let me know. I am looking for writing jobs specifically but will consider anything at all. The love of my life has 30 years of experience in the creative field (photography, graphic design, web design etc) but he is open to any opportunities too. Please email privately with any ideas.”
DD even suggests that she will leave the country if things get too tough:
“We might have to leave the country and go back to Britain….”
Well, the Greeks don’t really have a choice to leave a sinking ship BUT i’m sure they would appreciate it if a blog “about Greece” at least highlighted their plight.
Millions of Greeks will lose their jobs, homes and pensions through no fault of their own but sanctimonious Brits with human rights blogs “about greece” totally ignores the unprecedented decimation of their employment rights!
Once again, DD COMPLETELY IGNORES THE PROBLEMS AND ISSUES FACED BY THE PEOPLE WHICH SHE CALLS “FRIENDS”. She’s proved that Greece is definitely NOT HER COUNTRY and millions of Greeks are not worthy enough for her to address their issues on her blog. (But she will use her blog to ask for a job).
Cinzano,
There isn’t really much point in replying to you, is there? You repeat the same bogus arguments ad nauseum, you ignore the points I have made (do you even bother to read what I have written?) and your manner is becoming increasingly unpleasant.
DD,
I apologise that my attempts to engage Cinzano in rational dialogue have resulted in him hurling yet more abuse in your direction.
Four people dead including a pregnant woman and still, the silence on this blog is deafening….”about Greece” my arse.