Yeah I'm sure it was people's desire for unity, and not the drastic drop in the quality of life experienced by the average Russian during the 90s.
Yeah I'm sure it was people's desire for unity, and not the drastic drop in the quality of life experienced by the average Russian during the 90s.
I was referring to older communities in the US, but funny enough I actually also know someone who went to princeton on merit scholarship (old enough to have memories of the coup and not be a chud).
I'd say the assimilation is definitely a big part of it, you can see it in the US with similar groups like irish and italians where as soon as they stopped getting treated as non-white they became eager to join the ranks of the oppressors. The greek chuds have a real obsession with hating islam/turkey in particular.
Part of the reason I try to communicate to other americans the economic situation in greece is that it's starting to look more and more like the fate that awaits people in the US now that austerity and empire is really returning home.
Also if you need a laugh allow me to summarize the typical understanding of greek history as taught via US education:
Zeus and polytheism- but mostly through disney movies and the Hercules TV show
Brad pitt invaded Troy for some reason
300 spartans fought off the evil persians
greek democracy as romanticized by the br*tish (what slaves?)
the byzantine empire survived the fall of the roman empire because they converted to christianity
the evil muslims overthrew the Byzantines because of trickery and reasons
war of independence
"Glücksburg is just the family name, what are you a communist?"
Ah yes, of course. Yeah that's a common theme. Do they also freak out about North Macedonia? They probably do.
Funnily enough Greeks in Germany are from what I've seen closest to Turks than any other ethnicity there, pretty funny how that works. Thing is, lots of Greek people hate Turks because of the history between the countries, especially older people. Thing is, the Armenian genocide wasn't just Armenian, lots of Greek people lived in Turkey these years, including my great grandparents who ended up having such an aversion to Turkey that they changed the channel the moment they heard Turkish. Greece was also not blameless in what happened, the atrocities were partly in response to the invasion of Turkey by Greece under the pretext of protecting and liberating the Greek populations in Turkey. It seemed to be going well until the Greek side thought "wow this is so easy, guess we're just gonna take over half of Turkey now instead of just the coastal places where there actually are Greek populations". So then Ataturk counterattacked and ethnic cleansing happened. The history is more complicated of course but I can't explain it here since it's pretty delicate and I don't even think I have the appropriate knowledge to seriously talk about this.
It didn't stop there. The trigger that eventually collapsed the junta was Turkey invading Cyprus (a country which is basically Greece but even shittier) in 1974 because the Greek junta tried to establish a similar regime in Cyprus, which helped Turkey invade under the pretext of protecting Turkish populations in Cyprus.
So basically Greece and Turkey have been at conflict since forever, and shit is kinda escalating again (though in all likelihood it won't go anywhere this time). Which fucking sucks because people get really racist when really, the nationalists may not want to admit it but no other country is closer culturally to Greece, Turkish people are pretty cool and the proximity really shows in places like continental Europe (especially Germany) where the two groups are both discriminated against and get closer to each other.
I've had so many dreams about the Soviet States of the Mediterranean and Balkans lol I really fucking hate what nationalism has done to separate all these amazing cultures from each other and how much it hurts minorities. That's the end of my sad "why can't we just be friends" rant. I just really hate this shit and how governments want us to hate each other when I just want to eat kebabs and swear in Albanian with my comrades :(
If the US enters a serious crisis (not like 2008, I mean a SERIOUS crisis like what Greece had), it's gonna be much worse for the common people than Greece. Greece is still 50 steps ahead of the US in terms of labour power. Don't forget communist guerrillas used to be so powerful the country was actually controlled by them for a brief while after WWII and the succ Andreas Papandreou government under the pressure of communists post junta was by far the most leftist government to be democratically elected in Europe. There is some things that even right wingers consider obvious that you could never convince Americans to do. But unfortunately with the current government I am afraid we are finally well on our way to completely become a neoliberal hellscape. I don't want to despair but I'm not feeling good about where things are heading lately.
Well that's what people in Greece believe too lol. Except the Glucksburg thing, that's just sad.
Also there's a very weird perception about byzantium. People don't really want it to have anything to do with the roman empire, they want it to be Greek through and through so they make weird excuses to themselves. I guess that stuff it is the result of preschool plays where literal 4 year olds pretend to be fighting off Turks in 1821 and military style marches for school students (although maybe the 28th October ones are less bad because they're about resisting Nazis I guess...). And yes, I've done all of these things, so has the vast majority of Greeks. The one thing I haven't done yet and I can probably avoid it only I get enough PhDs is mandatory military service.
You are right though, people have to know about the Greek debt crisis. It was insane and pretty traumatic for many people. The quality of life in Greece before was actually much better than the US I'd say because despite being much weaker in terms of GDP per capita and overall much lower average income, labour was much stronger so you had way more bang for your buck, less inequality and better working conditions. But it just collapsed so fast. My parents income decreased by over 60% and we were among the luckiest people around us. I went to a private school at that time, one year there were 4 classes per year, next year there were 2. Unemployment went up to 30% or something like that. It was crazy, it's also crazy how it was reflected in suicide rates.
:frothingfash:
I'm not particularly well read on this either, but this aligns with my understanding. I guess the only thing I would add is that a major underlying motivation for the war was the Br*tish empire wanting to cut down the ottomans, greece was just the junior partner fighting the proxy war.
Same, I still feel shell-shocked from 2008 because it was the setback that really got me to challenge my assumptions about europe. I lost my job in the US but was sending money to family because what else can you do when you see your family members trying to survive on ~500 eu/mo?
This really resonates with me too, I'd be interested in seeing more posts from balkan/mediterranean/southern european comrades because there's so little that gets translated to english. Greece is fetishized in the west by lovers of "democracy" and that contradiction can be challenged by highlighting the degree of brutality that was required to put down the communists there in the civil war and after. (The post-1945 timeline is not talked about)
Yes, this is true, but also after the counterattack started, the br*ts were like "OK these aren't the Ottomans any more so we don't really care and also this is just way out of control so now you're on your own now lol bye" and they just dipped and even denied to help fleeing civilians so as not to get in trouble.
What country are they from?
It's unfortunately a common reality for many old retired people around here. I think my grandparents' pension was even less than that, it was like 350eu/month or something, it's enough to, um, eat and that's about it.
Yeah me too which is why I try to post a lot about it and enjoy when other people join in.
Forget about the post-1945 timeline, history before 1940 is basically brief bouts of liberal democracy between monarchy and fascism. Metaxas gets propped up because of Ochi but really he was just Greek Mussolini except it just so happened that he wanted to keep being Greece's Mussolini instead of Mussolini being Greece's Mussolini.
They're in greece, I just don't want to dox myself too much, but some of them were just out of school and working service jobs struggling to make rent.
oh also you had mentioned:
Even more amusing because prior to the concept of greece as a kingdom or nation the people living there (within the former byzantine empire under the ottomans) were just considered (and considered themselves) romans.
Oh sure that also happens tons, ostensibly minimum wage is around 650eu/month but you know how these things are... Thank god for souvlaki and no one giving enough of a shit to enforce public transport fees, they're the only reason you can keep your expenses at 5 euros per day if you try lol.
Oh it's better than that because "romios" is an alternate name for Greek and "romiosyni" for Greek-ness and chuds use these words because they sound cool, while simultaneously downplaying the roman aspect.