As most of you may know there has been a referendum in Greece recently and people were asked whether they reject or approve a loan which would be released by European Commission, European Central Bank and International monetary fund. What gave me stimulus to write this article was the campaign ran by the government for the rejection of this loan. It was quite surprising to hear the prime minister Alexis Tsipras encouraging voters to reject the "blackmail" presented by the "European parteners". This surprise doesn't refer to the content of the proposed agreement but from the rhetorics used: it was "us", Greeks who had to say "no" to the "bad" Europeans. So I started wondering: where does Greece belong to? Should it be member of European Union (EU) or should it leave EU and stand alone as the other oriental states surrounding it?
To address this questions I am going to adopt a rather cultural approach even though a resolution focusing only on it is not complete. Let's consider first some important historical facts which I consider important. Greece has totally missed (because of the slavery to Ottoman Turks) Renaissance, Enlightenment and Industrial Revolutions when they were taking place. What would this practically mean? In my opinion, the slavary era (circa 1453 to 1831 A.D) deprived the greek society the chance to get influenced by those major movements and didn't allow it to take the time to go through some necessary transformations. Let me give an example which is very striking to me: the concept of freedom.
Freedom in Greece is often perceived as a right which cannot be restricted in any way. Many Greeks think they are free to park their car on zebra crossings, ramps for handicapped, pedestrian areas or sidewalks. They also think they are free to smoke where it is prohibited or to violate any law they can and sometimes they feel proud about it. Therefore to some greek minds freedom is equal to impunity. On the contrary, northern european societies are quite influenced by Jean-Jacques Rousseau (a leading pholosopher of Enlightment) teachings. According to Rousseau (if mistaken please correct me), the freedom of one ends where starts the freedom of the other. Therefore my freedom, in the context of a society, is limited and subject to rules. These two different approaches of the same concept immediately give rise to two different groups: "us" and the "Europeans". Perhaps this conclusion is oversimplified but it describes well the cultural gap between Greece and the developed countries of Europe.
In the sense described above Greece doesn't belong to Europe but it is rather an oriental state. Of course there is nothing wrong with being oriental but this creates problems of understanding when it comes to cooperating with Europeans who have totally different cultural backrounds than Greeks. So what should we Greeks do? In my opinion, we should transform our mentality, society and institutions and bring them closer to european standards. In a globalised world, Europe is our home and we should give our best to find a way to live peacefully and cooperate with the other tenants of the building (=Europeans). On the other hand, the Europeans blaming the Greeks about their faults, should understand they cannot demand from Greeks to change things from one day to another while they needed centuries to change them (see industrialisation or other reforms). Change takes its time...
