April 29, 1994
Published in: The Greek American, June 11-17, 1994
AN AMERICAN RESPONSE TO “EUROPE'S TROJAN HORSE: Profile-The Greeks”
By Professor Michael C. Geokas
The
following is a response to the article "Europe's Trojan Horse: Profile on
the Greeks" written anonymously and published by the Sunday Telegraph in
England, March 27,1994. Dr. Geokas was
contacted by the Greek Consulate of San Francisco and asked to write a rebuttal
on behalf of Greece. A synopsis of the
article follows.
Synopsis
In the Sunday Telegraph Article "Europe's Trojan
Horse: Profile on the Greeks" the author maintains that Greeks are
"paranoid" simpletons who suffer great delusions about their origin
and history. The author asks,
"What connects them [Greeks] with the race that build the Parthenon?"
The average Greek, a cabdriver, knows nothing of ancient Greek language and is
consequently illiterate. The only thing
Greeks know to do well is cook souvlaki, according to the article. The mystery author sites an 1830 study that
found that "not a drop of pure Greek blood could be found in modern Greece
and that Greeks are Slavs."
He or she goes on to say, "The desperation with which the Greeks claim a
monopoly of a classical past, in which we all have a share, should be the clue:
the Greeks today are a mixture of Slavs, Turks, Greeks, Bulgarians, Albanians,
Vlachs, Jews and Gypsies... They do not merely have Balkan food.. they have a Balkan mentality, a Balkan
approach to politics." The late
culture minister's Melina Mercouri's funeral is likened to the Ayatollah
Khomeini's in its expression of mourning.
And Greeks, who lie and steal from the European Union, "have found
in the EU a new kind of decaying Ottoman empire."
The author concludes that, "Centuries of domination left their mark,"
implying that the Turkish occupation has destroyed Greek character and its
right to its culture.
THE RESPONSE: TO THE
EDITOR OF SUNDAY TELEGRAPH, LONDON
The definitive rebuttal to this racist polemic on the Greeks, by your anonymous
correspondent, is coming to you not from Greece, but from America. It is quite fitting that a factual point by
point response, to the cheap concoction of insults to the Greek people, should
come from the land of the free, the most vibrant multiracial society on earth,
with its celebrated egalitarianism, its obsession with fairness, its proven
respect for all cultures and its radical interpretation of democracy. An article like this will never be published
in America, because it will most certainly create a storm, from coast to coast
and the writer and the editor of the newspaper, will be fired on the spot. This is yellow journalism pure and simple.
According to your correspondent's racist views, America should be the most
impure nation on earth, with 257 million people coming from a galaxy of races
and ethnic origins, with intermarriages galore, with a cornucopia of religions,
languages, traditions, cultures and historical backgrounds and probably....with
not a drop of blood in most of our people's veins, coming from the Founding
Fathers, who created the magnificent American Constitution.
This
reminds me of Adolph Hitler's refusal to hand the Gold Medal to the Black
Athlete, Jesse Owens, at the Olympic Games in Germany before the War, because
of his ...racial inferiority.
Furthermore, America should be probably expelled from the UN, from NATO
and other organizations, as an impure nation, with a pseudorelationship to its
glorious colonial past, which ended after the Boston tea party.
Frankly, as an American academic, I am appalled and insulted by the arrogant
racism and discriminatory accusations, against innocent people who have been an
outpost of Europe and a bulwark of the West, for more than two millennia. This polemical profile is apparently the
product of a culturally and historically pseudointellectual, with the ossified
mind-set of an unrepentant colonialist.
I can assure you that the false and slanderous views expressed in this
profile, are anathema to all Americans.
Please note the following:
History
has already recognized Greece as the birthplace of Democracy and its people, as
the inheritors of a cultural heritage of awesome proportions, that some other
complex-ridden Europeans, have great difficulty in accepting as an
incontrovertible historical fact. The
Greek civilization has been defined through the centuries, by common objective
elements such as religion, language, history, customs and institutions, and by
the intense subjective identification of its people.
With the fall of Constantinople in 1453, came the despotic Ottoman occupation, for almost 400 years. Amazingly, the Greek nation was reborn from
the ashes and has been under parliamentary rule for 140, out of 170 odd years
since independence, in sharp contrast to all of its neighbors.
The Greeks have been part of the West all along, albeit with a special twist,
due to:
a)
Their
exotic, but magnificent language, which resembles none of the other European
tongues, yet has provided a cornucopia of terminology in Medicine(68% of terms
are of Greek derivation) and in other science disciplines.
b)
Their
non-catholic and non-protestant branch of their church and
c)
Their
geography, that makes them an outpost of Europe, adjacent to the World's most
troublesome fault-line, between Western Europe and Islam.
GENETIC
PURITY
To talk about a perfect genetic and biological continuity over 2,000 years is
nonsense. Furthermore, any demand about
Greek blood and purity of the race, smacks of Nazi-Aryan racism. However, the cultural connection of the
Greeks of today to the people who built Parthenon is another matter. The solid
connection is found in their civilization, and their basic character
(argumentative, proud, articulate, fearless, very much political,
individualistic, daring and quick on their feet), their spirit, their love of
freedom, their adherence to principles and ideals, their love of education and
family (98% of Greek children today are born within marriage-how many are there
in England? or Sweden?), and the legendary endurance of Greek culture, among
Greek immigrants overseas.
To be Greek is a state of mind that embraces Greece's glorious past and not a
pure bloodline. The Greeks are right in
tenaciously adhering to their heritage, in a world where all races and peoples
are striving for cultural identification and for maintaining their roots, in
the midst of a powerful modernizing-homogenizing imperative. The love for their cultural heritage is
genuine and as Sophocles said in Antigone “Eros Anikate Machan” (love
undefeated in battle). This is what the
anonymous correspondent is unable or unwilling to comprehend. He or she simply does not get it.
SALONIKA
The territory north of Salonika, the civilization of Philip and Alexander the Great, and the star of Vergina
and other findings of Professor Andronikos, represent genuine and
incontrovertible evidence of Greek civilization, which has been preserved
intact, by nature itself, for more than two millennia. The people of this region consider themselves
to be Greeks. This is no Paranoid Nationalism
either, based on flimsy or circumstantial evidence. One has to visit the Museum in Salonika, and the Dion and Vergina
areas, to obtain the overwhelming visual impact, of the evidence at hand, that
stares you in the face. What is the
proof of Englishness of the barren Falkland Islands, for which British blood
was shed in modern times? Was that Paranoid Nationalism?
MELINA MERKOURI
Melina Merkouri was a gutsy lady and a brilliant actress much admired for her
contributions, not only in Greece but also in America. The comparison of the scene at her funeral,
to that of the Ayatollah, is a cheap shot and the epitome of sexist expression
and of gutter journalism, against a spirited champion of the rights of women
everywhere. Melina was right about the
Elgin Marbles as well. It should be
said in one thousand languages: they belong to the Athens Museum and not to the
British Museum in London.
Greece has not been ruthless in erasing all traces of ethnic diversity
either. This is the legacy of the cold
war, with a hot war, of a Communist attempt for takeover, which the Greeks
defeated fair and square, under the Truman doctrine. The traces of ethnic diversity peoples, were self-eliminated by
foolishly siding with the communists, in a manner similar to the Volga Germans,
who sided with the advancing Nazis, later to face the wrath of the people.
The assertion that the town of Marathon was, in early last century almost
completely Albanian, is ridiculous at best, and represents a figment of this
type of political journalism, that masquerades as physical anthropology, which
was nonexistent early last century anyway.
Furthermore, the statistical data shown are totally unreliable, and
largely meaningless with today's standards.
The absurdity of this polemic intensifies on the subject of
"cultural transmissions" to modern Greek cuisine and on the level of
sophistication of Greek taxi drivers.
You should come to San Francisco or New York or Los Angeles, to taste our
cuisine of a thousand origins and to converse with our taxi drivers. They are from all races and
ethnicities, and they speak many
tongues and they do not have a clue about American history or poetry. However
they freeze at attention, with our national anthem, and we are proud of
them. They are Americans by choice and
right.
I agree with the Greek Governments, for insisting that only highly trained
Greek-born guides should take tours around ancient monuments. How many Indians or Pakistanis or Greeks or
Egyptians are allowed to serve, in key positions of culture or administration,
in England, or France or Germany? Has there ever been a foreign-born, Lord
mayor in London? or an official at the London museum? or at the Louvre national
museum?
FIGHTING FOR DEMOCRACY
There are some events which illustrate the cultural connection between the
people who built Parthenon and the Greeks of today: the famous answer of the
Spartans at Thermopylae (μoλώv λαβέ-come and
get them-meaning the weapons), was repeated to the fascist Ambassador by the
Greek Prime Minister, by the OXI (NO), WHEN HE WAS HANDED THE ULTIMATUM
DEMANDING THE SURRENDER OF THE GREEK ARMED FORCES, in the morning hours of
October 28, 1940. This took place under
impossible odds, and invoked Winston Churchill's admiration. It took 35 German divisions and a few
precious weeks from Barbarossa, to subdue the Greeks, whose women fighters
decimated the German paratroopers in Crete.
The Greeks also fought the Nazis during the dark days of the
occupation. True to their civilization
and ideals, the Greeks have sided persistently with the Democracies in World
War I and II, and fought at El Alamein under Monty, in Italy, and in Korea and
defeated the communist upheaval, giving the West its first decisive victory in
the cold war, which was quite fitting and highly symbolic, for the birthplace
of Western Democracy. This is the
connection to the people who built the Parthenon and fought at Marathon,
Thermopylae and Salamis. From ancient
times, the Greeks do not follow the dictum...."if you cannot fight them,
join them." Instead, they die
fighting, for Democracy and freedom. That's the connection.
Years ago Nikita Khrushchev made a cardinal error before the Greek national
Elections, by saying: "If Greece continues its provocations as an
instrument of NATO we will not hesitate to throw an atom bomb on the
Acropolis!" Promptly, the Greek
communists lost the elections by a huge margin. That's the connection.
The Greeks are gifted people, independent and individualistic, they love
freedom and are conscious of their heritage. "Hellenismos" signifies
the cultural heritage of the Greeks in Greece and those living in diaspora. They are generous and proud people and they
are honored to share their privilege but not the heritage, with all peoples of
the world. The heritage belongs to the
Greeks.
GREEK AMERICANS
The strong cultural connection of the Greeks of today with the builders of
Parthenon, is also validated by the achievements of Americans of Greek
ancestry. Census data in this country
have shown, that they are among the best-educated people in America, with
College, M.Sc., Ph.D., M.D. and other degrees.
In politics they have been highly successful, despite their small total
numbers. This and their legendary
success in dominating the Merchant Marine business in the world's oceans,
cannot be attributed to chance alone.
That's the connection.
However the most preposterous statement and the most insulting to Americans, as
a racist view reminiscent of the claims of racial purity by the Nazis (who
called the Russians subhuman Asiatic types), is that the Greeks of today are a
mixture of Slavs, Turks, Greeks, Bulgarians, Albanians, Vlachs, Jews and Gypsies. This is the epitome of arrogance and betrays
historical and demographic illiteracy.
As an American I find this statement repulsive, but quite understandable
nevertheless, because of its author's mind-set.
Modern Demography and anthropology were non-existent in the 1830's and
Fallmereyer's studies of Slav migrations and his pronouncements are meaningless
with today's standards. Only someone
who has an ax to grind, would consider such flimsy evidence, as the gospel of
truth in this day and age, of great sophistication in scientific inquiry. The fact is that, the Greeks spread
Orthodoxy to Slavic peoples. Religion is the only similarity between them. All other objective elements, language,
history, customs, and traditions and subjective self-identification are all
completely different. The claim of
Greeks being an admixture of Turks, Bulgarians, Vlachs, Gypsies, Greeks Jews
and Albanians is an enormous exaggeration, unproven by modern demographic and
anthropological studies.
Of course, the composition and boundaries of civilizations change and
civilizations blend and overlap. What is remarkable about the Greeks is their
passionate adherence to their cultural heritage, and it is absurd to classify
them as an admixture of many races, mainly I suspect, because of their unique
and exotic language and their non-catholic and non-protestant religion and
because they live in an area, where sharp demographic changes have occurred in
the past.
THE PARANOIA FACTOR
The so-called "paranoia factor" is most probably due to the
geopolitical and geocultural ignorance of your correspondent. For 1300 years wars and frictions have
occurred along the West's fault-line with Islam. As an outpost society, with no kin nations around, in an area
notorious for upheaval and volatility of national borders, and being under
constant pressure from Islam, the Greeks are justified, to be cautious and to
be looking over their shoulder.
The
Greeks live in a bad neighborhood. The
end of the cold war and the shifting economic interests of the big nations,
justify the attitude of the Greek people.
The notion of a Balkan mentality and Balkan approach to politics, is a
lot of hot air, in view of the known slyness of states, and the unsentimental
and cold-blooded nature of what they do, as they pick their way through
chaos. After the fundamental insults
against the Greek people the anonymous correspondent attacks them and their
democratically elected leader and his policies towards the EC, about the
integrated Mediterranean Programme, and American bases in Greece. Then comes the "corrupt scheme of the
Acheloos Dam Project", the extinction of the poor Dalmatian Pelican, the
abusive letters from Brussels, the ruination imparted by the Athens Metro, and
the graft and criminality engendered by EC cash, all due to a Greek perception
of a decaying Ottoman Empire-like EC.
This is the clue of this correspondent's mind-set. These allegations sound like "dirty EC
linen washed in public," and are offered unilaterally, without proof or
justification. In America we say: what
is the other side of the story?
Finally,
to demonstrate the absurdity and folly, of such racist and irresponsible
journalism, I wish to mention Europe's notorious little problem into the 21st
Century: its looming Demographic disaster, due to low fertility and negative
population growth for many European countries.
At 2025, its population is
projected to be only 524 million, whereas the
countries of the Middle East (with 264 million in 1993), are projected
to have at 2025,between 490 to 576 million, most probably surpassing Europe.
The poor water resources of that region and other factors, might generate a huge surge of migration towards Europe, with Greece at the eye of the storm. This is a sobering possibility indeed and should generate concern and long-term planning by the EC. Yellow journalism of this type, against the Greek people, is deplorable and counterproductive and should be rejected out of hand, as undermining European unity. Furthermore, Greece with its traditionally excellent relations with the countries of the Middle East (except Turkey),can serve as a bridge, between an aging and sophisticated Europe and a robust and developing Middle East.
RESOLUTION: I hereby request the
following from the Editor of Sunday Telegraph:
Michael
C. Geokas, M.D., Ph.D. (McGill)
Emeritus Professor of Medicine
and Biological Chemistry, UC, Davis
School of Medicine
CC:
Greek Ambassador in London
Rector, Aristotle University Thessaloniki, Greece
Rector, University of Athens, Greece
Minister of Foreign Affairs of Greece
Louka T. Katseli, Senior Economic Advisor to Mr. Papandreou
The Prime Minister Mr. Andreas Papandreou
Mr. Gerasimos Arsenis, Defense Minister of Greece
Douglas Hurd, British Foreign Secretary*
Mr. John Major, British Prime Minister**
British Ambassador to Washington D.C.
British Ambassador to Greece***
Note: */**/***/ Letters were received from all these British officials. The most apologetic, was the letter from the
British Ambassador in Athens.