A4 LAYOUT ANTHROPOLOGIA

Chocolate as a novel food in 19th and 20Cthhocceonlattue rays aGnroeveelcfeood in 19th and 20th century Greece

Current Attitudes toward Chocolate

The aim of the second part of our research was to obtain an in-depth understanding of
women’s attitudes and behaviour towards chocolate. For this purpose a strictly qualitative
study was designed, using focus groups as the most appropriate methodology for the planned
research. Analysis of the transcripts from focus groups revealed that young women identified
chocolate as the most desired food among all sweet items and desserts. Chocolate is preferred
in its solid form, that is, as chocolate bar, rather than as a beverage, ice cream, or dessert.
Similar attitudes have been previously reported among women in Spain and the United States,
who also list chocolate at the top of their preferences for sweets (Zellner 1999).

Among the dominant feelings following chocolate consumption, which young women reported
were, guilt (‘I always have feelings of guilt after consuming chocolate’; ‘I cannot resist this
addiction and am taken by feelings of guilt’), fear of an increase in body weight (‘I fear I will
find out that I gained weight the next time I check myself on the scale’), and concern about
amending the adverse effects of this weak behaviour (‘I feel that I must now go out and run’).
There were also a few reports expressing the pride women take in being ‘capable of resisting
chocolate’.

The majority of the participants of the focus group described specific self-restricting and
controlling techniques they resort to in order to limit chocolate consumption – the
consumption of some other sweet food (our participants specifically mentioned honey, milk
with cacao, and a piece of chewing gum) and attempts to distract themselves from chocolate
by turning their attention to something entirely different. It has also been reported that being
unable to control the quantity one consumes, the precaution of not having chocolate available
at home is taken.

With regard to the beneficial effects of consuming chocolate, young women mentioned the
positive impact of chocolate on mood and mental performance most frequently (see Table 2).
Other positive features of chocolate consumption that were mentioned were the
cardioprotective role of chocolate as well as its quick-energy releasing and aphrodisiac
properties. However, some women pointed out that the only beneficial effect of chocolate is its
sweet and rewarding taste, whereas a good portion of the focus group participants believed
that no positive effects can be attributed to chocolate, and that it is best to avoid it at all costs.

Table 2. Positive Aspects of Chocolate Consumption as Identified by Young Greek Women

• Has a positive effect on mood, and acts as a relaxant.
• Enhances the memory and increases one’s ability to effectively perform mentally
• Is good for the heart
• Provides a quick source of energy when one is exhausted and hungry
• Is an aphrodisiac

Information gathered in the focus-group sessions on potential problems that stem from
chocolate consumption revealed that chocolate intake results in increased body weight,
because of its high fat content. A number of women limited this adverse effect to ‘the fat
people especially, who should avoid chocolate at all cost’. For obese people chocolate
consumption was thought to have detrimental effects on mood, as well. Finally, the notion
that chocolate is nutritionally inferior, and ‘not a nutritious food, as milk or cheese are’,
emerged in all sessions. The idea of chocolate being an unhealthy food has been previously
recorded by researchers in other European countries (Hart 2002).

Women’s attitudes towards chocolate, as identified in this study, can be summarised in three
basic points. First, young women view chocolate as a desired item that contributes to the
pleasure of life. Second, Greek women are concerned with the potential dangers of frequent
chocolate consumption; more specifically, they view chocolate as a threat to their silhouette.

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Antonia-Leda Matalas Antonia-Leda Matalas

Finally, our results indicate that chocolate consumption, though it often exerts a relaxing
effect, mainly invokes feelings of guilt.

Concluding comments

The status of the various foods within this value system of each culture is subject to change,
according to several factors, such as its availability, societal changes, and technological
advancements (Fieldhouse 1986). Chocolate provides us an example of a food, the status of
which has been greatly altered within a rather short period of time, in fact within the span of a
few decades. While it has retained its value as a stimulant and a source of pleasure, its value as
a strengthening and medicinal food has been radically reassessed. Rather than a highly
nourishing food, chocolate is nowadays viewed as a fattening food, a notion that stems both
from its fat content, as well as from its sensory properties that make it irresistible, and leads to
addiction. Young Greek women reported that they have great difficulty limiting the quantity
they consume.

There are at least two historical factors related to this shift in attitudes: first, that a large
portion of the Greek people in the 1800s and early 1900s was faced food shortages and
deprivation on a regular basis, and second, that obesity was not a public health problem and, as
a result, foods that were rich in fat and calories were much desired and considered nutritious.
Nowadays, the opposite holds true, and the consumption of foods that are good sources of fat
(such as chocolate, butter, margarine, many dairy products and high-fat meats) are regarded as
detrimental to health. Furthermore, chocolate holds the position of a ‘peripheral’ rather than a
‘core’ food item and, thus, its mode of consumption can be easily altered.67 From being a
specialty treat, chocolate has become an everyday food available to everyone and at all times.
At the same time, its status as a medicinal food has been weakened, while its role as a source
of pleasure and relaxation has become stronger and widely accepted by consumers.

The hypothesis that chocolate consumption provokes feelings of euphoria and satisfaction has
been recently supported by some experimental evidence, pointing to chocolate’s possible
effect on the endogenous system of canavoids in the brain (Small et al. 2001). Chocolate
contains a number of biologically active compounds that can target this system by activating
the canavoids’ receptors in the brain, same as marihuana does. Although it has been
questioned whether chocolate’s content in these compounds is in fact sufficient to cause any
significant effects, chocolate stands today as a much appreciated mood ‘modulator’.

Sources cited

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Coe SD and Coe MD 1996. The True History of Chocolate, London 1996, pp. 155-187.
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[Το Βιβλίο της Μητέρας: Υγιεινή και Διαιτητική της Μητέρας και του Παιδιού], P Demitrakos,
Athens, pp.131-139.
Fieldhouse P 1986. Food and Nutrition. Customs and Culture, London, pp. 21-25.
Grivetti LE 2009. Chocolate in European history. In Grivetti LE and Shapiro H (eds.) Chocolate:
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Lyt C 1961. In Athens 1947-1948. An Anecdote Diary (Greek Translation by A. Papanikolaou-

Kristersen), Athens pp. 163, 193.
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Αγαθά στην Αθήνα, 1834), Athens pp. 97, 146.
Pikramenou-Varfi D 1991. Spyridon Pavlides and his Sweet-shop [Ο Σπυρίδων Παυλίδης και το
Γλυκυσματοποιείον του], Society of the Hellenic Literary and Historical Archives, Athens.
Product Catalogue 1876. Pavlides' Confectionery Shop, Athens.
Small D, M, Robert, J, Zatorre, A, Dagher, A, Evans, C, and M Jones-Gotman 2001. Changes in Brain
Activity Related to Eating Chocolate. From Pleasure to Aversion, Brain 124: 1720-1733.
Zellner D, Garriga-Trillo, Rhom E, Centeno S and Parker S. 1999. Food Liking and Craving: A Cross-
cultural Approach, Appetite 33: 61-70.
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Anonymous, Embros daily newspaper, issue of 11 July 1913.
Anonymous. Distribution via coupon to children [Αι διανομαί δια του δελτίου τροφίμων εις τα παιδιά]
Eleftheria, issue of February 10, 1946.
Anonymous. Eleftheria daily newspaper, issue of 22 December 1946.
Anonymous. Distribution to children [Διανομή στα παιδιά] Rizospastis daily newspaper, issue of 10
February 1947.
Anonymous. Food to the Dodecanese islands [Τρόφιμα στα Δωδεκάνησα] Rizospastis daily newspaper,
issue of 18 October 1947.
Anonymous. Food Aid by the International Organisation for Children’s Welfare [Βοήθεια από τον
ΔΟΠΠ], Eleftheria, 10 February 1951.
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Resorts’, 1943-1954 [Νόμος Ιδρύσεως Πρεβεντορίων, Διαιτολόγια Πρεβεντορίων και Παιδικών
Εξοχών, Proceedings of the Maternity and Infancy Board, Greek Ministry of Welfare, ELIA [Hellenic
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Contemporary psychiatry and the perspective of the Christian and Islamic religion concerning
Contemporary psychiatry andmtheenptaerlspheectaivletho.f the Christian and Islamic religion concerning mental health

Contemporary psychiatry and the perspective of the Christian and Islamic
religion concerning mental health.

Peter Kaiser

University of Bremen, Faculty of Cultural Studies

Abstract

The subject poses three main questions: What is mental sane, and what is mental sick? What
makes one mental sick? What is the impact of religion? As typical for the Abrahamic religions,
humans are created by a God. As the mightiest entity, he is able to make healthy and to define
sickness. When sickness occurs, then it has to be caused by other strong energies or by the God
himself. And it will probably be cured by the more powerful force too. Beside the definitions of
religious protagonists, nowadays there exist explanations in the scientific community as well as in
the lay people about what is regarded as mental sane and what is not. While in former days
Religions had the power to define, today it is the secular society which is in charge to do so.

The article will concentrate on the field, where religion and science plus society meet: The mental
disorders which are deriving from religious or spiritual problems or causes, and the mental
problems which can be cured by spiritual and religious means. To narrow the subject, the
Christian and Islamic point of view will be discussed.

Introduction

The doctrines of a religion are made by people. These - people - perceive and interpret the natural
and social environment and create sense through a causal theory: Religion. From a functionalistic
point of view, religion gives men a superstructure “Überbau” a framework why and how the
world functions and is like it is.
The denial of poverty in Buddhism and the rejecting of confession, indulgence, personal cult, and
clerical display of wealth in Protestantism are reactions to and consequences of misuse of power
in the predominant religions Brahmanism and Catholicism respectively. Reformatory movements
in religions be it the Neohinduism of Vivekananda and Ramakrishna or the Pentecostal and other
fundamentalist Protestant churches - they are answers to changing social, environmental and
cultural conditions. It was more than luck and sole coincidence that some movements like the
Christian or the Islamic had been successful. Even that there are nowadays attempts to find some
common rules and maxims in all religions (for instants the golden rule of reciprocal altruism),
doctrines and the ideas, about why good and evil do exist in the world, the sense of human
existence in general and the extent of a so called free will and individual responsibility in man
differs.

The dharma of Gautama Buddha mirrors the living condition of a Prince of a small North Indian
kingdom 500 BC and the reaction to it.
The Qur`an gives us a more or less clear picture of the problems and shortcomings Arabic nomads
had to face in the hostile deserts of the Arabic Peninsula in the seventh century. Religions in
general promote life and survival. Therefore they have to deny suicide and behavior which can
threaten social as well as familiarly harmony like adultery, theft, lying. These rules are designed
to facilitate the general social interactions. Other concerns of religions are more philosophical
ones; nevertheless they are very important for men to understand themselves. They have to deal
with questions like: Is man responsible for his deeds? Theorize - why do evil and bad luck exist in
the world? Do men have to pay for their mistakes or is fortune or misfortune the result of former
behavior?

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Having internalized the theoretical religious framework / the belief system - the believer will
interpret the phenomena of living and inanimate environment in these causal or alleged causal
thinking frame.

Therefore to understand a religion and its impact on their follower, one have to keep in mind the
conditions under which this religion evolved and developed. As well as it is important to realize
the degree of freedom in the interpretation of the doctrines in general and the scriptures in
particular: have the followers to stick to the original word and take it verbally? Or are the
scriptures a conglomeration of texts of different authors and of different epochs, which can be
more or less freely interpreted?
Religions - here Islam and Catholicism - have to have a position towards what one can call
“mental health” and “insanity”, which will be partially illuminated here, and its consequences for
diagnosis and medical treatment.

Relativizing the idea to know who is mentally sick and who is healthy, Foucault commentated the
famous work “cutting the stone of the mad” of Hieronymus Bosch´s (1450-1516): “Bosch's
famous doctor is far more insane than the patient he is attempting to cure, and his false
knowledge does nothing more than reveal the worst excesses of a madness immediately apparent
to all but himself.” (Foucault 1961).

Brief history of psychiatry

Help seeking, the cultural construction of illness and the clinical realities, the hermeneutic nature
of clinical encounters and the logic of therapeutic modalities – is what Arthur Kleinman called
"core clinical function" of psychiatry (Kleinman 1980). After the influential ideas of Hippocrates
on medicine in general and his thoughts about the mind and brain (which will not be discussed
here), it first was the Arabic world and not the Christian Europe, who has been concerned with the
mentally sick. Psychiatric hospitals and specialized treatment facilities were constructed in
Baghdad in 705 and Cairo in 805, and there is evidence to suggest that there was also one such
facility in operation in Fez during the 8th century (Mohamed 2008). Muhammad ibn Zakariya al-
Razi (865 - 925), known as Rhazes, was chief physician of Baghdad hospital, and one of the first
in the world to write on mental illness and psychotherapy. His El-Mansuri and Al-Hawi provided
descriptions and treatments for mental illnesses. In the Canon of Medicine (Al-Qanun-fi-il-
Tabb), Abu-Ali al-Husayn ibn Abdalahibn-Sina (980-1030), known as Avicenna, gave
descriptions and treatments for insomnia, mania, vertigo, paralysis, stroke, epilepsy, depression.

In the Christian occident, asylums - homes for the sick, including for the mentally sick, were
found, starting around the 8th Century by the Fraternity of the Order of the Santo Spirito in Sassia
in Rome. The modern scientific diagnosis of mental diseases did start not earlier that in the
beginning of the 19th Century in France, Germany and the United States.

Diagnosis, Signs & Symptoms

Before coming to a diagnosis, one has to define, what is mentally sick and what is (still) mentally
healthy – or to put it in a more general term – (still) normal.
Mental health refers to a broad array of activities directly or indirectly related to the mentalwell-
being component included in the WHO's definition of health: "A state of complete physical,
mental and social well-being, and not merely the absence of disease". It is related to the
promotion of well-being, the prevention of mental disorders, and the treatment and rehabilitation
of people affected by mental disorders. Mental health is not just the absence of mental disorder. It
is defined as a state of well-being in which every individual realizes his or her own potential, can
cope with the normal stresses of life, can work productively and fruitfully, and is able to make a
contribution to her or his community. The perception, what is mentally sane and what is already
sick differ from and is influenced by race, ethnicity, and culture and of cause – genetics. Or to
quote the psychiatrist Devereux: “Human self-identity as constituted by a complex and unique

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Contemporary psychiatry and thme epenrtsapelchtieveaoltfhth.e Christian and Islamic religion concerning mental health

combination of a number of identities" (Devereux 1982). In cultures around the world,
a symptom-complex like the western defined “schizophrenia” does exist, and in all these culture
the deviation from the normal, by the indigenous culture accepted behavior, is recorded and
described.
The classical Arabic term for the mentally ill was "majnoon" which is derived from the term
“Janna”, which means “covered”. It was originally thought that mentally ill individuals could not
differentiate between the real and the unreal, however, due to their nuanced nature treatment on
these mentally ill could not be generalized as it was in medieval Europe (Okasha 2001). This term
was gradually redefined among the educated, and was defined by Avicenna as:“one who suffers
from a condition in which reality is replaced with fantasy" (Mohit 2001:336–347). Nevertheless
this observation is still one of the main signs of schizophrenia – the lack of ability of
differentiation between the so called reality – shared and defined by the local community and the
common sense, and the interpretation of a different individual perception. Even it has been
claimed that descriptions of schizophrenia-like disorders were rare before 1800 in the Western
world, historical evidence from medieval Islamic society shows that madness was common in that
society. Some researchers propose that medieval Islamic physicians probably diagnosed and
treated many cases of schizophrenia (Youssef, Youssef 1996). On the contrary to what is
commonly thought among Western societies that Muslims believe that mental illnesses are due to
demons or bad spirit-related, it was in fact the Europeans in the Medieval Period who viewed
mental illness as demon-related, Muslim scholars of that time, including Ibn Sina, rejected such
concept and viewed mental disorders as conditions that were physiologically based (Haque 2004).
According to al Razi's views, mental disorders were considered medical conditions, and were
treated by using psychotherapy and drug treatments (Murad, Gordon 2002).

Being possessed by demons or evil spirits is one of the oldest ways of explaining bodily and
mental disorders. Numerous saints have been accused being bewitched or possessed.
In a recent study it was examined how mental health professionals make judgments about the
religious authenticity and mental health of behaviors motivated by religious ideation. The results
indicated that the determining factor in the ratings was not dimensions of religious experience, but
the degree that the experience deviated from conventional religious beliefs and practices. The
more unconventional the behavior, the less religiously authentic and mentally healthy it was
deemed to be (Sanderson et al. 1999). What was conventional and what already unconventional,
and maybe induced by some evil forces, was defined mainly by the Christian church.

During the middle ages of Europe possession (and witchcraft) was considered just one out of
several causes of mental illness. Astrological theories prevailed, in addition to the humoral
theories of medicine. In addition distinctions were made between eccentricity, madness and
religious visions and revelations. Probably a large number of the alleged witches and possessed
persons who were burned probably had visible mental disturbances (Høyersten 1996). Today's
psychiatry does not refer symptoms of possession to any specific category, but usually classifies
this as some kind of psychotic disturbance of thought. Exorcism of evil spirits by Jesus Christ is
described often in the Gospels as one of his ways to heal the sick. Possession was the only
"available" concept for a bundle of neuro-psychiatric disorders: dissociative states, psychoses and
epilepsy.

When descriptions of visionary experience from written medieval sources are examined from
a cross-cultural perspective the mental states of the persons having the visions range from
terminal illnesses, states of starvation, stress-related syndromes, to dreams and hypnagogic states,
and seemingly unremarkable mental states. Although a few of the visions elicited some
skepticism on the part of contemporaries, most reports of visions were accepted at face value as
bona fide visions, with no discernible differentiation between starvation visions, dreams, deliria of
illnesses, and possible mental illness. Only a minority of the visions appear causally related, by
today's standards, to mentally illnesses. These persons were not recognized as mentally ill by their
contemporaries. Since medieval times the existence of mental illness was assumed, it would
appear that the recognition of these mental conditions was based on symptoms other than visions

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or hallucinations. It is also possible that hallucinations, as culturally supported phenomena, were
not as available as forms of expression of psychoses in the Middle Ages as they are today (Kroll,
Bachrach 1982).

Such a possibility has interesting implications regarding the role of a culture in shaping the forms
by which mental illnesses are expressed, recognized, and labeled – in an social environment,
where hallucinations are regarded as normal phenomena, these symptoms are not regarded as a
sign of illness. Or as an example – the belief in the existence of ghosts and the communication
with these – like on the island of Bali – is a normal, cultural accepted behavior. Only when the
way of communication or the result of the communications could harm the community (e.g. the
ghost will urge the concerned person to kill somebody) – is will be regarded as ab-normal and will
be interpreted as a threat for the social group and therefore imposition of sanctions are likely.

Today, one tries not speak about mental diseases but about mental disorders – diseases have a
more or less clear cutoff between sick and healthy and describe a specific diagnosis, whiledis-
orders have to be seen on a continuum between healthy – still healthy – already a bit sick, and
sick. Mental disorders have a broad spectrum of phenotypes, ranging from personality disorders,
anxiety and obsessive – compulsory disorders, different types of depression, mania, posttraumatic
stress disorders to disorders of the memory like dementia, kinds of addiction, to more seldom
mental abnormalities like dissociative disorders. Often mental insanity is synonymous with a
profound derangement of perception, thinking and action. When these important attributes of a
normal functioning of the brain do differ from that what is culturally accepted and perceived as
normal, people are regarded as being strange, or as mad. Then they are not regarded anymore as
normal reasonable and reliable members of the community, but sometimes even as a being a
threat to it.

Being not anymore able to handle its own life is already mentioned in the Qur`an:"”Do not give
your property which God assigned you to manage to the insane: but feed and clothe the insane
with this property and tell splendid words to him.” (Sura 4:4). In the Islam's view of the mentally
ill, they were considered unfit to manage property. The attitudes towards these sick is that they
but must be treated humanely and be kept under care by either a guardian or the state.

Mental disorders, in which the sufferer exhibit a behavior, which can generally not be any more
understood by the community are called psychosis, these may be mainly severe depressions with
delusions, mania and schizophrenia68. As Avicenna had labelled it: (a psychotic is…) “one who
suffers from a condition in which reality is replaced with fantasy”.
To highlight a main symptom of a mental disorder which can be found in all cultures - the
schizophrenia, the delusion shall be described in more detail.
Delusions are commonly defined as fixed false beliefs that are held with high conviction.
Furthermore, when a false belief involves a value judgment, it is only considered as a delusion if
it is so extreme that it cannot be, or never can be proven true. For example: a man claiming that he
flew into the sun and flew back home. This would be considered a delusion. According the
German philosopher and psychiatrist Karl Jaspers (1883-1969), a delusion is characterized by the
certainty of the belief (held with absolute conviction), the incorrigibility (not changeable by
compelling counter-argument or proof to the contrary) and the impossibility or falsity of content
(implausible, bizarre or patently untrue). But for the diagnosis of a delusion, this error has to be
that of an individual: “The err of the healthy ones is an err of the community. The err as a
delusion is the err of the individual“(Jaspers 1913/1943)693.

68 In the 20th century there was the differentiation between the psychosis and the neurosis, the later was thought to

derive from bad experiences in the childhood.
69 3Original version in German:

•Die außergewöhnliche Überzeugung, mit der an ihnen festgehalten wird, die unvergleichliche subjektive Gewissheit.
•Die Unbeeinflussbarkeit durch Erfahrung und durch zwingende Schlüsse.
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2 In the 20th century there was the differentiation between the psychosis and the neurosis, the
later was thought to derive from bad experiences in the childhood.

In the new diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders of the American Psychiatric
Association – the DSM-5, the diagnostic criteria for schizophrenia spectrum and other psychotic
disorders are defined as follows (DSM-5 2013): 2 (or more) of the following symptoms, 1/2/3 are
obligatory: 1. Delusion, 2. Hallucinations, 3. Formal thought disorders, 4. Disorders of movement,
incl. Catatonia, 5. Negative symptoms.

Religion is an enduring theme in psychosis, the understanding of which can be assisted by
distinguishing between religion as a culture and religiosity as pathology (Ng 2007). At the
interface between religion and mental disorders, two relationships can be separated:
Religion-associated symptoms, i.e. symptoms which have religious themes as subject, like
religious delusions, mystic experiences, glossolalia and conversions as well as symptoms which
do develop due to the preoccupation and the involvement with religious ideas and activities.
Without them they would not evolve. The cause is religious or spiritual, but not the symptom, like
overwhelming guilt and shame in a depression.
Several religion-associated symptoms in mental disorders are known, and they are often not easy
to separate from normal thinking and behavior. Normal relating to the definitions of the religious
denomination or group the index person is belonging to (Hood et al. 1996, Kaiser 2007):
• Mystic expericences
• Glossolalia (praying in non-understandable words or languages)
• Conversions (transgression into other „religions“)
• Religious delusion

Mystic experiences are the core experiences of religious and spiritual believers as in these
moments they perceive a tremendous, difficult to put in words, closeness with a higher
entity/being, be it a God (or his/her/its manifestations) or with the non-personalized ultimate, like
the cosmos or nature. Sometimes these experiences are called unio mystica. For non- believer they
are not understandable, and, when not induced by drugs and other means to get into an altered
state of consciousness – signs of a psychosis.
Glossolalia, i.e. praying in non-understandable words or languages is a common phenomenon in
Pentecostal Christians and others, who do believe, that the Holy Ghost speaks and manifests
himself in this way through them. In people outside these religious groups this phenomenon is
regarded as pathological.

Conversions - the “transgression” from one into another „religion“ - per se can be a rational
justified decision without any involved abnormal feeling. Nevertheless some people describe this
change in a way which reminds of narrations of being possessed by imaginative forces. It has to
be mentioned, that mental disorders generally and religion-associated symptoms particularly are
only medically treated, when they pose a problem for the health of the “patient“ and/or his social
environment.

A rather specific religion-associated symptom is the religious delusion in patients with severe
depression, who do believe that they are full of sin and guilt, often deriving from an imagination
of a God who is not a loving but a punishing one. Especially in fundamental evangelical Christian
groups the picture of a chaste, lust-denying God who entraps his followers in unnatural feelings of
guilt and shame e.g. concerning sexual behavior and even related thoughts can be observed
frequently in the beginning of the 21st century in Germany. In the clinical setting, the

•Die Unmöglichkeit des Urteils Das Irren der Gesunden ist gemeinschaftliches Irren. Die Überzeugung hat ihre
Wurzeln darin, dass alle es glauben. Die Korrektur geschieht nicht durch Gründe, sondern durch Verwandlung der
Zeitalter. Der Irrtum als Wahn ist dem Einzelnen eigen.

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determination of religious delusions can be challenging at times. Religious delusions in Patients
with Schizophrenia often have to deal with the subject that the individual has the idea to be
chosen by his creator to fulfill specific tasks or to be provided with specific abilities or to be a/the
God (or his son) himself.
Psychosis in this context can be conceptualized as the manifestation of aberrant perceptual and/or
integrative processes. The prevalence of religion as a psychotic theme may be explained by its
central cultural role, and the tendency to interpret intense or discrepant perceptual events as
spiritual.

Pathogenesis
The question, what makes one mental sick is a typical pathogenetical approach, which became
predominant since the mid of the 19th century with the cellular pathology of Rudolf Virchow and
is still more or less prevalent today. Nevertheless nowadays even medical doctors do realize that
the salutogenesis – the idea, what keeps one healthy is gaining more influence in the direct
prevention of mental disorders (e.g. addiction disorders, depression etc.) and the health education
in general, like stress reducing programs. Astonishingly early great thinkers like Hippocrates and
Pythagoras emphasized the necessity of a holistic diet, which included not only nutrition but
exercises and psychohygiene too, to stay physically and mentally in a healthy condition. The
theoretical framework was the equilibrium of the four humors, which did not only have had an
enormous impact on the medical thinking of the Hellenic and Roman, but on the Christian and
Islam world too. The four humors of Hippocratic medicine are black bile (Gk. melan chole),
yellow bile (Gk. chole), phlegm (Gk. phlegma), and blood (Gk.haima), and each corresponds to
one of the traditional four temperaments.

In Islamic medicine it was Avicenna who repeated the ancient theory of the four humors in his
influential “The Canon of Medicine” (1025). Beside this pathogenic basis religions have had their
own hypotheses about the nature of mental disorders and behavioral deviations, which are still
taken into consideration by therapists as well as patients today with a religious background.

Due to the scope of this paper, the secular models of mental illness will be only mentioned in
short704. It became clear, that mental health as well as mental disorders is influenced not only by
biological (genetic and epigenetic) factors, but by psycho-individual parameters, acquired not
only in the childhood and adolescence but the whole life and impacts of the social environment,
including cultural values, social interaction patters too.

70 4 Secular models of mental illness, here the example of depression:

1.Existential models of depression were suggested by:
•Frankl, a concentration camp survivor who noted that those who survived were individuals who had a sense of
meaning to their life. Loss of meaning led to despair, depression and death.
•Jung, who stated that once one reached the age of 35 the main problem in life was searching for some kind of meaning.
2.Sociological models of depression include:
•Social isolation (Brown and Harris) - increased depression in unemployed single mothers. Durkheim’s work also
showed an increased risk of suicide in the socially isolated and dislocated.
•Excess life events (Paykel) - too many major life events in a short time predispose to depression. Medical students
beware - graduating, starting a new job, moving city and getting married all within a fortnight may not be a bright idea!
3.Behavioral models of depression include:
•Learned helplessness (Seligman) - unpleasant dog experiments suggest that if you cannot get away from pain you soon
despair and give up trying.
•Negative cognitive set (Beck) - a cognitively distorted view of the world leads to habitual negative thoughts and
interpretations of events. Rectifying this is the underlying basis of cognitive therapy.
4.Biological models of depression:
•Impairment of biogenic monoamine function leading to depression, requiring drug intervention.
•Twin studies show strong genetic predisposition to depressive illness in some families.
5.Psychological models of depression include:
•Classical psychoanalysis (Freud) - aggression turned inwards.
•‘Breaking the bonds of love’ (Bowlby) - early loss of mother leads to susceptibility to depression.
•Loss of self-esteem - ego collapses when it is unable to attain its goal.

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As mentioned in the DSM-IV category "religious or spiritual problem" it is that it isolates the
religious or spiritual problem from the context of a person’s life, what does not mirror the reality.
A religious tradition is a complex phenomenon composed of doctrine, community identity,
structure, narrative stories and rituals, to a larger or smaller extent part of daily life. Depending
whether a creator still influences - or to be more concrete - still has the power and the will to
influence the events ongoing in the world or not, disease and wellbeing, luck and misfortune, will
be in the sphere of responsibility of man or of a God or both. And it is important, whether a God –
in a monotheistic religion – is regarded as primarily benevolent or predominantly punishing, who
has to appease with elaborated offerings rituals. Religious explanation model of health and illness
may be manifold, in (so called) indigenous people dis- ease is seen as the result of negative forces
(numinous, demonic), which can only be positively influenced by rituals and magical practices.
When a God is regarded as the mightiest entity, he is able to make healthy and to define sickness.
Therefore when sickness occurs, then it has to be caused by other strong energies or by the God
himself. And it will probably be cured by the more powerful force too. In the Jewish-
Christian Belief nowadays these assumptions are overcome: Disease is natural and a sign of
limitation of life and not inevitable without any sense and mandatory a consequence of human
guilt. Humans have not to sustain disease passively, but should fight against disease as well as to
accept the will of God in case of not understandable suffering.

That was probably not the case all the time in the European past. But perhaps the conception, that
mental illness in the Middle Ages was automatically a result of misbehavior and sin must be
corrected. The modern stereotype that in medieval times there was a general belief that mental
illness was caused by sin was questioned by reviewing 57 descriptions of mental illness (madness,
possession, alcoholism, epilepsy, and combinations thereof) from pre- Crusade chronicles and
saints' lives. It could be shown that in only 9 (16%) of these descriptions the sources did attribute
the mental illness to sin or wrongdoing. The medieval sources indicate that the authors were well
aware of the proximate causes of mental illness, such as humoral imbalance, intemperate diet and
alcohol intake, overwork, and grief. The banality that, since God causes all things he also causes
mental illness was only used by medieval authors under special circumstances and in a minority
of cases (Kroll, Bachrach 1984).

In the beginning of the 21st century, when it became obvious, that religion in general, and the
existence of the phenomenon of religiosity and especially spirituality and the longing for it will
not die out but increase, Christian fundamentalists gain influence, mainly in the United States. In
the follow sequence, a “Christian spiritual framework for mental illness” is depicted (Source:
Christian Medical Fellowship http://www.cmf.org.uk/publication):
“In the beginning, God created man and he was physically and mentally perfect. However, man
was created with fundamental needs.
•1. Spiritual needs. Gn 1:27 - Man was created in God’s image, thus he is a spiritual being with
spiritual needs. These are to love God and be loved by him. These needs were initially met by a
direct ‘face to face’ relationship with him.
•2. Social needs. Gn 2:18 - Man was created as a social being with social needs and in woman
was given the perfect partner.
•3. Need for meaningful occupation and purpose. Gn 1:28 - Man was created to work. He was to
be fruitful and subdue the earth. In Gn 2:15, he is given the Garden to work and care for. Work
was creative and adaptive. Man had control of his environment.
•4. Harmony with nature. Gn 1:29, 2:9, 2:19 - There was no illness, no death.
•5. Peace with himself. Gn 2:25 - ‘The man and woman were both naked and they felt no shame’.
There was no anxiety, no inner conflicts, and no cellulite!
But then the most cataclysmic event in human history happened, the fall of man. As a result of the
fall of man, we see the destruction of the previously perfect relationships:
•Gn 3:8 - There is separation from God.
•Gn 3:12,16 - There is social separation and exploitative relationships between men and women.
•Gn 3:17,19 - Work becomes a burden. Man is no longer in charge of his environment. Work
becomes less creative and effective.

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•Gn 3:18 - There is no longer a harmony with nature. Pain (3:16) and death (3:19) have come
into the world.
•Gn 3:10 - ‘I was afraid because I was naked, so I hid’. There is separation from self-
leading to fear, shame and anxiety.
Guilt, shame, oppression, inner turmoil and conflicts were born: Rom 7:15,20:
15 I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. 20 Now
if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it.
What is the role of sin and Satan in mental illness? Looking at Jesus’ healing ministry: Sometimes
he heals, sometimes he forgives, sometimes he exorcises.
This leaves the question about how much mental illness is caused by direct demonic influence?
1. The general effect of sin.
•Most psychiatric and physical illness is caused by the Fall as outlined above, rather than being a
direct result of the sufferer’s individual sin. During the account of Jesus healing a man who was
born blind. Jesus said: John 9,3: ‘Neither this man nor his parents sinned, but this happened so
that the work of God might be displayed in his life.’

2.The specific effects of sin, the evil desires within us.
•There is inevitably a proportion of both physical and mental illness that is caused directly by sin.
Abuse of alcohol can affect liver and brain. Adultery, leading to divorce, can lead to depression.

3.Demonic temptation and attack.
•The book of Job tells us quite clearly how demonic attacks can cause both physical illness (boils)
and psychiatric illness: 1 Peter 5:8: “Be alert and of sober mind. Your enemy the devil prowls
around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour.”

4.Demonic possession.
•There are two equal and opposite errors into which our race can fall about the devils: One is to
disbelieve in their existence. The other is to believe and feel an excessive and unhealthy interest in
them. They themselves are equally pleased with both errors’. Our churches too often fall into one
or other of these extremes, either denying the role of the demonic or becoming preoccupied with it
and ascribing to Satan phenomena that have much more ‘natural’ medical or theological
explanations.”

In comparison, mental health stigmata in Muslim communities may be partly due to a commonly
held belief among some Muslims about the supernatural causes of mental illness (i.e. jinn-
possession brought on by one's sinful life). Individuals with an Islamic background who suffer
from hallucinations often attribute these to jinns, invisible beings. The treatment of these
hallucinations is complicated by the patients' reluctance to discuss them, and by their and the
sometimes involved imams doubts concerning the usefulness of a biomedical treatment for a
problem which they experience as metaphysical in nature (Blom et al. 2010).

In 2014, a thematic analysis was carried out on four English translations and the Arabic text of the
Qur'an to explore whether the connection between jinn-possessionand insanity exists within the
Muslim holy book. No connection betweenspirit-possession and madness or mental illness was
found (Islam, Campbell 2014). Pagans taunted and labelled people as jinn- possessed only to
ostracize and scapegoat. Linking the labelling of people as jinn-possession to a pagan practice
may be used to educate Muslims, so they can reassess their community's stigma towards the
mentally ill.

Even the explanation of mental insanity in the Islamic world today is rather worldly, the idea, that
jinns, are the cause for a cognitive and behavioral deviation is still broadly distributed. To quote

the opinions of some (male and female) Syrian psychologists and social workers interviewed to
this subject in December 2013, during a mental health education for Syrian refugees at Kilis,

Turkey, by the author: “…all moslems - even the intellectuals - do believe in Jinns. …. But not in
the form of devils or accursedness – like perhaps in the Christian belief – but as spiritual or

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mental powers, which are still under the control of Allah, who regulates everything. … Mental
problems and sickness are induced by jinns“.(Kaiser 2013 unpublished data).

In summary, the Christian and Islamic explanations of mental illness in the relevant scriptures
Bible and Qur`an do not exclude a “natural” cause, but the folk belief even in the intellectuals as
well as the clergy is strongly influenced and over layered by traditional assumptions of the origin
of something, people are afraid of because of its unpredictability und lack of control.

Treatment, Therapy
Here the article will concentrate on impact of religion on healing. As mentioned there exists
mental disorders or at least symptoms which are deriving from religious or spiritual problems or
causes, some mental problems with or withoutreligion-associated symptoms can be cured by
spiritual and religious means.

There are concrete therapeutic interventions recommended by the clergy like praying and
bibliotherapy – the reading in the holy books or other religious and spiritual literature.
Here some examples of mood –lifting quotations from the Bible:

• Philippians 4:6-7: “Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and
supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God,
w•hich surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”
• 1 Peter 5:7: “Casting all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you.”
Hebrews 4:12: “For the word of God is living and active. Sharper than any double-
edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing SOUL and SPIRIT, joints and marrow; it judges the
thoughts and attitudes of the heart.”715

In Sirach 38:1-15, an apocryphal text, which is not an officially acknowledged scripture and not
part of the Bible, one can read about the sickness, medicine and the heaven guides physicians
(Sirach):

1 Give doctors the honor they deserve, for the Lord gave them their work to do. 2 Their
skill came from the Most High, and kings reward them for it. 3 Their knowledge gives them a
position of importance, and powerful people hold them in high regard. 4 The Lord created
medicines from the earth, and a sensible person will not hesitate to use them. 5 Didn't a tree once
make bitter water fit to drink, so that the Lord's power might be known? 6 He gave medical
knowledge to human beings, so that we would praise him for the miracles he performs. 7The
druggist mixes these medicines, and the doctor will use them to cure diseases and ease
pain. 8 There is no end to the activities of the Lord, who gives health to the people of the
world. 9 My child, when you get sick, don't ignore it. Pray to the Lord, and he will make you
well. 10 Confess all your sins and determine that in the future you will live a righteous
life. 11 Offer incense and a grain offering, as fine as you can afford. 12 Then call the doctor—
for the Lord created him— and keep him at your side; you need him. 13 There are times when you
have to depend on his skill. 14 The doctor's prayer is that the Lord will make him able to ease his
patients' pain and make them well again. 15 As for the person who sins against his Creator, he
deserves to be sick.

Other more specific therapies are described since centuries, e.g. the exorcism – the cast out of a
bad spirit, alleged cause of the mental problem. Exorcisms are well known in multiple indigenous
societies, but in the large religions like Buddhism, Islam and Christian too. The subject to be
exorcised may be a manifestation of the Satan in the Christian, or “only” jinn in the Islamic
religion. Mandatory is the consultation of a religious specialist to do the exorcism. An important

71 5 The popular model of the human anatomy among Bible-believing Christians is that the body and the soul (and
spirit, if one believe the spirit is distinct from the soul) are completely separate entities.

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Peter Kaiser

impact on the way patients do perceive and interpret their dis-ease, can have their idea, what is the
sense of life in general and of suffering in particular. The way how one handles intellectually a
negative life event and (mental) disorders is called coping. In the last twenty years numerous
studies were published on the subject of religious coping. They can be summarizes as follows:
How works religion/religiosity?

•Religion mainly works with/through the means of thoughts
•Religion as well works through special feelings, experiences, often difficult to be put
in verbal language

What are religion, religious belief, religiosity, and spirituality in this context - how does
religion/religiosity influence health?

•Mainly through experiences, rituals, practices and subsequently through thoughts and to a lesser
extent – through knowledge.

What are thoughts? Thoughts can be described as sensory inputs from one part of the neocortex to
others, even circuiting, with connections to lower brain areas as limbic system as well as
brainstem.
What are religious thoughts? It is a reflecting about crucial questions of life, performed by beings,
which are aware of their own mortality: Belief in something greater than us (can be a God or an
Idea). These thoughts concerning an “ultimate reality” can develop from doubt to subjective
certainty. Starting with an idea, enhanced by religious knowledge through experience to finally
the state of confidence and certainty: Influence on being and acting: from doubt to certainty more
relaxed if certainty of belief in something greater than us is reducing fear (to know there is a God
and life after life etc.). Depending whether and to which extent somebody has internalized his/her
spiritual/religious belief in the sense of living his/her spirituality/religiosity (so called intrinsic
religiosity), the influence of the religious/spiritual coping with the dis-ease differs from weak to
strong and from positive to negative. With the idea of a God who punishes, a disease will be
regarded as a punishment, imagining a God who´s will is hidden to humans; a disease could be
interpreted as test for the individual or as something which has to endured and overcome with the
help of God.

About the effect of the different religious backgrounds on mental wellbeing one could already
read in the work of William James, who concluded stereotypically that: “Protestantism has been
too pessimistic as regards the natural man, Catholicism has been too legalistic and
moralistic" (James 1902 (edition 1958: 102).

In Islamic psychiatry it was and still is put an emphasize on the social support of the mentally sick
and an holistic therapeutic approach, referring to the holy Qur`an which recommends the saving
of life of a human irrespective of social class, race, and religion, and insists on exemption of
patients from physical activity, including the physical aspects of prayer. Treatments for mental
disorders therefore are in addition to medication physical exercises including baths, music, and
occupational therapy (Hatami et al 2013). Medicine would be prescribed in order to re-balance the
four humors and restore the right mixture of the four humors - Eukrasia (ευκρασια). Insomnia, for
example, is thought to result from excessive amounts of the dry humors which could be remedied
by the use of specific drugs, increasing humidity in the body, so called humectants.

Nevertheless – the probability that religion and religion-deriving procedures will be involved in
the treatment of mental disorders depends nowadays first and foremost on the patient´s religious
and spiritual background and his wish to bear this in mind in therapy. Eventually even more
important is position of the involved therapist, mainly being a physician. In a study, around 200
psychiatrists in the Christian Psychiatry movement (Christian Medical and Dental Society) were
surveyed to assess the role of religious belief in their practices (Galanter et al 1991). The
participants were asked about demographic and practice variables, "born again" religious

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experiences, group cohesion, and beliefs about using the Bible and prayer in treatment. It could be
shown that the respondents were somewhat more religious than Americans overall, who are
themselves more religious than most psychiatrists. Nearly all reported having been "born again,"
after which they generally experienced a decrease in emotional distress. There was a significant
difference in the respondents' affiliative feelings toward psychiatrists in the Christian Psychiatry
movement and other psychiatrists. For acute schizophrenic or manic episodes, the respondents
considered psychotropic medication the most effective treatment, but they rated the Bible and
prayer more highly for suicidal intent, grief reaction, sociopathy, and alcoholism. Whether or not
a patient was "committed to Christian beliefs" made a significant difference in whether the
respondents would recommend prayer to the patient as treatment. About one-half said they would
discourage strongly religious patients from an abortion, homosexual acts, or premarital sex, and
about one-thirdsaid they would discourage other patients from these activities.

The same can be said in the treatment of a typical disease, which is regarded as a result of sinful
life: AIDS. According to Muslim scholars, AIDS is a warning from God not to indulge in illicit
conduct. As a remedy against the spread of AIDS, Islamic medical doctors should encourage
compliance with traditional family values and the enhancement of faith and devotion and strongly
oppose sex education (Francesca 2002). Researchers found that many Muslims are hesitant to
seek help from the mental health professionals in Western countries due to the differences in their
beliefs and lack of understating of the helping professionals about Islamic values in their
treatment modalities (Sabry, Vohra 2013). Consequently, Muslims might feel uncomfortable in
seeking psychiatric help to avoid being in conflict with their religious beliefs.

Conclusion
It is typical for signs and symptoms of mental conditions, that they are not easy be classified in
absolute categories like “good” or “bad” – “normal” or “not normal” – “healthy” or “insane”.
Cultural, medical and religious often mutual contradictory norms are applied since centuries to
label mental health and insanity. In the latter (psycho)-therapeutic interventions have been and are
the consequent step to restore mental health again or at least to help the patient to cope with
his/her handicap. Until today it is often not only the patient, but the physician or - in the case of
a religion-associated problem - the priest, who decides whether one is mentally sick, what is the
probable cause of the mental deviation and the kind of treatment what will be necessary.

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ΑΝΘΡΩΠΟΛΟΓΙΑ
& ΠΟΛΙΤΙΚΕΣ ΕΠΙΣΤΗΜΕΣ

ANTHROPOLOGY
& POLITICAL SCIENCES



Cultural attributes and legal “no-man’s” land in Greece

Cultural attributes and legal “no-man’s” land in Greece

Cultural attributes and legal “no-man’s” land in Greece

Constantine Danopoulos

Department of Political Science, San Jose State University

Abstract

This main thrust of this study is to advance and substantiate the argument that elements of Greek
culture are responsible for the poor state of law implementation and enforcement in the country.
The rule of law is arguably the most indispensable condition in the emergency and maintenance of
quality democratic governance. The cultural dualism that permeates Greek society promotes
nepotism, in-group collectivism, laxness toward the rule of law, excessive legalism, short-time
horizons, avoidance of merit, and a host of other values and attitudes that influence the behavior
and orientations of the nation’s bureaucratic and law enforcements structures. These bodies reflect
the collectivity’s general values, beliefs, and orientations.

Keywords: Greece, policy, corruption, cultural attitudes

Introduction

Few would disagree that the rule of law is of paramount importance to democracy and quality
democratic governance. Juan Linz and Alfred Stepan, for instance, deem it as an “indispensable
condition,”72 while Guillermo O’Donnell believes that “the rule of law is among the essential
pillars upon which any high quality of democracy rests.” 73 . Larry Diamond and Leonardo
Morlino are equally assertive, stating that “the rule of law is the base upon which every dimension
of democratic quality rests.”74 . Succinctly stated, the rule of law means that there is a clear,
understood, stable, and self-sustaining body of law based on universally accepted principles and
precepts. It is not retroactive, treats all citizens equally regardless of class, economic status,
gender, color or creed, and it is applied fairly, evenly, and consistently across the broadly a
network of judicial and law enforcement systems, including courts, the bureaucracy, the police,
and other law enforcement bodies.

Though indispensable, enacting a law is of little importance unless the law is implemented; and
“passage is not the same thing as implementation.”75. In other words, the legislative adoption
stage must be followed by the public policy or policy implementation and enforcement stages.
Implementation “is that set of activities directed toward putting a program into effect,”76 and
enforcement refers to the legally constituted bodies assigned the task of discovering, deterring,
rehabilitating, or punishing persons who violate the rules, values and norms permeating a
community. Implementation and enforcement bodies provide the organizational structure,
interpret and translate the often arcane language of the law in to tangible and efficacious policy
goals, and apply or provide the intended services or rewards, collect payments, or exact fines or

72 Juan J. Linz and Alfred Stepan, Problems of Democratic Transition and Consolidation—Southern Europe, South -319-
America, and Post-Communist Europe (Baltimore, The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996), 10.
73 Guillermo O’Donnell, “Why the Rule of Law Matters,” in Larry Diamond and Leonardo Morlino, eds., Assessing the
Quality of Democracy (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press), 3.
74 Larry Diamond and Leonardo Morlino, “Introduction,” in Diamond and Morlino, Ibid, xv.
75 Wade Channell, “Lessons Not Learned,” in Thomas Carothers, ed., Promoting the Rule of Law—In Search of
Knowledge (Washington: Carnegie Foundation for International Peace, 2006), 145.
76 Charles O. Jones, An Introduction to the Study of Public Policy, 3rd ed. (Monterey, California: Brooks/Cole
Publishing Company, 1984), 166.

Constantine Danopoulos Constantine Danopoulos

others forms of punishment. In Larry N. Gerston’s apt analogy, implementation and enforcement
agencies “are like the contractors who put into place the plans drawn by the architect.”77 .

But like enactment, implementation and enforcement of laws do not take place in a sterile, and
water- and air- tight atmosphere, but in an environment where cultural norms, values, and
attitudes play a major, but not always visible role. A seasoned observer reminds us that “law is
not just the sum of courts, legislatures, police, prosecutors, and other formal institutions with
some direct connection to law. Law is also a normative system that resides in the minds of the
citizens of a society.”78 . Echoing these sentiments, another experienced practitioner notes that
often “resistance to implementation comes from cultural predispositions, not some technical
failure of implementing and supporting institutions.”79. Diamond and Morlino concur stating that
“diffuse” and unsupportive cultural attitudes undermine the quality and sustainability of the
democratic rule of law.80

Being part of the same social milieu, bureaucrats and other implementation and enforcement
officials cannot help but be influenced by the prevailing cultural norms and beliefs of the larger
society. As B. Guy Peters correctly asserts the “very general value orientations in the society will
influence the behavior of individuals working in formal organizations, as well as the manner in
which those organizations are structured and managed.”. And he adds that “despite the
seemingly abstract nature of cultural boundaries on behavior, governments and individual civil
servants can violate prevailing [societal] norms only at their risk.”81.

By all accounts, law implementation in Greece is very weak and this is at the very heart of the
country’s past and current economic difficulties. A study conducted on behalf of the European
Union (EU) places Greece at the bottom of the scale as far as law implementation and
enforcement is concerned. Nearly half of the laws passed never reach the implementations
stage—a barely passing grade even on the most lenient grading scale.82 This is corroborated by
the World Bank’s Worldwide Governance Indicators report,83 and a host of academic studies.84

Although lack of law implementation and enforcement in Greece, and elsewhere, is a complex
process involving a multitude of variables, nevertheless, culture is undoubtedly a salient factor.
This chapter will seek to analyze the connection between culture and the travails of law in the
Greek context. The study will begin with a discussion of the nature and idiosyncrasies of culture
in modern Greece and will be followed by analyses of the processes and difficulties associated
with law implementation and enforcement in the country.

Cultural Imperatives

Culture is an elusive and often controversial subject; as such, it lends itself to different definitions
ranging from thick descriptions to more practical or subjective ones. Advancing a more
encompassing approach, Clifford Geertz views culture as “a system of inherited conceptions

77 Larry N. Gerston, Policymaking in a Democratic Society—A Guide for Civic Engagement (Armonk, NY: M.E.
Sharpe, 2002), 113.
78 Thomas Carothers, “The Problem of Knowledge,” in Carothers, ed., 20.
79 Channell, “Lessons Not Learned,” in Ibid., 148.
80 Diamond and Morlino, “Introduction,” in Diamond and Morlino, eds., xvi.
81 B. Guy Peters, The politics of Bureaucracy—An Introduction to Comparative Public Administration, 6th edition
(London and New York: Routledge, 2010), 34-36.
82 Kathimerini, 21 January 2007.
83 A summary of the report appeared in Ibid, 29 June 2009.
84 See, for example, Michael Mitsopoulos and Theodore Pelagidis, Understanding the Crisis in Greece—From Boom to
Bust (Houndsmills, UK: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011), and Stathis Kalyvas, George Pagoulatos, and Haridimos Tsoukas,
eds., From Stagnation to Forced Adjustment—Reforms in Greece, 1974-2010 (London: Hurst & Company, 2012).
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expressed in symbolic forms by means of which people communicate, perpetuate, and develop
their knowledge about and attitudes toward life.”85

Samuel P. Huntington favors a more narrow or practical perspective that sees culture “as values,
attitudes, beliefs, orientations, and underlying assumptions prevalent among people of a
society.”86. The GLOBE Research project settles for a more middle of the road view. The study
defines culture as “a set of relatively stable, basic, and shared practices and values that help
human social groups or societies find solutions to two basic fundamental problems: how to
survive, grow, and adapt to the environment (external adaptations), [and] internal integration
that permits daily functioning and ensures the capacity to adapt and survive.”87.

Despite differences, the various definitions agree that culture is learned by growing up in a
society, its main elements are shared by members of the collectivity, and profoundly affects the
thoughts, actions, and feelings of everyone in society. Three functions of culture are viewed as
most salient. First, culture supplies people with the skills needed to adapt to their surroundings.
Second, as the basis of social life, culture provides norms, values, expectations, attitudes, and
other forms of knowledge that “allow people to cooperate with one another, live in families and
other kinds of groups, relate to members of their own and opposite sex, and establish political and
legal systems.”. And third, culture affects people’s perception of reality; establishes the belief
system through which they “perceive, interpret, analyze, and explain” developments around
them, and “provides a filter or a screen” that affects their view of the world.88 In Eugene Hunn’s
epigrammatic phrase, “culture is what one must know to act effectively in one’s environment.”89.

What are the major elements of Greek culture? In what is by far the most perceptive work on the
subject, P. Nikiforos Diamandouros attributes Greece’s rough and largely unsuccessful road to
modernization on “cultural dualism”(πολιτισμικός δυϊσμός) by which he refers to two parallel,
competing, and equally strong cultural tradition currents permeating the country’s society: the
older, traditional, or under-dog and the younger or reformist.90 . Spread in much of the Balkan
Peninsula, the older of the two has deep roots in Balkan-Ottoman legacy and is profoundly
influenced by Orthodox cosmology, which harbors long and often militant anti-western
sentiments. The traditionalist cultural current is characterized by a pronounced introvertedness, a
protectionist and paternalistic state, ambivalence toward market capitalism and uncomfortable
view toward innovation, parochial and even primordial attachments, penchant for populism, and
“latent” authoritarian orientations and preference for “sultanistic” regimes.

These general features were further shaped and refined by prevailing national norms and
experiences. Greece emerged from the war of independence a small, weak, and economically
feeble entity with limited or “conditional sovereignty”. To improve this dismal position, and with
the acquiescence--if not outright encouragement--of the Orthodox Church, the country’s leaders
embraced and pursued a policy of irredentism aimed to liberate and incorporate lands once held
by the Byzantine Empire. The pursuit of this policy—known as the national project (Μεγάλη
Ιδέα)—exacerbated and deepened dependency on foreign powers, divided the country’s political

85 Clifford Geertz, The Interpretation of Cultures (New York: Basic Books, 1973), 89.
86 Samuel P. Huntington, “Culture Counts,” in Lawrence E. Harrison and Samuel P. Huntington, eds., Culture
Matters—How Values Shape Human Progress (New York: Basic Books, 2000), xv.
87 Deanne N. Den Hartog, “Assertiveness,” in Robert J. House, Paul J. Hanges, Mansour Javidan, Peter W. Dorfman,
and Vilpin Gupta, eds., Culture, Leadership, and Organizations—The GLOBE Study of 62 Societies (Thousand
Oaks,CA: Sage Publications, 2004), 401.
88 Garrick Bailey and James Peoples, Introduction to Cultural Anthropology (Belmont, CA: West/Wardsworth, 1999),
24-25.
89 Quoted in Orlando Patterson, “Taking Culture Seriously: A Framework and an Afro-American Illustration,” in
Harrison and Huntington, eds., 208.
90 The discussion on Greek culture is drawn from P. Nikiforos Diamandouros, Cultural Dualism and Political Change
in Post-authoritarian Greece, Estudo/Working Paper 1994/50, Madrid, Centro de Estudios Avanzados en Ciencias
Sociales, Instituto Juan March de Estudios eInvestigaciones, February, 1994. The work was translated in to Greek by
Dimitri A. Sotiropoulos under the title, Πολιτισμικος Δυισμος και Πολιτικη Αλλαγη στιν Ελλαδα της Μεταπολιτευσης
(Αθηνα: Αλεξανδρεια 2000).

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landscape, and resulted in a number of military and foreign policy humiliating defeats. These
national and often traumatic experiences, augmented by the prevailing traditional cultural
features, formed the backdrop and the point of reference of the traditional cultural current in
Greece. As such, the oldest of the country’s cultures is characterized by: (a) a siege mentality and
a pronounced proclivity toward conspiratorial explanations of events, both domestic and
international; (b) a culturally-anchored, pervasive, exaggerated yet quite insecure and fragile
sense of nationalism; (c) a tendency to see the world in Manichean terms: that is, the forces of
light that support Hellenism on one hand and its detractors on the other; (d) an exaggerated sense
of Greece’s importance in the world and its contribution to the development of western
civilization, touted to mask a feeling of cultural inferiority toward the west; and finally (e), a
pronounced tendency to identify and sympathize with groups or individuals perceived to have
been mistreated by the domineering west.

As might be expected, these salient tenets of the traditionalist culture affected its perception of
democracy and the role of the state. Augmented by the very nature of legal positivism which
views the state as the sole source of law and individual rights, the traditionalist culture elevates
the state to a predominant position vis-à-vis civil society. Its perception of democracy and politics
is ambivalent. The traditionalist culture (a) prefers direct and unmediated exercise of power and
finds limited use for institutions as mediators between the individual and the state; (b) has an
ambiguous if not resentful view of the importance of civil society; (c) shows a clear and
pronounced preference for small and familial structures as the best means to promote and protect
clientelistic practices; (d) adheres to a formalistic rather than substantive view of the democratic
process; and (e) sees politics as an instrument to advance such perceptions. The traditionalist is
arguably the majority view and its strength derives from the less affluent segments of the Greek
society, including small farmers and people with less than average education.

The younger or reformist culture is smaller in number but tends to be stronger among the more
dynamic sectors of society. It draws its support from people with diasporic connections,
entrepreneurs with international experiences, and those with more than average education. Unlike
the traditionalists who look for inspiration within the confines of the region, the reformers look
west and draw intellectual energy from the philosophical heritage of the Ancient Greeks, the spirit
of the Enlightenment and the achievements of liberalism. The reformers advocate a market
economy, the development of a secular state along west European lines, an institutionalized rather
than direct exercise of state power, a vibrant civil society to restrain the state, and a broad and
encompassing rather than restrictive conceptualization of individual rights. To realize their vision
of a modern, democratic, and stable Greece the proponents of the reformist cultural: (a) favor
quick adaptation to change; (b) are open to currents and ideas emanating from Western Europe;
(c) support cultural and other links to foster a cosmopolitan orientation; (d) champion a secularly-
anchored, milder, and more sophisticated and less strident nationalism; (e) are mindful of the
country’s relative weakness in international affairs and advocate a measured, realistic, and
prudent Greek foreign policy; and (f) feel that their success surviving in various and often difficult
environments abroad should serve as a symbol that can benefit the country.

Support for the two cultural traditions cuts across social classes, regional and even ideological
lines. Yet, they have existed in the same environment and, as such, have been influenced by each
other; but neither has managed to achieve supremacy. While both have experienced peaks and
valleys, nevertheless they have exhibited strong survival and entrenchment instincts. On a larger
scale, the two currents have “imparted conflictual logics on social and political interactions, and
have commensurably impeded the emergence of alternative, consensual, and more integrative
arrangements capable of acting as effective mechanisms of interest representation or aggregation
in the country.”.Diamandouros postulates that Greece’s membership in the EU is likely to have a
catalytic affect on the country’s cultural dualism that will lead to the eventual dominance of the
reformist culture. The current economic crisis seems not to bear out his prediction and the
traditionalist tendency appears to have gained ground among major elements of the population.

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The discussion on cultural dualism helps us trace and identify key elements in Greek culture that
affect negatively the rule of law. Utilizing data and a framework for analysis included in a
voluminous study, a recent article established the connection between culture and pervasive
corruption in the country. The study concluded that, among others, Greek culture is characterized
by resistance to change, tolerance for rule breaking and socially damaging behavior, short-time
horizon, spontaneity, tendency to ignore warning signals, weak proclivity toward planning and
future orientation, feeble civil society, penchant for in-group (or amoral familism) and self-
interest promotion as opposed to societal collectivism, aggressive discourse, avoidance of merit
and preference for leisurely and polychromic life, limited class mobility, excessive legalism and
tolerance for corruption and nepotism, excessive legalism and lax attitude toward even application
of the law, weak capacity and willingness to imagine future contingencies and formulate
strategies that would meet future orientations.91 Other studies corroborate some of these points.
For example, Dimitri Sotiropoulos questions the Greek society’s willingness to “accept
significant change”,92 while Kevin Featherstone reports the country ranks last among OECD
countries in “reform capacity”93.

The Travails of Implementation

As known, the burden of law implementation rests mainly on the shoulders of the bureaucracy. By
its very nature, however, implementation is an intricate process involving society, the
bureaucracy, as well as the attitudes of the political class and the quality of laws. For
implementation to succeed, society has to be fairly united with respect to its fundamental
orientations; there has to be trust between the citizens, government and the bureaucracy. In
addition, inter-agency cooperation, merit, bureaucratic professionalism and participation in the
drafting of laws, as well as supportive cultural attitudes regarding the importance of and fair
application of the laws are also necessary. Moreover, the body of law the bureaucracy is called
upon to implement and society to accept must be parsimonious, devoid of legalism, clear, stable,
non-retroactive, fair and intended for help govern society and not as fig-leaf for inaction and
nebulous intentions. Very few if any these essentials are present in the Greek context, and it
should come as no surprise that law and policy implementation in the country are fraught with
pervasive and deep-seated difficulties—nearly half of the laws are never implemented.

The ambivalent attitudes and behavior on the part of the citizens and the state itself have deep and
profound cultural roots, and do little to engender trust. In terms of structure and appearance, the
contemporary Greek state meets all the criteria associated with democratic governance and the
rule of law, but it does not seem to trust its citizens to act responsibly. The state feels insecure and
goes out of its way to dominate civil society. It passes laws that it does intend to implement, or
implements unfairly, it rails against corruption but practices it to hilt, and affirms loudly its
commitment to individual rights but fails to protect minorities and those at the bottom of the
socio-economic pyramid. If the state does not trust its citizens, citizens have no reason to be
trusting toward the state. The Greeks feel ambivalent toward their state; they need it and yearn to
render their support, but do not fully trust its intentions and capacity to deliver on its promises, or
behave as a responsible and worthy custodian of their interests.

In the three decades following the demise of the colonels’ dictatorship (1974-2005), the Greek
state has enacted about 3,500 laws and regulations, 18,500 presidential decrees, and over
200,000ministerial decisions.94 Legal hyperinflation is a basic but substantial part of the problem,
and it is connected to the polarized nature of the party system, which leads to the insidious

91 Constantine P. Danopoulos, “The Cultural Roots of Corruption in Greece,” Mediterranean Quarterly 25, no 2 (2014).
92 Dimitri Sotiropoulos, “The Paradox of Non-Reform in a Reform-Ripe Environment: Lessons from Post-Authoritarian
Greece,” in Kalyvas, Pagoulatos, and Tsoukas, eds., 26.
93 Kevin Featherstone, “Assessing Reform Capacity in Greece: Applying Political Economy Perspectives,” in Ibid., 33.
94 Antonis Makridimitris, Kratos ton Politon: Provlimata Metarithmisis kai Eksichronismou (Athens: A.A. Livani,
2006), 240.

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proclivity to see politics as a zero-sum game. Instead of seeing governance as continuing process
where the new party in power seeks to improve on the record of their predecessors, the leaders of
the new government dismiss everything their predecessors did as completely wrongheaded and
rotten, and proclaim the need to start from the ground up. This vicious cycle does little to provide
continuity and stability or engender citizen trust, which is an indispensable ingredient in the rule
of law.95 Such practices can be dismissed as political hyperbole, yet words have consequences and
serve to undermine the very foundation upon which trust in government rests on.

When they come to power, governments take advantage of the relative weakness of parliament
and concoct and ram though the legislative assembly reams of laws in a thinly-veiled exercise
intended to create the illusion that they are cleaning up the mess they inherited and are fulfilling
their electoral promises. But many of the bills passed are simply ornament laws with little or no
intention to implement. Lawmaking, then, is frequently used as an alibi to create the appearance
of action and, as such, muddy the water and mask failure to keep promises. The problem is
compounded by the myriad of ministerial decisions and directives as well as regulations issued by
national and local government bodies. The flurry of ministerial directives is particularly intense in
the initial stages of a minister’s tenure in office, which some times lasts for only a year or less.
These tactics provide government officials and majority members of parliament with talking
points and ammunition to placate and deflect criticism from the opposition or the mass media.
Fred W. Riggs terms such practices as “double talk” and views this type of law- or rule- making
as “prismatic.” In his words, “prismatic is a law which provides for one policy although in
practice a different policy prevails. A rule is formally.announced but is not effectively enforced.
The formalistic appearance of the rule contrasts with its actual administration…—…officials are
free to make choices, enforcing or disregarding the rule at will…Apparent rules mask without
guiding actual choices.”.96

Since they are intended for atmospherics and not necessarily for implementation, ornament laws
and many ministerial directives are not as carefully crafted, and frequently contradict laws in
force. Yet, they become part of the country’s body of law. This deeply flawed and even unethical
practice violates the most salient tenets of lawmaking: parsimony, stability, clarity, simplicity,
predictability, transparency, and prudential reasons to obey. It creates a nebulous and murky legal
environment and opens the doors to violations that hurt policy implementation and the rule of law.
The government itself is the first to take advantage of the foggy legal landscape and often imposes
policies of questionable legality. At the very least, Greek authorities are guilty of opaqueness,
deceptive practices, misleading promises, poor coordination, compromising legal stability, and
even retroactive application of law.

People are just as quick to fish in the murky legal waters. The well-connected and well-counseled
commit punishable offenses, but can, and often do, employ provisions in these dormant laws to
escape punishment. Moreover, the very existence of ornament laws clogs up the legal system,
beleaguers and confuses bureaucrats and law enforcement officials, reinforces public mistrust and
cynicism, and encourages deviant behavior. Taken together, these sentiments create a climate that
feeds and reinforces a widespread popular belief among the Greeks that laws are unfair and
unevenly selectively applied, or not applied at all; hence skirting the law is both expedient and
justified. Put differently, the state produces much more law and policy than it intends to
implement or needs, or the nation’s bureaucracy and law enforcement institutions can sort out and
apply, or the Greek society can comprehend, internalize, and comply with.

But even those laws intended for application are fraught with difficulties that impede
implementation, especially as it relates to the first two implementation activities: organization and

95 Trust is defined as “encapsulated interest,” i.e., one person’s trust in another is typically encapsulated in the second’s
interest in fulfilling the first person’s trust. See Russell Hardin, “Trust in Government,” in Valerie Braithwaite and
Margaret Levi, eds., Trust in Governance (New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 1998), 9.
96 Fred W. Riggs, Administration in Developing Countries: The Theory of Prismatic Society (Boston: Houghton Mifflin,
1964), 201.

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interpretation. The strict separation between policy making and administration in Greece gives the
bureaucracy little chance to influence the policy implementation process. As such, the group that
undertakes the responsibility to turn the law in to policy is essentially the same as the one that
drafted the law. Besides few relevant ministers and some of their top assistants the organizing
group includes a very small number of politically-safe “secondment” civil-servants and few
specialists.97

Potentially important implementation players, such representatives from local government and
those the policy seeks to affect, are largely excluded. One of the early and seminal decisions the
group makes is to decide on the allocation of responsibilities. As is typical of many unitary states,
the division of labor tends to be horizontal and not vertical. That is, ministries are responsible for
certain layers of the policy, but do not have exclusive responsibility on one or more slices of the
policy. For example, paying all expenses is in the hands of the ministry of finance, but
procurement is assigned to another agency or ministry.

Once assembled, the organization group proceeds with the interpretation activity, i.e., to turn the
law into a set of concrete policies. The composition of the group and the relative influence of the
different members are decisive. The nature and texture of the process has several consequences.
First, it ensures centralization of decision-making in the hands of the political leadership in
Athens. Second, by excluding the bureaucracy, the political leadership takes ownership of the
policymaking, but at the same time becomes directly responsible for the policy’s successes and
failures in all phases, including application. Third, given that the majority of the participants are
lawyers schooled in the positivist law tradition--and that often includes the ministers—it is not
surprising that the tone of the policy takes a strong legalistic flavor. As a result, policies tend to be
written in complex, highly technical language replete with legalistic jargon that tests the skills and
knowledge of middle to lower echelon bureaucrats that are called upon to decipher and apply it.

The important role experts can play in translation activities is hampered by three factors. First,
there is noticeable dearth of experts in the Greek civil service. Inadequate pay and the low
prestige the bureaucracy enjoys prompt those with talent and specialized skills to seek
employment elsewhere. Second, unlike France or Britain, Greece lacks quality public
administration institutions of higher learning to train prospective civil servants. For a variety of
reasons recent efforts to establish such schools have not met with much success.98 And third, there
is shortage of sophisticated and empirically tested literature to draw from. Greek universities are
filled with a plethora of competent academics, but the chaotic and highly politicized institutions of
higher learning provide very little opportunity for research and testing of ideas. As a result,
experts go into policy implementation meeting armed with the latest in theoretical knowledge,
which they acquired while studying in top American or European universities, but without having
the opportunity to draw on theoretical constructs empirically tested in the Greek context. Instead,
they are forced to rely on conclusions extracted from other settings that may or may not be
relevant to the needs, temperament, and norms of a Mediterranean society. Much like law making,
the two critical activities surrounding policy implementation (organization and interpretation) do
not lead to the formulation of policies that are relevant to the Greek setting and bureaucrats can
understand and implement, or give the public sufficient reason to comply.

Application is where the efficacy of policies is tested, and for Greece the record is less than
encouraging. Application is inevitably, inseparably, and seamlessly connected to the other two
implementation activities. Horizontal allocation of policy responsibilities among various agencies
could work well if there is wide and uninhibited coordination between bureaucratic bodies and the

97 Secondment refers to a military officer, civil servant, or corporate executive who has been transferred to their post for
temporary duty. Occasionally, Greek cabinet ministers pluck a few individuals from the bureaucracy and give them
policy making roles. But once in this role, secondments function as advisors to the minister and not representatives of
the bureaucracy.
98 Calliope Spanou, “(Re)shaping the politics-administration nexus in Greece—The decline of a symbiotic
relationship?,” in B. Guy Peters and Jon Pierre, eds., Politicians, Bureaucrats and Administrative Reform (London and
New York: Routledge, 2001), 106-115.

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flow of information amongst them is continuous and uninterrupted. But the opposite is true in the
Greek setting. Owing to the in-group collectivist nature of Greek culture, the level of interagency
communication and cooperation in the Greek bureaucratic apparatus is very poor and the use of
the horizontal method tends to aggravate the problem. Each agency goes about implementing the
portion of policy responsibility often oblivious to other components of the policy in the hands of
other agencies. This leads to compartmentalization of jurisdictions, duplication of efforts,
overlapping duties and responsibilities, and lack of accountability. Each agency keeps its own
records that does not share them easily with others and sets its own procedural criteria. Weak co-
ordination is arguably one of the most, if not the most, debilitating impediments plaguing the
Greek civil service; and it is especially acute at the application level.

Organization emanating problems are compounded by the very nature and process of policy
interpretation. In-group collectivism prevalent in Greek culture engenders substantial
communication difficulties and delays between super-ordinates and subordinates. Put differently,
there are major vertical communication snags and poor planning. Ministries tend to be very slow
communicating policy goals and implementation parameters and guidelines to middle and lower
echelon bureaucrats. Implementers are asked to effectuate a policy without having a clear
understanding what the specifics of the policy. Similar communication and coordination glitches
between the central government and provincial and local governments also hurt policy application
to the detriment of public interest.

In addition, the legalistic and often incomprehensible policy statements and directives is an
impediment. This forces bureau managers to request clarification from the ministry. Ministers and
other high placed officials respond with scores of additional policy directives aimed at elucidating
issues. While directives could clarify one issue they may end up raising several others, requiring
additional clarification. The large volume of follow-up clarification information can add to the
difficulty. Tax accountants consistently complain that they have to go on-line daily to keep
abreast of the latest directives from the ministry of finance regarding changes in tax law. The
modifications are of such high volume that is nearly impossible to keep track. Things reach nearly
unmanageable proportions in view of the horizontal or layer method of allocating policy
responsibilities. Implementers of each layer of the policy are forced go to their superiors for
clarification and the latter issue follow-up clarification directives to their subordinates without
consulting their counterparts in other layers. In the end, different sets of often conflicting
application criteria emerge, and consumers/citizens are left utterly confused and frustrated having
to navigate through an endless and incredibly cumbersome and downgrading labyrinth of offices
that seem incapable and/or unwilling to provide services.

Greece’s bureaucratic apparatus exhibits few, if any of the characteristics associated with
developing administration. Such bureaucracies are organized on the basis of imported not
indigenous prototypes; deficiencies in personnel with highly specialized skills, managerial
capacity, and technical competence; activities that are oriented toward the realization of often
abstract goals rather than the achievement of specific program objectives, which opens the door to
personal expediency preferences rather than public-principled interests, i.e., subjective rather than
objective criteria in policy implementation; open to exchange services for payments or bribes;
large measure of operational autonomy—a characteristic prevalent in countries with colonial
background; and formalism, i.e., policy discrepancies between form and reality.99 Elaborating on
the nature and affects of formalism, Ferrel Heady stresses that formalism is about the gap between
expectations and actualities, which decision makers attempt to mask “by enacting laws that
cannot be enforced, adopting personnel regulations that are quietly bypassed, [or] announcing a
program for delegation of administration discretion while keeping control of the decision-making
at the center.”100 .

99 The discussion on the characteristics of developing administration is dawn from Ferrel Heady, Public
Administration—A Comparative Perspective, 6th ed. (New York: Marcel Dekker, Inc., 2001), 299-302.
100 Ibid., 302.
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The weakness of the bureaucracy in Greece is universally accepted, irrespective of political
persuasions, economic status, or background. Analysts cite a number of factors that explain what
Sotiropoulos has dubbed as a colossus with feet of clay.101 Absence of a rationalist administrative
tradition, weak civil-society, low pay, lack of prestige, political interference and penetration, and
clientelistic practices are some of the many factors. As result, the lower to middle levels of the
Greek bureaucracy are overstaffed with people who possess little training, knowledge, skills, or
expertise. Individual pursuits and nepotism abound. Hiring has little to do with need,
qualifications or competence; instead, it is connected to the insidious practice of patron-client
relations where the political party in power exchanges political support for tenured employment in
the civil service. There was no data on the number of civil servants employed by the state and
only a few years ago the Greek state conducted the first census ever.

Similar practices pervade in the allocation, promotion, or distribution of personnel, in the Greek
bureaucracy are not always done according to need or work load requirements. Like
appointments, political connections and familial preferences tower over public service
considerations. As a result, many provincial offices, especially those in more remote parts of the
country are seriously understaffed, while others located in Athens or other major cities are often
overstaffed. Such practices have led to an abundance of often unneeded upper echelon personnel
selected on political criteria, but a dearth of well trained professionals in the highest levels of the
hierarchy. Commenting on the consequences of this development Calliope Spanou asserts,
“Greek administration is characterized by the absence of an administrative elite and failed
attempts to create one.” In fact, she questions “to what extent there actually is a higher civil
service.”102

There is little doubt the Greek bureaucracy is politicized, but it lacks expertise, specialized skills,
and a clearly-defined political mission. Legal hyperinflation and legalism, unclear, confusing, and
conflicting policy directives compound the problem. As a consequence, the bureaucracy is neither
a key player in any facet of policy implementation nor has the standing, professionalism, or
training to walk effectively the fine line between breaking the law and applying it prudently.
Personal or subjective rather than objective criteria inform and shape the attitudes of middle-to-
lower echelon bureaucrats responsible for policy application. Subjective refers to decision-making
based on personal connections, kinship, birthplace, or familial ties. The merits of the case or the
specifics of the policy tend to be of secondary importance. In other words, the Greek civil service
displays many of the characteristics associated with Rigg’s “sala” model of administration, by
which he means a bureaucracy that is Western/rational in structure and appearance but filled with
individuals who employ traditional familial norms, practices, and loyalties.103

Authoritarian behavior, heavy-handedness, disrespect, and rudeness toward the public are readily
observable in the halls of the Greek bureaucracy. Civility is sorely absent as well, and without
civility democratic rule of law and quality democracy cannot exist. 104 Needless to say such
attitudes and ways of thinking create an environment conducive to favoritism, corruption, graft,
and other forms of rent-seeking behavior. The Global Competitiveness Report 2008-2009 (GCR)
provides evidence supporting favoritism and unfair application of policy.105 Efforts to reform have

101 Dimitri A. Sotiropoulos, “A Colossus with Feet of Clay: The State in Post-Authoritarian Greece,” in Harry J. -327-
Psomiades and Stavros B. Thomadakis, eds., Greece, the New Europe, and the Changing International Order (New
York: Pella Publishing , 1993), 43-56; and Populism and Bureaucracy: The Case of Greece Under PASOK, 1981-1989
London: Notre Dame University Press, 1996).
102 Spanou, “(Re)shaping the politics—administration nexus in Greece” in Peters and Pierre, eds., 109.
103 Cited in B. Guy Peters, The Politics of Bureaucracy, 3rd ed., (New York: Longman, 1989), 42.
104 Quoted in Lawrence Whitehead, Democratization—Theory and Experience (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
2002), 74. Whitehead adopts R.G. Collinwood’s concept of civility. Collinwood explains that behaving civilly toward
someone “means respecting his feelings, abstaining from shocking him, annoying him, frightening him or (briefly)
arousing in him any passion or desire which might diminish his self-respect; that is threaten his consciousness of
freedom by making him feel that his power of choice is in danger of breaking down and the passion or desire likely to
take charge.”
105 World Economic Forum, The Global Competitiveness Index Analyzer 2008-2009, http://www.weforum.org/GCR

Constantine Danopoulos Constantine Danopoulos

been rather legalistic and initiatives to improve the situation have met stiff resistance “from the
political-administrative system.”106

In sum, policy implementation in Greece is fraught with problems in all three implementation-
related activities: organization, interpretation, and application. Ornament laws not intended for
implementation, poor construction of laws, a weak and deficient bureaucracy, restricted
participation in the interpretation activity of implementation, and lack of expertise, specialized
knowledge, and adequate communication are some of the ills. Cultural attributes form the
backdrop of many of these difficulties. Let us now look at the third stage in the rule of law:
enforcement.

Feeble Enforcement

Law enforcement refers to the act of enforcing or ensuring observance of the laws.

Some agencies engage in parallel implementation and enforcement, but also posses the authority
and the means to inflict pain in the form of fines and other sanctions to induce compliance. Bodies
like the tax collection agency, border patrol, customs, or the city planning and construction
inspection bureau can impose sanctions, but rely on courts to issue property seizure or
incarceration warrants and/or the police to carry them out. The police and highway patrol can
issue traffic citations and under certain circumstances have the authority to place the violator
under temporary incarceration, although court involvement is required for further action.

Like lawmaking and/or policy implementation, enforcement is an intricate, interconnected,
interrelated, and often overlapping process involving more than one government agency or
bureau. Law enforcement, however, does not stand alone; instead, it takes places in a social milieu
and is influenced by the nature of the law and the three activities surrounding policy
implementation (organization, interpretation, and application).

Unlike their service providing counterparts, enforcement agencies must determine whether there
is law violation before they can take appropriate measures. This requires careful examination of
the record and frequently involves field inspection. Unclear, contradictory, plethoric, and badly
constructed and communicated laws and directives, coupled with inadequacies and inefficiencies
in all facets of implementation, form the backdrop against which policy enforcement takes places.
Idiosyncratic factors and circumstances in the various law agencies compound the problem and
help explain the unfair and uneven law enforcement. Shortage of qualified and professional
bureaucrats is singularly unhelpful as is a plethora of unqualified, skill-deficient, and merit-
lacking personnel.

The police and other domestic security bodies are the quintessential law enforcement agencies.
Unlike other law enforcement bodies, security bodies, especially the police, possess the means not
only to use coercion in order to enforce the law, but to even challenge the government where the
regime is weak and democracy is not well consolidated. Like other law enforcement bodies, the
police must be well-equipped and-led, properly trained, professional, versed in crime-fighting
methods and crowd control, and enjoy the backing and support of the legitimate political
authorities. The objective behind coercion is not to impose compliance by force, but as a means to
influence people to select behavior alternatives that result in voluntary compliance with the law.
Without clear and clearly communicated policies and laws, adequate resources, professional
ethos, esprit de corps, and sufficient backing by the constitutional authorities, the police will be
hard pressed to enforce the law and may resort to tactics that violate human rights and other
dimensions of the democratic rule of law.107

Though not as problematic as other agencies, the performance of the Greek security forces is less
than impressive, and seems to have deteriorated in recent years. The chaotic traffic scenes in

106 Calliope Spanou, “The Quandary of Administrative Reform: Institutional and Performance Modernization,” in
Kalyvas, Pagoulatos, and Tsoukas, eds., 186.
107 Rachel Kleinfeld, “Competing Definitions of the Rule of Law,” in Carothers, ed., 41.

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Cultural attributes and legal “no-man’s” land in Greece

Cultural attributes and legal “no-man’s” land in Greece

Athens and other major cities, parked and often abandoned vehicles on sidewalks, shop operators
displaying their merchandise in areas designed for pedestrians, and unlicensed street venders are a
few of the visible signs of lack of law enforcement. In recent years there have been a number of
“Rambo or 007 style” escapes of criminals from maximum security prisons as well as policemen
showing up on the scene of a crime without weapons or behaving in less than professional
manner.108 Traffic citations issued by police or highway patrol officers are frequently recanted by
their superiors, particularly when violators are well-connected individuals. Reports of driver’s
licenses issued to individuals that never took the test and might not meet the criteria, or turning a
blind eye on drug dealers and human traffickers, are but a few examples of corrupt behavior by
Greek security personnel. Finally, there have been numerous instances where security forces beat
or abused suspects, especially undocumented aliens.

The crippling economic crisis has hampered the capacity of security forces to enforce the law as
well. The rise in unemployment and a general economic tightening have also led to swelling of
theft, vandalism, and other forms of criminal behavior. More than half of Greeks have little to no
trust in the nation’s police and other security bodies. Out of 48 institutions included in the survey,
the security forces end up in the 25th place.109 Sentiments among the young are less clear, but not
necessarily encouraging. Slightly less than half of the respondents in this age group (44.5%) find
the security forces neither trustworthy nor untrustworthy, about 30% see them as trustworthy, and
almost 25% untrustworthy.110 As might be expected, the level of apprehension by the country’s
growing migrant population is even more pronounced, especially among those of Muslim
background. Nearly 65% of Muslim migrants state that they do not trust the police and 80%
indicate that they refrain from reporting incidents of maltreatment in the hands of security forces
out of fear of reprisals.111 It should be noted that Greece subscribes to international and EU
treaties and agreements with respect to human rights and treatment of migrants and refugees.

Without a doubt, legal hyperinflation and problems associated with policy making and
implementation hamper law enforcement. But there are additional factors that impede the
performance of Greece’s police and other law enforcement bodies. To begin with, there is the
issue of numbers and security personnel allocation. Official records indicate that Greece has one
of the highest police-population ratios in the EU: one policeperson for 97-100 people. But if one
factors in the number of security personnel assigned to protect politicians, journalists, foreign
ambassadors and other “important” people, the ratio is reduced dramatically to nearly one per
thousand. Wealthy parts of Athens receive better protection than their less affluent counterparts.
Residents of high crime areas complain of neglect and lack of protection.

But there are other dimensions that relate directly to professionalism such as personnel allocation,
recruitment, and promotion. First, there is the issue of office assignments versus field work.
Although there are no reliable statistics, nevertheless it appears that officers with seniority and
experience prefer the office, leaving the field to their junior colleagues. Second, as in other parts
of the Greek bureaucracy, nepotism and clientelistic practices play a major role in recruitment and
promotion decisions. Third, political and not necessarily merit criteria are used to make
appointments to leadership positions in the corps as well. Fourth, allocation of responsibilities is
not done in a clear and understandable manner. This leads to turf battles between different
security agencies, overlaps, gaps, confusing jurisdictions and assignments, and lack of trust.
Finally, Greek governments are too eager to blame failures on the leadership of security bodies,
resulting in frequent dismissals and leadership changes. These warp professionalism, harm
continuity, and impact negatively on inter-agency cooperation and sharing of sensitive
information which is of utmost importance in fighting crime and effective law enforcement.

108 See, for example, two articles by the daily To Vema (9 July 2009) on police involvement (aiding and abetting) in -329-
sexual pandering and other forms of crime.
109 Kathimerini, 12 December 2008.
110 Kathimerini, 27 July 2008.
111 To Vema, 31 May 2009.

Constantine Danopoulos Constantine Danopoulos

Besides meddling in the security corps’ professional interests, Greek authorities do not provide
security bodies with proper equipment, sufficient support, and other resources. Owing to the
country’s centralized system, equipment procurement choices are not always guided by need,
feasibility, or quality. Reports of graft involving costly but faulty equipment surface frequently in
the press, but little is done to address it. Finally, inadequate compensation forces officers to
moonlight to beef up their income. These plus the difficulties and dangers inherent with law
enforcement damages morale and has deleterious consequences on officer performance.

Officer preparation is barely adequate. The training is too short and the curricula of service
academics tend to put more emphasis on theory and a lot less on application. Field training is
inadequate and officers are sent to do field work without adequate physical or emotional
preparation. The all too important follow-up training required to familiarize officers with the
latest in crime-fighting methods and techniques as well as use of new equipment is sporadic and
inconsistent. As such, security and law enforcement agencies are steps behind the increasingly
sophisticated crime gangs and their accomplices.

Unfortunately, Greek courts do not have a stellar reputation, neither now or in the past. In fact,
political influence if not outright meddling in judicial matters can be traced all the way back to the
inception of the modern Greece state in the late 1820s. The comments of former chief justice V.
Kokkinos112 as well as those of other practitioners and analysts leave little doubt that the Greek
judiciary lacks sufficient independence and has sided with the state at the expense of individual
rights, regardless if the regime was democratic or authoritarian. Adamantia Pollis, for example,
avers that “although structurally independent, the [Greek] judiciary has rarely acted as a
separate and autonomous branch of government. [Instead], courts have functioned as
legitimators of the prevailing regime and bulwarks of the status quo, be it dictatorial or
parliamentary.”113. This attitude has helped foster “a judicial tradition that has been remarkable
quiescent vis-à-vis both the legislative and executives branches.”114. Individual protection against
government abuses has not been a hallmark of the country’s judicial system. As two keen
observers correctly note, “in the hands of the judiciary, law has been used more for purposes of
state control of society than for protection of individual rights.”115. Pavlos Eleftheriadis reaches
similar conclusions.116

Another factor that can undermine judicial independence in positivist law countries is the very
structure of the judicial system. The judicial corps is bureaucratic, hierarchical, and professional.
As in all bureaucracies, assessment, evaluation, promotion, and advancement are done within the
system; a group of senior members selected by those who are up for evaluation are entrusted with
the task of assessing and making promotion decisions. This works well where there is a viable
tradition of judicial independence and criteria of merit and performance prevail. But when such
standards are low and governments retain the right to appoint the top judges, an environment is
created in which those at the apex of the judicial system have the means to influence lower
echelon judges due to the impact the former might have on the latter’s career. Under the
circumstances, asserts Carlo Guarnieri, “the ability of a bureaucratic judiciary to sustain the rule
of law can be questioned.”117

112 Vasileios Kokkinos, “O Rolos tis Dikaiosynis stin Antimetopisi tis Diafthoras,” in Stephanos Manos, ed., Kratos kai
Diafthora (Athans: I. Sideris, 1998), 223-237.
113 Adamantia Pollis, “The State, the Law and Human Rights in Greece,” Human Rights Quarterly 9 (1987), 596.
114 Nikos Alivizatos and P. Nikiforos Diamandouros, “Politics and the Judiciary in the Greek Transition to Democracy,”
in A. James McAdams, ed., Transitional Justice and the Rule of Law in New Democracies (Notre Dame: Notre Dame
University Press, 1997).30.
115 Keith R. Legg and John M. Roberts, Modern Greece: A Civilization on the Periphery (Boulder: Westview Press,
1996), 125.
116 Pavlos Eleftheriadis, “Syntagmatiki Metarithmisi kai Kratos Dikaiou stin Ellada,’ in Kavin Featherstone, ed., Politili
stin Ellada: I Proklisi tou Eksichronismou (Athens: Ekdoseis Okto, 2007), 150.
117 Carlo Guarnieri, “Courts as Instruments of Horizontal Accountability: The Case of Latin America,” in Jose Maria
Maraval and Adam Przeworski, eds., Democracy and the Rule of Law (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003),
239.

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Cultural attributes and legal “no-man’s” land in Greece

Cultural attributes and legal “no-man’s” land in Greece

Greece’s difficulties with establishing judicial independence exemplify the unintended
consequences of legal positivism. But idiosyncratic factors complicate the landscape even further.
Legal hyperinflation, and especially ornament laws, creates a nebulous and cloudy legal
environment allowing Greek judges to adjudicate case in ways favorable to the well-connected
and the well-counseled and still be within the bounds of the law. At the same time, the cloudy
legal landscape prompts Greeks to resort to courts in order to grievances against the intrusive
hand of the state. This is exacerbated by the fact that Greece has no clear or recognizable class-
action provision forcing would be litigants to file individual suits. As a result, the legal system is
overburdened and courts are unable to distribute justice in a timely fashion. The comment by a
member of the executive body of the nation’s judicial servants, Judge K. Kousoulis, is revealing
and troublesome: “The distribution of justice in our country is fraught with immense problems.
Courts are flooded with hundreds of thousands of cases and cannot respond satisfactorily to the
needs of society and provide for fair and timely resolution of disputes.”118.

It should come as no surprise, then, that public satisfaction of the Greek judiciary is low. More
than one in two Greeks suspects the courts intentions and questions their commitment to
justice.119 Among the youth, 32.4% believe that judges are untrustworthy and 36.6% see them as
trustworthy; nearly 40% take a wait-and see-attitude.120 The Eurobarometer survey finds that 56%
of the Greeks do not trust the nation’s judicial system. 121 In sum, such attitudes toward the
institution that is generally regarded as the protector of the underprivileged do not augur well for
the rule of law and/or the quality of democracy

A Parting Word

The preceding analysis clearly indicates that elements of Greek culture play a key role in the
difficulties the country faces with respect to law implementation and enforcement, which, in turn,
hamper the rule of law and the consolidation of the quality of democracy. Among others, Greek
culture is characterized by resistance to change, excessive legalism, tolerance for rule breaking,
nepotism, penchant for in-group collectivism, avoidance of merit, and lax attitude toward the rule
of law. Though not always easy to detect or measure, the country’s two parallel and competing
cultural traditions create an environment fostering these attitudes. The Greek bureaucracy and the
nation’s law enforcement apparatus are microcosms of the society at large displaying similar
values and orientations.

Cultures, however, are not immutable, and can change. Oriental philosophy teaches that crises
present daunting challenges, but also opportunities for self-assessment and renewal. Let us hope
that Greece’s current and severe economic morass would prove such an opportunity. But in
Douglas North’s words, “change needs to create new norms of behavior.” 122 Greek society
desperately needs to reassess many of the prevailing cultural norms and attitudes. Can such deep
seated views and ways thinking be broken easily? Will the crisis serve as a stimulus for change?
Only time will tell.

References

Alivizatos and Diamandouros,YEAR? “Politics and the Judiciary,” in McAdams, ed., 30.
Bailey G.& Peoples J., 1999. Introduction to Cultural Anthropology (Belmont, CA: West/Wardsworth, 24-

25).
Carothers,+ YEAR? “The Problem of Knowledge,” in Carothers, ed., 20.
Channell, “Lessons Not Learned,” in Ibid., 148.

118 To Vema, 5 July 2009.
119 Kathimerini, 28 December 2008.
120 Kathimerini, 27 July 2008.
121 Eleftherotypia, 10 September 2009.
122 Quoted in Michael Fairbanks, “Changing the Mind of Nations: Elements in a Process of Creating prosperity,” in
Harrison and Huntington, 279.

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Constantine Danopoulos Constantine Danopoulos

Channell W., 2006. “Lessons Not Learned,” in Thomas Carothers, ed., Promoting the Rule of law—In
Search of Knowledge (Washington: Carnegie Foundation for International Peace,), 145.

Danopoulos C.P., 2014. “The Cultural Roots of Corruption in Greece” Mediterranean Quarterly 25, no 2
Den Hartog, D.N., 2004. “Assertiveness” in Robert J. House, Paul J. Hanges, Mansour Javidan, Peter W.

Dorfman, and Vilpin Gupta, eds., Culture, Leadership, and Organizations—The GLOBE Study of 62
Societies (Thousand Oaks,CA: Sage Publications,), 401
The discussion on Greek culture is drawn from Nikiforos Diamandouros, Cultural Dualism and Political
Change in Post-authoritarian Greece, Estudo/Working Paper 1994/50, Madrid, Centro de Estudios
Avanzados en Ciencias Sociales, Instituto Juan March de Estudios eInvestigaciones, February, 1994.
The work was translated in to Greek by Dimitri A. Sotiropoulos under the title, Πολιτισμικος
Δυισμος και Πολιτικη Αλλαγη στιν Ελλαδα της Μεταπολιτευσης (Αθηνα: Αλεξανδρεια 2000).
Diamond and Morlino, YEAR “Introduction,” in Diamond and Morlino, eds., xvi
Featherstone Kevin,YEAR “Assessing Reform Capacity in Greece: Applying Political Economy
Perspectives,” in Ibid., 33.
Jones C.O. 1984, An Introduction to the Study of Public Policy, 3rd ed. (Monterey, California: Brooks/Cole
Publishing Company), 166.
Geertz Clifford, 1973 The Interpretation of Cultures (New York: Basic Books,), 89
Gerston Larry N., 2002 Policymaking in a Democratic Society—A Guide for Civic Engagement (Armonk,
NY: M.E. Sharpe,), 113.
Guarnieri, Carlo YEAR? “Courts as Instruments of Horizontal Accountability: The Case of Latin America,”
in Maraval and Przeworski, eds., 239.
Hardin Russell, 1998) “Trust in Government,” in Valerie Braithwaite and Margaret Levi, eds., Trust in
Governance (New York: Russell Sage Foundation,9.
Huntington Samuel P., 2000 “Culture Counts,” in Lawrence E. Harrison and Samuel P. Huntington, eds.,
Culture Matters—How Values Shape Human Progress (New York: Basic Books,), xv.
For details see a pioneering piece of scholarship by Stella Ladi, “O Rolos ton ‘Eidikon’ kata tis Diadikasias
ton Metarrythmison stin Ellada,” in Featherstone, ed., 95-118.
Linz Juan J. & Stepan Alfred, 1996. Problems of Democratic Transition and Consolidation—Southern
Europe, South America, and Post-Communist Europe (Baltimore, The Johns Hopkins University
Press, 10.
Legg and Roberts, YEAR? Modern Greece, 125.
Kalyvas Stathis, Pagoulatos George, and Tsoukas Haridimos, eds., From Stagnation to Forced
Adjustment—Reforms in Greece, 1974-2010 (London: Hurst & Company, 2012).
Kleinfeld, + YEAR? “Competing Definitions of the Rule of Law,” in Carothers, ed., 41.
Mitsopoulos Michael & Pelagidis Theodore, Understanding the Crisis in Greece—From Boom to Bust
(Houndsmills, UK: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011),
O’Donnell Guillermo, YEAR , “Why the Rule of Law Matters,” in Larry Diamond and Leonardo Morlino,
eds., Assessing the Quality of Democracy (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press), 3.
Peters, B. Guy The politics of Bureaucracy—An Introduction to Comparative Public Administration, 6th
edition (London and New York: Routledge, 2010), 34-36.
Riggs, Fred W. Administration in Developing Countries: The Theory of Prismatic Society (Boston:
Houghton Mifflin, 1964), 201.
Sotiropoulos Dimitri, YEAR“The Paradox of Non-Reform in a Reform-Ripe Environment: Lessons from
Post-Authoritarian Greece,” in Kalyvas, Pagoulatos, and Tsoukas, eds., 26.
Dimitri A. Sotiropouls, “A Colossus with Feet of Clay: The State in Post-Authoritarian Greece,” in Harry
J. Psomiades and Stavros B. Thomadakis, eds., Greece, the New Europe, and the Changing
International Order (New York: Pella Publishing , 1993), 43-56; and Populism and Bureaucracy:
The Case of Greece under PASOK, 1981-1989 London: Notre Dame University Press, 1996).
Spanou Calliope, 2001 “(Re)shaping the politics-administration nexus in Greece—The decline of a
symbiotic relationship?”, in B. Guy Peters and Jon Pierre, eds., Politicians, Bureaucrats and
Administrative Reform (London and New York: Routledge,), 106-115.
Spanou, “(Re)shaping the politics—administration nexus in Greece” in Peters and Pierre, eds., 109.
Calliope Spanou, “The Quandary of Administrative Reform: Institutional and Performance Modernization,”
in Kalyvas, Pagoulatos, and Tsoukas, eds., 186.

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Cyprus - Financialization, Geopolitics, Crisis Cyprus - financialization, geopolitics, crisis

Cyprus - Financialization, Geopolitics, Crisis

Vassilis K. Fouskas

Royal Docks Business School, University. of East London

Abstract

The paper focuses on the recent financial crisis of Cyprus, as a result of the contemporary geopolitical
game. It draftly surveys the economic developments in the island since Turkey's invasion in July 1974
and comments on the role of the involved economic and political powers, whose interaction led to the
crisis, thus creating more obstacles to the ideal of European integration.

Keywords: Cyprus, crisis, geopolitics

The causes and the results of Cyprus’ crisis

For the average European, Russian and/or Middle Easterner, apart from being a popular holiday
destination, Cyprus is known as a divided island. Since Turkey's invasion of Cyprus in July 1974, the
people of Cyprus, Greek and Turkish, have been living in separated worlds. The northern part of the
island is effectively integrated with the Turkish economy today (currently, Turkey enjoys
unprecedented levels of economic growth and prosperity, although some say that this is another case
of bubble-economics, soon to burst). The Republic of Cyprus, de facto divided but de jure united,
became a member of the EU in 2004 and adopted the Euro on 1 January 2008. The northern part of
the island suffered many times in the past from economic and financial crises and its economy is
almost entirely sustained by Turkey (the Turkish Cypriots have grievances about their so-called
"economic isolation"). But now, it is this Greek-Cypriot economy that has the banking problems and
will become known for its severe banking problem - not least because of its deep integration with EU
structures and processes.

When Turkey invaded the Republic in 1974, the Cypriot economy contracted by 17% and again, the
following year, by 19%. It is now estimated that, following the levy on deposits over 100,000 Euros
since spring 2013 and the bank restructuring, contraction might become even worse. Germany's
financial imposition seems to be bringing about more severe economic consequences than Turkey's
invasion. Who is to blame?

As usual, the weakest party is the first to be blamed: Cyprus, the story goes, had presumably become a
tax haven and an offshore paradise, washing Russian, Serbian and Arab money; its financial and
banking sector had been almost eight times its economic output; it had created a real estate bubble and
now suffers from non-serviceable mortgages and bad loans; it had, of course, bought Greek debt,
suffering massive losses when Greece's creditors imposed a "haircut" in 2011; and, last but not least,
the Greek Cypriots had failed to unite the island in 2004 in a referendum in which the Turkish
Cypriots voted in favour and the Greek Cypriots against unity (those arguing this forget what the
Annan plan was about: a neo-colonial design guaranteeing NATO's interests against the ordinary
Cypriots and the refugees). (Fouskas & Tackie,2009)

In other words, the Republic of Cyprus gets what it deserves: harsh austerity measures and
punishment of Russian and other tycoons sheltering their money there. Interestingly, these measures
include, among others, capital and exchange controls which not only contravene the letter and spirit of
European treaties, but also bolster the disintegrative tendencies within the EU, further distancing the
European North from the Mediterranean South (including Ireland). Moreover, this crisis reveals, once
more, the hierarchical, hegemonic and authoritarian way in which EU business is done. Not a hint of
equality, respect, liberal democracy or solidarity. The 10 billion euros bailout deal the creditors have
agreed to with the Cypriot authorities was signed on 25 March 2013, the anniversary of the Treaty of
Rome, in which all the above noble values of the Enlightenment are enshrined - even though none
were respected in the deal.

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Vassilis Fouskas Vassilis Fouskas

The arguments put forth by Germany and other creditor states about the nature of the bailout
requirements are very shallow and contradict the historical manipulation of Cyprus by Euro-Atlantic
interests, whether economic or geopolitical.

Soon after the Turkish invasion, and lacking socio-economic and political integration either with
Greece or Turkey, Cyprus, as a peripheral capitalist economy dominated by labour intensive light
industry and agriculture, had no options but to develop and export services, such as banking, finance
and tourism. And it did so very well. In fact, the West, the so-called "core" states, did pretty much the
same. The shadow banking practices of which the Greek Cypriots are accused are far more highly
developed and obscure in Wall Street, the City of London, Switzerland and Frankfurt itself. Why is
HSBC and its activities, especially in occupied Cyprus, so easily forgotten? Moreover, it should be
said, Cyprus did not envisage financialisation and globalisation. Both have been devised by, and
exported from, the USA and other metropolises, not by Cyprus, Greece or Portugal.

The West did not follow in Cyprus’ footsteps; rather, it is the other way around. It is the Western core
that encouraged Cyprus to embrace its model of financialisation, opening up to foreign capital and
services. But this will no longer be the case. The austerity imposed by Germany and the IMF is so
harsh that no cash is available any more to buy any commodity, whether "real" or "fictitious".
Merkel's anti-inflationist and neo-liberal policy is undermining Germany's own export-led model of
economic success. Austerity in the periphery is bound to hit core economies badly - in fact, it does
already. In other words, Germany is digging its own grave but it has no right to take others down with
it, including Britain, a country in which austerity has already become pronounced (new taxation on
families and households, abolition of benefits etc.).

If this analysis is by and large correct, then the Euro-zone has no prospects of survival. Sooner or later
it will disintegrate and it is almost certain that there are already contingency plans drawn up for this
eventuality. But there is also the dimension of geopolitics. The troika's Cypriot policy undermines the
Russian presence in and around Cyprus, the same way Germany and the USA have been undermining
Russia's policy in Ukraine using of course different means of influence. This interference in Cyprus is
deeply provocative, inasmuch as more than one third of deposits of over 100,000 Euros to be levied
are held by Russian interests (they are also held, it should not be forgotten, by pension funds,
university accounts, and ordinary people's legal and hard-earned savings, although most recent
information suggests that pension funds and state and university accounts will be excluded).

The geopolitical dimension sees Germany raging at Russia in order to have the Russians excluded
from the division of spoils over the Cypriot gas bonanza discovered within the jurisdiction of the
Republic of Cyprus. Russia has port facilities in Tartus, Syria, but it could be interested in financing
alternative facilities in Cypriot ports owing to the unstable political situation in Syria. Germany is
equally furious of Putin's policy in Ukraine, which promised to Kiev extremely low prices for gas and
buying of large amounts of Ukraine's debt.

Cyprus is already in advanced talks with the US energy company "Noble" over the construction of a
liquid gas terminal (LNG). Construction is about to start in 2016 and the terminal, capable of
delivering up to 6 million tonnes of LNG per year, will be fully operational by 2019. Turkey opposes
Russia's overtures, a stance reinforced by the parlous state of affairs in the Republic. It claims co-
ownership of the gas reserves via the Turkish Cypriots, while pushing for the abandonment of the
LNG terminal and opting instead for an underwater pipeline connecting the gas field with southern
Turkey. Germany is pushing for the pipeline option that connects the field directly with Turkey, but
France and, to a certain degree, the USA, opposes this. In some cases Germany and the USA are in
agreement (e.g. over Ukraine), in some others are not (e.g. over Cyprus).

Greece's interest stands for designating its Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) together with Cyprus,
thus extending its sovereign rights around the Cypriot continental shelf, thus acquiring a stake in
Cypriot gas. But Greece, under the present regime which manages its severe debt crisis and is totally
subordinated to Germany and the US Treasury via the IMF, is entirely unable to develop an
independent foreign policy.(Fouskas & Dimoulas, 2013)

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Cyprus - Financialization, Geopolitics, Crisis Cyprus - financialization, geopolitics, crisis

The new rapprochement between Israel and Turkey brokered by Obama's visit to Israel in spring
2013, the Syrian crisis and Turkey-Russia relations, as well as Kurdish imprisoned leader Abdullah
Ocalan's call for peace, should also be factored into any geopolitical analysis of the conjuncture.
Interestingly, Turkey now pushes the Europeans hard to accept it into the EU club as an equal
member. But this will loosen further the cohesion of the EU and thus the prospects for the survival of
the Euro.
The inescapable conclusion is that continuing geopolitical antagonism in the Eastern Mediterranean
drives European politics further and further away from any prospect of integration, let alone political
integration. If anything, diverging EU state interests straddle the rickety economic structures of the
Euro, precipitating the decomposition of the Eurozone.
References

Fouskas, V.K. & Dimoulas, C. 2013. Greece, Financialization and the EU. The Political Economy of Debt and
Destruction . London & New York: Palgrave-Macmillan
Fouskas, V.K. & Alex Tackie, A. 2009. Cyprus. The Post-Imperial Constitution London: Pluto press

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Symphony- Harmony: Coexistence in ThraceSymphony - harmony: coexistence in Thrace

Συμφωνία – Αρμονία: Η συμβίωση στη Θράκη

Θεόδωρος Θεοδώρου, PhD, Πρέσβης

Symphony- Harmony: Coexistence in Thrace

Theodoros Theodorou, PhD, Ambassador

Abstract

The coexistence of population groups of different cultural background (different languages,
religions, traditions) in Thrace, as it has been shaped due to the social and historical circumstances
of the 2oth century, reveals particular traits in comparison to other multicultural areas of the
world. My long lasting stay there as well as my personal research during the elaboration of my
PhD thesis, helped me to formulate a documented view about the living conditions of the locals,
which are ruled by harmony, peaceful coexistence and respect to the particular characteristics of
each group. Therefore I consider as unwise, or even harmful, the self-appointed interventions of
various origins and intentions, which, as they are based on theoretical aspects and not personal
experiences, try to introduce ready-made models of coexistence, far from reality though.

In this paper, I drafty present the aforementioned aspects, on the occasion of a resent conference
which took place in Trace.

Keywords: Thrace, cultural differences, coexistence, harmony

Περίληψη

Η συνοίκηση πληθυσμιακών ομάδων με διαφορετικό πολιτισμικό υπόβαθρο (διαφορετικές
γλώσσες, θρησκείες, παραδόσεις) στη Θράκη, διαμορφωμένη από τις κοινωνικο-ιστορικές
συγκυρίες του 20ου αιώνα, παρουσιάζει ιδιαίτερα χαρακτηριστικά σε σχέση με άλλες
πολυπολιτισμικές περιοχές ανά τον κόσμο. Από τη μακρόχρονη παραμονή μου στην περιοχή,
καθώς και από τη διδακτορική μου έρευνα, έχω αποκρυσταλλώσει τεκμηριωμένη προσωπική
άποψη για τις συνθήκες συμβίωσης των κατοίκων, τις οποίες διέπει η αρμονία, η ειρηνική
συνύπαρξη και ο σεβασμός της ιδιαιτερότητας της κάθε ομάδας. Γι αυτό και θεωρώ άστοχες, έως
επιζήμιες, τις αυτόκλητες παρεμβάσεις ποικίλων προελεύσεων και προθέσεων, οι οποίες,
βασισμένες σε θεωρητικές απόψεις χωρίς βιωματική εμπειρία, επιδιώκουν την εισαγωγή
προκατασκευασμένων μοντέλων συνύπαρξης, μακράν απεχόντων της πραγματικότητας. Στο
κείμενο που ακολουθεί σκιαγραφούνται αδρά οι παραπάνω απόψεις, με την ευκαιρία ενός
προσφάτου Συνεδρίου που διοργανώθηκε στη Θράκη.

Λέξεις-κλειδιά: Θράκη, πολιτισμικές διαφορές, συνύπαρξη, αρμονία

Εισαγωγή

Ταξίδεψα πολλές φορές στη Θράκη ή μέσω της Θράκης προς τις γειτονικές μας χώρες. Έμεινα
στη Θράκη σχεδόν πέντε χρόνια και πρόσφατα μεταδημότευσα στη Σαμοθράκη. Πάντοτε με
συναρπάσει η συμφωνία του τοπίου με την αρμονία της κορυφογραμμής στη Ροδόπη και της
πλατειάς θάλασσας εκεί που η γραμμή του ορίζοντα του Αιγαίου ενώνεται με τον καταγάλανο
ουρανό μας. Εκεί που τα καμπαναριά και οι μιναρέδες αναπέμπουν προσευχή στον δημιουργό
του σύμπαντος.

Πριν από λίγο καιρό, στο τέλος του 2013, βρέθηκα ξανά στη Θράκη, συμμετέχοντας σε ένα
συνέδριο που χάθηκε το νόημα της συμφωνίας και της αρμονίας, πολιτικής και κοινωνικής.

Συμφωνία και Αρμονία δεν είναι όροι μουσικοί, που πιθανώς κάποιος θα φαντάστηκε
παρασυρμένος από την συναισθηματική περιγραφή του σύντομου προλόγου. Είναι όροι πολιτικοί

-337-

Theodoros Theodorou

Theodoros Theodorou

και κοινωνικοί, ανταποκρινόμενοι αντίστοιχα η Συμφωνία στη Συνθήκη της Λωζάννης και η
Αρμονία στην κοινωνική/οικονομική συνύπαρξη των σύνοικων στοιχείων στη Θράκη.

Η συμβίωση στη Θράκη είναι αρμονική διότι αυτό που βιώνουμε στην περιοχή είναι το
αποτέλεσμα της κοινωνικής δυναμικής και της καταλαγής που έχει πετύχει το σύνολο της
κοινωνίας. Η συμβίωση, ο αμοιβαίος σεβασμός στην ατομική και θρησκευτική διαφορετικότητα,
δεν είναι επιτεύγματα άλλων παρά μόνο των κατοίκων της περιοχής αυτής. Η ιστορική εξέλιξη
και οι διασταυρώσεις πολιτισμών, παραδόσεων και θρησκευτικής διαφορετικότητας μόνο στη
Θράκη επέτυχε αυτή την αρμονία. Σε άλλα μέρη της Ευρώπης αλλά και ολόκληρου του κόσμου
οδήγησε σε ακρότητες, φανατισμό, ολοκαυτώματα και οδυνηρή τρομοκρατία.

Η Συμφωνία, που πολιτικά επιβλήθηκε το 1923 πάτησε στην κυριολεξία επάνω στην κοινωνική
πραγματικότητα. Μέσα από δοκιμασίες πολύ δύσκολες, διαδρομές πολέμων, εμφυλίων
σπαραγμών και επεκτατικών πολιτικών επιδιώξεων, διατηρήθηκε αρμονική και «συμφωνική»
συμβίωση. Σήμερα αυτή η πραγματικότητα αποκαλείται απλά ειρηνική συμβίωση, ορισμός που
υπολείπεται ουσιαστικά του πραγματικού εύρους της κοινωνικής συμφωνίας, που έχει επιτευχθεί
στη Θράκη. Η ειρηνική συμβίωση συνήθως είναι ένα αποτέλεσμα που προκύπτει μετά από
εντάσεις και συμβιβασμούς οι οποίοι τελικά οδηγούν σε μία συμφωνία ειρήνης. Στη Θράκη η
κοινωνική συναίνεση, η οικονομική διάδραση και ο αμοιβαίος σεβασμός προϋπήρχαν και δεν
διαταράχθηκαν από τις μεγάλες συγκρούσεις των λαών, όπως αυτές των δύο Παγκοσμίων
Πολέμων. Μετά από αυτούς τους τρομερούς για την ανθρωπότητα πολέμους με τις καταλυτικές
συνέπειες στους λαούς και τις κοινωνίες και παρά την εθνοκάθαρση που επιβλήθηκε με τη
Συνθήκη του 1923 σε βάρος χριστιανών και μουσουλμάνων οι αυτόχθονες μουσουλμάνοι
συνυπήρξαν με τους πρόσφυγες. Είχαν κοινούς κώδικες επικοινωνίας, κοινές πολιτιστικές
εμπειρίες, κοινές ταξικές προελεύσεις, μέσα σε διαφορετικές καταστάσεις κάτω από συνθήκες
ακραίων συμπεριφορών, που ήταν συνέπεια των πολέμων και της ανταλλαγής των πληθυσμών.
Οι αστοί της Μικράς Ασίας, εξαθλιωμένοι και κατατρεγμένοι φθάνουν στην Ελλάδα και αρχίζουν
τη νέα τους ζωή μέσα από πολλές δυσκολίες. Οι αστοί μουσουλμάνοι της Θράκης
ανταλλάσσονται και καταλήγουν στη Τουρκία σε ένα περιβάλλον που δεν έχει καμία σχέση με
την πραγματικότητα της «αγαλίδικης» ζωής που απολάμβαναν στη Θράκη.

Η κοινωνική αναστάτωση που συμβαίνει σε όλη την Ελλάδα προκαλεί πολλές κοινωνικές
συγκρούσεις, οικονομικές ανακατατάξεις, νέα κατανομή εξουσίας. Παρ’ όλη αυτή την
πραγματικότητα στη Θράκη η διαφορετικότητα είναι σεβαστή και η συμβίωση αρμονική. Η
διατήρηση της κοινωνικής συνοχής μέσα σε μία τόσο ζοφερή και επιβαρυμένη πραγματικότητα
δεν είναι μία συμπτωματική επιτυχία. Η σιωπηλή κοινωνική συναίνεση βοηθά στη λήψη
πολιτικών αποφάσεων που εξασφαλίζουν τη συνέχιση μίας φυσικής εξέλιξης.

Σε σύντομη σκιαγράφηση αυτή είναι η πραγματικότητα στη Θράκη. Περιέργως αυτή την απλή
πραγματικότητα δεν αντιλαμβάνονται όσοι ζούνε έξω από τη Θράκη, αλλά ασχολούνται με τη
μειονότητά της.

Ένα Συνέδριο στη Θράκη

Στο πρόσφατο συνέδριο που συμμετείχα στη Θράκη προβληματίστηκα ιδιαίτερα από την
ελαφρότητα των από την Αθήνα ορμώμενων διοργανωτών και κυρίως των εισηγητών των
θεμάτων, οι οποίοι καλυμμένοι πίσω από τα ταμπού και τις προκαταλήψεις τους δεν άκουγαν τη
φωνή όλων των μειονοτικών που τους «φώναζαν» στην κυριολεξία ότι «…δεν ανέχονται άλλες
προκατασκευασμένες προτάσεις που δεν βασίζονται στις επιθυμίες της μειονότητας». Η μειονότητα
υπογραμμίζει σε κάθε ευκαιρία ότι το θέμα του μουφτή και της μερικής εφαρμογής της σαρία
είναι αντικείμενο συζήτησης μεταξύ Πολιτείας και Μειονότητας. Οι ακαδημαϊκοί εισηγητές και
οι εκπρόσωποι των Μη-Κυβερνητικών Οργανώσεων (ΜΚΟ) επιμένουν να κωφεύουν
εισηγούμενοι τα ακαδημαϊκά τους προϊόντα , παραχθέντα στο εργαστήριο χωρίς επαφή με τη
θρακική πραγματικότητα, τα οποία αν σταματήσουν να υποστηρίζουν τότε οι ίδιοι δεν θα έχουν
λόγο ύπαρξης.

Σημαντικό αποτέλεσμα του Συνεδρίου είναι η φωνή που αδέσμευτα αρθρώνεται από τη
μειονότητα, η οποία πλέον ξεκάθαρα δηλώνει ότι θα συνεχίσει να χειρίζεται η ίδια τα θέματά της

-338-

Symphony- Harmony: Coexistence in ThraceSymphony - harmony: coexistence in Thrace

και περιμένει/απαιτεί, όπως το δικαιούται, από την Πολιτεία, αλλά και όλους τους άλλους που
δηλώνουν παρουσία στη Θράκη να αφουγκραστούν με σοβαρότητα και συνέπεια τις απαιτήσεις
της τοπικής κοινωνίας και να μη φθάνουν στην περιοχή ως αποκλειστικές αυθεντίες με μοναδικό
στόχο την προσωπική τους ανάδειξη, για ικανοποίηση των ξεπερασμένων μελετών τους που
περιφέρουνε «τεμπέλικα» και ανέξοδα στα αμφιθέατρα τα τελευταία δεκαπέντε χρόνια.

Πριν δέκα χρόνια όταν συζητούσαμε το θέμα της μειονότητας στη Θράκη με τον καθηγητή μου
Νίκο Ξηροτήρη βρεθήκαμε αντιμέτωποι με την ίδια «στείρα» κατάσταση σε αντίθεση με την
ανθούσα και ζωντανή κινητικότητα της θρακικής, μειονοτικής και πλειονοτικής, κοινωνίας. Η
μειονότητα εκείνη την εποχή άρχιζε να απαιτεί αυτά όλα που την έβγαζαν από μία απομόνωση
.Μία απομόνωση που επέβαλε η επεκτατική Τουρκική πολιτική μέσω της Πρεσβείας στην Αθήνα
και του γενικού Προξενείου στην Κομοτηνή, την οποία περιέργως στήριζαν ΜΚΟ, κάποιες
δυτικές κυβερνήσεις, πανεπιστημιακοί και υπάλληλοι Γραμματειών διεθνών ή περιφερειακών
Οργανισμών, που τολμούν με ολοκληρωτική πρακτική να αποκαλούν την μειονότητα
«τουρκική» παραβιάζοντας το διεθνές θεσμικό πλαίσιο και την εντολή που υπηρετούν ως
υπάλληλοι την διεθνών αυτών Γραμματειών.

Σήμερα η μειονότητα έχει πετύχει να συνομιλεί με τις Ελληνικές Κυβερνήσεις στη βάση
αμοιβαίου σεβασμού που αποτελεί προϋπόθεση εποικοδομητικού διαλόγου. Παρ όλη αυτή την
πραγματικότητα της ουσιαστικής επικοινωνίας που έχει επιτευχθεί ακόμη και σε πολύ ιδιαίτερα
θέματα, που καμία άλλη κυβέρνηση στον «πολιτισμένο κόσμο μας» δεν τολμά να αγγίξει, η
μειονότητα συνεχίζει να δέχεται την πίεση από εξωγενείς παράγοντες και μία μερίδα του
ακαδημαϊκού κόσμου που από φόβο και έλλειψη φαντασίας έχει αγκιστρωθεί στις προκαταλήψεις
του περασμένου αιώνα, που δεν έχουν σχέση με την πραγματικότητα της εποχής μας.

Είμαστε στον 21ο αιώνα!

Οι κυβερνήσεις στην Ελλάδα έχουν προχωρήσει από το 1991 σε σημαντικές τομές και
μεταρρυθμίσεις. Καιρός είναι να μετακινηθούν και όλοι αυτοί που κάποτε παρουσίασαν μία
επιστημονική άποψη, που ανταποκρινόταν στις ανάγκες εκείνης της εποχής, ,αλλά σήμερα είναι
πλέον απολύτως ξεπερασμένη. Ευτυχώς που καταγράφεται, αντίθετα με τις επιδιώξεις των
«μεσαιωνιστών», κοινωνική και πολιτική κινητικότητα. Θα ήταν απογοητευτικό να διαπιστώναμε
ότι μία ζωντανή κοινωνία όπως αυτή της Θράκης έχει εγκλωβισθεί σε ταμπού και προκαταλήψεις
άλλων εποχών και προπαγανδιστικών κατασκευασμάτων και ότι ισχύουν ακόμη τα «γραμμένα»
τον περασμένο αιώνα. Αν αυτό συνέβαινε το 2014 θα έπρεπε πραγματικά να ανησυχούμε ως
κοινωνία και πολιτεία από την ακινησία και την γκετοποίηση που θα είχε επιβληθεί. Σε πείσμα
όμως όλων των αρνητικών και οπισθοδρομικών προκλήσεων η μειονότητα απαιτεί περισσότερη
μόρφωση, συμμετοχή στα κοινά, στη διαμόρφωση του εθνικού πλούτου της ελληνικής
οικονομίας και αυξημένη πολιτική παρουσία σε κόμματα, επιμελητήρια και τοπικές οργανώσεις.

Όλες αυτές οι διεκδικήσεις είναι ουσιαστικά δείγματα μίας ζωντανής, δυναμικής κοινωνίας που
τη χαρακτηρίζει το σφρίγος, η απαίτηση για νεωτερισμό και για εξέλιξη. Αυτή ακριβώς η
αυτονόητη πραγματικότητα έχει γίνει σεβαστή και αποδεκτή τόσο από την Ελληνική κοινωνία
όσο και από το ευρύτατο πολιτικό σύστημα της χώρας μας. Ορισμένες ακραίες φωνές της
πολιτικής σε όλους τους κομματικούς σχηματισμούς αγνοούν την πραγματικότητα της Θράκης,
την ποιότητα των σχέσεων της θρακικής κοινωνίας και βέβαια προκαλούν μεγάλη ζημιά με την
ημιμάθεια τους στην ανάδειξη της πολυπολιτισμικότητας, την οποία προφανώς για δικούς τους
λόγους εχθρεύονται, προβάλλοντας χωρίς να το δικαιούνται στρεβλή εικόνα της χώρας μας.

Η μεταρρυθμιστική απαίτηση της μουσουλμανικής μειονότητας και η άμεση ανταπόκριση της
Πολιτείας ακυρώνουν (killing softly) όχι μόνο τις προαναφερθείσες άτοπες τοποθετήσεις αλλά
και τις επεκτατικές πολιτικές γειτονικών χωρών, που ακόμη νοιώθουν να απειλούνται από τη
θρησκευτική διαφορετικότητα και τη μειονοτική παρουσία. Στο στενό μας γειτονικό περίγυρο οι
εξαγγελίες των μηδενικών προβλημάτων με τους γείτονες, που ευαγγελιζόταν ο κ.
Νταβούτογλου, εξ αιτίας της αστοχίας των επιλογών του όχι μόνο έχουν «εξατμισθεί», αλλά
έχουν αναχθεί και σε ένα πολύ περίεργο νέο δόγμα των «ατέρμονων προβλημάτων με τους
γείτονες».

-339-

Theodoros Theodorou

Theodoros Theodorou

Στη Θράκη χωρίς μεγαλόστομες εξαγγελίες ή μεγαλεπήβολα προγράμματα, με όλες τις δυσκολίες
και τα λάθη που καταγράφονται και δικαίως χρεώνονται στη διοίκηση, έχει επιτευχθεί ανάδειξη
της διαφορετικότητας και της πολυπλιτισμικότητας σε σημείο που αυτή να θεωρείται
πολιτισμικός και πολιτιστικός πλούτος για τη χώρα μας. Η Συμφωνία και η Αρμονία της Θράκης
συγκρούονται έντονα και ανηλεώς με την παραφωνία της επικαλούμενης σύγκρουσης των
θρησκειών και των πολιτισμών. Η Θράκη ευτυχεί κοινωνικά και πολιτιστικά, έχει αποκλείσει τις
ακρότητες και τον φονταμενταλισμό χωρίς να ενδιαφέρεται από πού προέρχονται τα
διαχωριστικά, πολιτικά και διασπαστικά συνθήματα του μίσους και του διαχωρισμού.
Μειονότητα και πλειονότητα κινούνται αρμονικά και συμφωνημένα στους άξονες των κοινών
επιλογών τους γνωρίζοντας ότι είναι οργανικά δημιουργικά κομμάτια μίας πατρίδας που δεν
εφαρμόζει διακριτικές ρατσιστικές πολιτικές.

Ο καθηγητής Νίκος Ξηροτύρης αποτέλεσε τον συνομιλητή, που πάντοτε πρόβαλε την ισχυρή του
επιχειρηματολογία επιστημονικά εμπεριστατωμένη χωρίς να επιβάλλει την καθηγητική του
αυθεντία, παρά την εγγύτητά του με τη γερμανική πανεπιστημιακή πραγματικότητα. Η κοινή μας
γερμανική εμπειρία και πανεπιστημιακή γνώση αποτέλεσε στοιχείο δημιουργικής συνεργασίας
που κατέληξε στη συγγραφή της διδακτορικής μου διατριβής. Ο καθηγητής μου με αποδέχθηκε
στον κύκλο των διδακτορικών του ερευνητών προτείνοντάς μου να προσεγγίσω το θέμα έξω από
τα αυστηρό πλαίσιο των Συνθηκών και του Ευρωπαϊκού νομικού πλαισίου. Παρουσιάσαμε μία
ολιστική προσέγγιση της μειονότητας μέσα στην Ευρωπαϊκή πραγματικότητα, στην οποία ανήκει
η Ελλάδα και εξελίχθηκε η Ελληνική ιστορία. Συγκρίναμε την εξέλιξη της Ελλάδας, της Θράκης
και της μειονότητας με τις μειονότητες σε πολλές άλλες χώρες της Ευρώπης και καταλήξαμε
επιστημονικά στην διαπίστωση ότι η Αρμονία και η Συμφωνία είναι μία πολιτική κοινωνική και
οικονομική πραγματικότητα για την Ελλάδα και την Ευρώπη. Το επίτευγμα είναι πραγματικό και
όχι θεωρητικό. Η Θράκη είναι μοντέλο θρησκευτικής συνύπαρξης και κοινωνικής καταλαγής σε
ένα κόσμο που σπαράσσεται. Η αρμονική συμβίωση των δύο θρησκειών σε ένα τόσο μικρό
ευρωπαϊκό χώρο ακυρώνει κάθε επιδίωξη που στοχεύει να μετατρέψει κάθε σύγκρουση σε
θρησκευτικό σπαραγμό όχι μόνο μεταξύ Χριστιανών και Μουσουλμάνων, αλλά και εντός των
ίδιων των δογμάτων. Χριστιανοί κατά Χριστιανών- Μουσουλμάνοι κατά Μουσουλμάνων.

Αλεβήτες και Σουνίτες συνυπάρχουν στη Θράκη

Αλεβήτες και Σουνίτες συνυπάρχουν στη Θράκη. Κιζιλμπάσιδες (κοκκινοκέφαλοι από το κάλυμα
της κεφαλής), Μεβλανά, Μπεχτασίδες, Σιίτες και «Φετουλάδες» ακολουθούν τις παραδόσεις τους
και ασκούν τα θρησκευτικά τους καθήκοντα χωρίς περιορισμούς και απαγορεύσεις. Ξαφνικά η
Τουρκία άρχισε να εμπλέκεται στους εορτασμούς των Μπεχτασίδων της ορεινής περιοχής. Ο
σουνίτης Γενικός Πρόξενος της Κομοτηνής με εντολή της Άγκυρας συνέτρωγε, σφάγια που δεν
είχαν ήταν χαλάλ, με Μπεχτασίδες στα ορεινά όταν στην Τουρκία οι Μπεχτασίδες, οι Μεβλανά
(αποτελούν μόνο τουριστική ατραξιόν) και οι Αλεβήτες διώκονται. Τα πράγματα ήταν απλά όταν
οι Κεμαλιστές κυβερνούσαν την Τουρκία. Σήμερα με ισλαμική κυβέρνηση, που κάποτε χέρι χέρι
με το Φετουλάχ Γκιουλέν εκφράζανε ένα κοσμικό Ισλάμ, η Τουρκία κινείται σπειροειδώς στην
κατεύθυνση των αδελφών μουσουλμάνων. Οι Τούρκοι διπλωμάτες παρακάθονται σε γεύματα
των Μπεχτασίδων όταν ταυτόχρονα υποχρεώνονται να υπακούσουν στις σκληρές δογματικές
επιταγές της Θρησκείας τους. Η ενδεικτική αυτή αναφορά προσδιορίζει το κοινωνικό/πολιτικό
πρόβλημα μίας χώρας, που ακόμα αναζητά την ταυτότητά της μέσα από σοβαρά εσωτερικά
προβλήματα αυτοπροσδιορισμού, πολιτικών και πολιτιστικών επιλογών. Η Τουρκία έχει επιλέξει
μια ηγεσία που την οδηγεί σε επικίνδυνη περιδίνηση και κοινωνική αστάθεια. Οι οικονομικοί
δείκτες της χώρας κατακρημνίζονται και το οικονομικό θαύμα του Ντερβίς, που οικειοποιήθηκε ο
σημερινός Πρωθυπουργός της χώρας αρχίζει να δείχνει δυστυχώς όλα τα στοιχεία μίας
οικονομικής «φούσκας».

Εξελίξεις στην Τουρκία

Όσοι παρακολουθούμε τις εξελίξεις στην Τουρκία δεν νοιώσαμε έκπληξη. Γνωρίζουμε ότι η
διεθνής κοινότητα θυμάται την Τουρκία να απορρίπτει τον έλεγχο του Διεθνούς Νομισματικού
Ταμείου (ΔΝΤ) χωρίς όμως να μπορεί να δικαιολογήσει η νεοεκλεγείσα ισλαμική
πραγματικότητα από πού προέρχονταν πολλά δισεκατομμύρια δολάρια που χρησιμοποιήθηκαν

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Symphony- Harmony: Coexistence in ThraceSymphony - harmony: coexistence in Thrace

για να καλυφθεί το τεράστιο Τουρκικό έλλειμμα το οποίο είχε οδηγήσει τη χώρα σε πληθωρισμό,
που ξεπερνούσε το 120% και οδηγούσε το εθνικό νόμισμα (Λίρα Τουρκίας)στην απόλυτη
απαξίωσή του.

Δεν εντυπωσιαστήκαμε από τη συμπόρευση Φετουλάχ Γκιουλέν, Ερντογκάν, Νταβούτογλου
γιατί γνωρίζαμε ότι η πορεία δεν ήταν παράλληλη, αλλά αποκλίνουσα. Το εφεύρημα της
δυνατότητας ελέγχου των θρησκευτικών αντιθέσεων στη Μέση Ανατολή μέσω του κοσμικού
Ισλάμ, που πρόβαλε η Τουρκία ως πολιτική πρόταση προς της Δύσης και τις ΗΠΑ προφανώς
είχε ημερομηνία λήξης. Δεν μπορεί να είσαι «υπο-χρεωμένος» σε αδήλωτα σκληρά Ισλαμικά
κεφάλαια και να υπόσχεσαι ότι μπορείς να ελέγξεις τους δανειστές σου μέσω ενός κοσμικού
Ισλάμ, το οποίο προβλήθηκε από τον Κεμάλ Αττατούρκ, που είναι ο απόλυτος ιδεολογικός
αντίπαλος του κόμματος (ΑΚΡ) που κυβερνά την Τουρκία την τελευταία δεκαετία.

Δεν αδιαφορήσαμε για τους νέους κοινωνικούς και οικονομικούς σχηματισμούς στην Τουρκία,
που με την εκλογή Ερντογκάν απαίτησαν και πέτυχαν αναδιανομή της εξουσίας και της
οικονομικής πίττας.

Δεν πέρασε απαρατήρητη η νέα σημαία που αναρτήθηκε σε επιχειρήσεις και σπίτια στην
Τουρκία, που ενσωμάτωνε την προσωπογραφία του Κεμάλ στην επιφάνεια της τουρκικής
σημαίας.

Ποτέ δεν θεωρήσαμε απλό πολιτικό περιστατικό την ακύρωση των αμερικανικών επιχειρήσεων
προς το Ιράκ και την αλλαγή του επιχειρησιακού προγραμματισμού που επιβλήθηκε στις ΗΠΑ
από την Τουρκική Εθνοσυνέλευση με αποτέλεσμα να καθυστερήσει η επιχείρηση ανατροπής του
Σαντάμ Χουσεΐν.

Ακολούθησε η ρήξη με το Τελ Αβίβ, το συριακό, η σύγκρουση με την Αίγυπτο ο υφέρπων
ανταγωνισμός με το Κατάρ, τη Σαουδική Αραβία, η προσπάθεια εμπλοκής στο λιβανικό. Καμία
Συμφωνία δεν έγινε σεβαστή από την Τουρκία, που διαταράσσει με τη συμπεριφορά της την
εσωτερική της αλλά και την εξωτερική Αρμονία θέτοντας σε κίνδυνο την ειρηνική συνύπαρξη
στην ευρύτερη περιοχή της Μέσης Ανατολής.

Η σύντομη ανάλυση και η αναφορά μας στην διεθνή κυρίως συμπεριφορά της Τουρκίας
πραγματοποιείται προκειμένου να στηρίξουμε αλλά και να διδαχθούμε από την προσεκτική
προσέγγιση μειονοτικού θρησκευτικού δασκάλου της Θράκης ο οποίος θεωρεί ότι η μειονότητα
δεν μπορεί να αποτελέσει γέφυρα επικοινωνίας των δύο χωρών, όχι μόνο λόγω της ευαισθησίας
των μειονοτήτων σε διακρατικές εντάσεις, αλλά και εξ αιτίας του ρόλου που συγκρουσιακά και
επεκτατικά διεκδικεί η Τουρκία στην περιοχή. Η παρατήρηση είναι εμπειρική αλλά σημαντική
και θα πρέπει να ληφθεί υπόψη κυρίως από όλους αυτούς που θεωρούν ότι από τη θέση του
ερευνητή, του πανεπιστημιακού δάσκαλου, του εκπροσώπου ΜΚΟ μπορούν να επιβάλλουν
επιλογές Εξωτερικής Πολιτικής στηριγμένοι σε θεωρητικά υπόβαθρα περί σύγχρονης Τουρκικής
Δημοκρατίας, στην οποία ακόμη και σήμερα ο στρατός είναι παρών ως κεφαλαιούχος επενδυτής
(Μετοχικό Ταμείο Στρατού), παραβιάζονται κατάφορα τα ανθρώπινα δικαιώματα, καταπιέζονται
οι μειονότητες, βιάζεται το διεθνές δίκαιο με την εισβολή και την παράνομη κατοχή εδάφους της
Κυπριακής Δημοκρατίας.

Επίλογος

Τα προγράμματα που προωθούνται σε περιοχές του κόσμου για την στήριξη μειονοτικών ομάδων
ή εκφράσεων ιδιαίτερων θρησκευτικών, πολιτιστικών και κοινωνικών ομάδων οφείλουν να
αποδέχονται τις ιδιαιτερότητες των περιοχών και να σέβονται το πλαίσιο, συμβατικό και
κοινωνικό, το οποίο έχει καθορίσει την κοινωνική αρμονία της συγκεκριμένης περιοχής. Εάν
πράγματι η κοινωνία εκφράζει επιθυμία θεμελιωδών αλλαγών αυτές οι αλλαγές θα υποβοηθηθούν
από όλους αυτούς που προσέρχονται να συνδράμουν στην μεταρρυθμιστική ανάγκη αλλά
πάντοτε με τη συνεργασία και υπό την καθοδήγηση των τοπικών κοινωνιών, που γνωρίζουν πολύ
καλά τις ευαισθησίες και τις αξιωματικές απαιτήσεις των μελών τους και των
ομάδων/σχηματισμών (πολιτικών, κοινωνικών ή της κοινωνίας των πολιτών) που τις εκφράζουν.

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Theodoros Theodorou

Theodoros Theodorou

Η Ευρωπαϊκή εμπειρία από τη Θράκη είναι ανεκτίμητης αξίας και πολύ αποτελεσματική στην
αλληλογνωριμία των ανθρώπων και στην εξέλιξη του διαλόγου των πολιτισμών και των
θρησκειών.

Η κατάθεση αυτή της σημαντικής μου εμπειρίας, που με δίδαξε να αποδέχομαι το διαφορετικό
αναγνωρίζοντας τη απεριόριστη αξία που εμπεριέχει η ανοχή και η καταλαγή, είναι το
αποτέλεσμα της καθοδηγητικής εποπτείας του Πανεπιστημιακού καθηγητή και δασκάλου μου
Νίκου Ξηροτύρη και της ερευνητικής του ομάδας που με στήριξε στην έρευνά μου και με
διευκόλυνε στην τελική επιλογή της διωλκού της διδακτορικής συγγραφής με τον τίτλο
«Μουσουλμανική Μειονότητα και οι Μειονότητες στην Ευρώπη 1923-2010» (εκδόσεις Σπανίδη-
Ξάνθη).

Η εμπειρία της διαπολιτισμικής ανοχής και του διαθρησκευτικού σεβασμού μεταξύ χριστιανών
και μουσουλμάνων στη Θράκη θα μπορούσε να αποτελέσει τη βάση σημαντικής πολιτικής
διεθνούς διεργασίας, που θα οδηγήσει σε εκτόνωση όλων εκείνων των απόψεων περί σύγκρουσης
των θρησκειών. Η ήπια διαδικασία της κοινωνικής αρμονίας και της συμβιωτικής συμφωνίας των
σύνοικων στοιχείων επιβεβαιώνει τη δυνατότητα των κοινωνιών να αποφεύγουν πολώσεις
βασισμένες στη θρησκευτική διαφορετικότητα. Η κοινωνική διαίσθηση και η επιθυμία
συμβιωτικής γαλήνης οδηγεί τακτικά τις κοινωνίες σε αποφυγή θέσεων που διαχωρίζουν τα μέλη
τους βάσει θρησκειών, επειδή γνωρίζουν εμπειρικά ότι τέτοιες διαφορές είναι αγεφύρωτες και
περικλείουν ένταση, φόρτιση και πολύ οργή. Οργή που μετατρέπεται σε φανατισμό με ακραίες
εκφράσεις βιαιοτήτων και βιαιοπραγιών. Αυτή την κοινωνική και πνευματική ευαισθησία πολλά
κέντρα λήψης αποφάσεων τη διαστρέφουν και τη στρέφουν κατά των ίδιων των κοινωνιών. Η
Θράκη ως συνολική έκφραση δεν παγιδεύτηκε στην διαστροφή της καθοδηγούμενης
προπαγάνδας δείχνοντας στη διεθνή κοινότητα τις πραγματικές αντοχές των κοινωνιών, που δεν
εμφορούνται από μόνιμες ιδεοληψίες και προκαταλήψεις. Αυτή είναι η πολιτική θέση που
προβάλλει η Θράκη και αποτελεί την πρόταση της χώρας μας προς τη διεθνή κοινωνία για
διαπολιτισμικό διάλογο και πολυπολιτισμική κατανόηση.

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Theodoros Theodorou

Theodoros Theodorou

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The Contest of Memory (CommunistTahencdonptoesstto-fCmoemmomryu(nCiosmtmMunoisntuamndepnotsst-cionmBmuunlgisat mrioan)uments in Bulgaria)

The Contest of Memory
(Communist and post-Communist Monuments in Bulgaria)

Evelina Kelbecheva

American University in Bulgaria

Abstract
The article is a survey of several most notorious monuments in Bulgaria, which have been
constructed during three periods of the country’s recent history: the Stalinist period, the Socialist
nationalism period and the post Communist period. The older cultural symbols reveal the ideological
agenda of the time -- and the monumental propaganda during the communist era. They represent the
infamous style known as “socialistic realism” . The more recent, totally different in spirit and style
post communist memorials, have been created in order to keep the memory of people who were
victims during communism. However the younger generation, lacking of historical memory and
knowledge, prefer to "redesign" the older monuments, and turn them in another "realm of history" via
graffiti, or "carnavalization" of the statues, thus expressing their attitudes both towards history and
towards the most controversial political events (including international ones like the annexation of
Crimea by Russia in February 2014).

Key Words: cultural memory, politics, communism, post-communism art, public attitudes

Fig.1. The Monument of the Soviet Army in Sofia

Introduction
An article about Bulgaria in the International Herald Tribune (Wood, 2004) started with the following
paragraph: “Yana Lazarova, 17, was looking up at a tall monument at the centre of Sofia’s Liberty
Park. It features three muscular figures, one clutching a gun, all carved from black stone. Asked what
it represents, she admitted she did not know. After a while, she guessed: It is a monument to the
Soviet Army for liberating Bulgaria from the Turks in 1878”.The statue is indeed Sofia’s monument
to the Soviet Army, but it has nothing to do with the Turks. Instead it commemorates Soviet troops for

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Evelina Kelbecheva Evelina Kelbecheva

liberating Bulgaria from the Nazis in 1944, an event, that paved the way for 45 years of Communist
rule”.(Fig 1)

The author of the article made two mistakes. The first one is that the three muscular figures are not
carved from black stone, but rather they are cast in bronze. The second one is that the Soviet troops
never “liberated Bulgaria from the Nazis”. It is a well-known fact that the USSR declared war on
Bulgaria on September 5, 1944 and the Red Army occupied the country, a move that surprised the
Allies and created a new situation in the Balkans. Bulgaria used to be Germany’s ally between 1941
and 1944, but Bulgaria’s last democratic government, formed on September 2, 1944, had severed its
diplomatic relations with Germany, had already expelled or disarmed what was left of German troops
on Bulgarian territory, had released all political prisoners, and was already engaged in armistice
negotiations with Great Britain and the USA. The article continues: “In a study published in January,
a team of experts from the Association Global Bulgaria Initiative, said: “…We live in a society in
which the vast majority of people do not know what is good about democracy and have forgotten
what is bad about socialism.” Zhelyu Zhelev (former dissident and President of Bulgaria 1990-1997)
said he was disturbed to see a new generation grow up in the dark. “To an extent it is good, but
without knowledge of the past, they are not able to recognize repressive regimes and forecast the
future.”.

I believe that the attitude of post-communist societies toward their recent communist past is among
the most powerful criteria for assessment of the level of self-reflection, maturity and democratisation
of these societies. Bulgaria is a peculiar case in this respect, since the Communist purges in Bulgaria
have been among the most severe ones. Thus the study of inheriting, preserving and contesting
materialized forms of the communist legacy – as well as the creation of new ones – is of particular
interest.

Case studies of cultural memory

The case studies that I will present are based on the most notorious monuments created during the
Stalinist period (between 1944 and 1956) in the capital city of Sofia and in Plovdiv -- the second
largest city in Bulgaria; the monuments belonging to the second phase of the communist regime in
Bulgaria, a period that could be characterized as “Socialist Nationalism” (1975-1989) and the last part
of the study is based upon the post-communist monuments in Bulgaria.

The monuments subject of this study are:

• Stalinist Period:

The Mausoleum of Georgi Dimitrov in Sofia built in 1949, head architects of the project I. Vasiljov
and R. Ribarov, civil engeneer Nissimov, artists I. Penkov, D. Uzounov, I. Nechev, V. Starchev. It
was destroyed in 1999 (Fig.2).

Fig. 2. The Mausoleum of Georgi Dimitrov in
Sofia

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The Contest of Memory (CommunistTahnedcopntoesstt-oCf moemmomryu(nCiosmt mMuoninstuamndepnotsst-icnomBmuulngisatrmioan)uments in Bulgaria)

The Contest of Memory (Communist and post-Communist Monuments in Bulgaria)

The Mound of Brotherhood in Sofia, competion for the project – 1951, construction began in 1953,
completed in 1956, head oTfhethMeoupnrdojoefcBt rotJh.erKhoraocdhimn Saorofiva,, csocmuplpettioornsfoAr .thAe tparnojaescot v–, 1A95.1,Actoannsatrsuocvtioan–began in 1953,
Milkova, V. Tzvetkov, L. Pecotrmopvl.etAedrcihnit1e9c5t6s,–hEea.dZoidf athroevp,rMoje.cMt iJl.koKvra. c(hFmiga.r3ov), sculptors A. Atanasov, A. Atanasova –

Milkova, V. Tzvetkov, L. Petrov. Architects – E. Zidarov, M. Milkov. (Fig.3)

The Contest of Memory (Communist and post-Communist MonumenFtisgin3.BTuhlgeaMriao)und of BroFtihge3r.hTohoedMionuSndofoiaf Brotherhood in Sofia

The Mound of Brotherhood in Sofia, competion for the project – 1951, construction began in 1953,
completed in 1956, head of the project J. Krachmarov, sculptors A. Atanasov, A. Atanasova –
Milkova, V. Tzvetkov, L. Petrov. Architects – E. Zidarov, M. Milkov. (Fig.3)

The MoFnigu3m. eTnhet Mofouthned oSfoBvrioettheArhromoyd iinnSSofoiafia, competition was announced in 1950, completed in 1953.
Head of the project Andrei Nikolov and D. Mitov, sculptors I. Funev, I. Lazarov, V. Emanuiova, M.

The Monument of the SovieGt eAorrmgieyvian, LS.oDfiaalc,hceovm, Pp.eDtiotjicohninwova,sP.aZnindoauronvc,eBd. Ainng1e9lo5u0c,hceov;maprclheitteedctsinI.1V9a5s3il.jov, I. Neikov,
Head of the project Andrei KN.iKkaopliotavnoavn.d(FDig.. M4) itov, sculptors I. Funev, I. Lazarov, V. Emanuiova, M.
Georgieva, L. Dalchev, P. Dojchinov, P. Zidarov, B. Angelouchev; architects I. Vasiljov, I. Neikov,
K. Kapitanov. (Fig. 4)

The Monument of the Soviet Army in Sofia, competition was announced in 1950, completed in 1953.
Head of the project Andrei Nikolov and D. Mitov, sculptors I. Funev, I. Lazarov, V. Emanuiova, M.
Georgieva, L. Dalchev, P. Dojchinov, P. Zidarov, B. Angelouchev; architects I. Vasiljov, I. Neikov,
K. Kapitanov. (Fig. 4)

Fig 4. The Monument of the Soviet Army in Sofia,(detail)

The Monument of the Soviet Soldier in Plovdiv, popularly called “Aljocha”, competition was
announced in 1952, completed the same year. Head of the project V. Radoslavov, sculptors A.
Zankov, A. Kozev, J. Topalov, architects B. Markov, I. Zvetanov, N. Marangozov. (Fig.5)
Fig 4. The Monument of the Soviet Army in Sofia,(detail)

The Monument of the Soviet Soldier in Plovdiv, popularly called “Aljocha”, competition was
announced in 1952, completed the same year. Head of the project V. Radoslavov, sculptors A.
Zankov, A. Kozev, J. Topalov, architects B. Markov, I. Zvetanov, N. Marangozov. (Fig.5)

Fig 4. The Monument of the Soviet Army in Sofia,(detail)

The Monument of the Soviet Soldier in Plovdiv, popularly called “Aljocha”, competition was
announced in 1952, completed the same year. Head of the project V. Radoslavov, sculptors A.
Zankov, A. Kozev, J. Topalov, architects B. Markov, I. Zvetanov, N. Marangozov. (Fig.5)

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Evelina Kelbecheva Evelina Kelbecheva

Fig 5. The Monument of the Soviet Army Soldier, popularly known as “Alyosha”, built in the 1950’s, Plovdiv. a)The
inscription reads: “Glory to the Invincible Soviet Army-Liberator”, b) “Wrapping” during the Night of the Museums,
October, 2013

The Mound of Brotherhood in Plovdiv, completed in 1970. Llubomir Dalchev. (Fig.6)

Fig 6. The Mound of Brotherhood in Plovdiv

• Socialist Nationalism Period:
Monument 1300 Years Bulgaria in Sofia, no competition announced, completed in 1981, sculptor V.
Starchev, architects A. Agoura, V. Romenski, A.Barov, A. Brajnov. Now falling apart. (Fig. 7)

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