The Greek Justice (?)

Books questioning the Shoah or downright racist are free to circulate and enjoy a high popularity even in mainstream bookshops. This includes books that are proven literary forgeries like the infamous “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion” that do not only circulate freely but are fiercely defended by the totality of the greek publishers and society.

So when well known nazi-admirer and TV figure Mr.Plevris published a book called “Jews, the whole truth” where he openly expressed his admiration for Hitler there was no shock. But what really distinguished him was not only his questioning of the Shoah but his open support for the extermination of the jews which, as far as he was concerned, it should have been more effective. Or else to put it in his own words:
“unfortunately the Nazis chose to move the Jews away from Europe, when in my opinion, they should have killed them, because this is the behavior towards those who desire world domination.”

P. 742: ‘That’s what Jews want. It’s the only thing they understand: an execution squad within 24 hours’
P. 269: ‘Every Greek, every person who is aware of the subversion carried out by Jewish Zionism, should act on his own as an individual and mobilize himself against Jews. Initially he needs to do the following:…
…Wherever intervention by Jews is noted he should foil it by denouncing it and then take whatever action is necessary.
P. 778: ‘The only way Jews can find salvation is for them to stop dreaming of ruling the world… Otherwise their annihilation will be complete and for all. At most a few thousand will remain and they will snip their little willies and wait for their Jehovah’.
P. 852: ‘Hitler was blamed for something that did not actually take place. Later the history of humanity will blame him for not ridding Europe of the Jews, though he could have… My dear Jews, I do not ask you to suffer all the things that your holy books tell you that we should suffer from you… You are criminals because that is what your religion has taught you to be. You are murderers because crime is instilled in you from an early age. Therefore we others have the right to deal with you. And that is what we will do’.

Phrases like this forced a group of greek christians and greek jews to file a complaint against him for advocating racist violence. A law suit which was accepted as legitimate by an Athens Appeals Judicial Council because “The appellant’s argument that his writings are an expression of opinion is unfounded because in fact he is inciting the readership, especially the Greek one, to mobilize against Jews (that is to hate, discriminate against, or use violence against them), whom the appellant characterizes indiscriminately as subhuman, deserving extinction, enemies of the Greek people and of Europe in general, praising at the same time the Nazis and SS’s criminal actions against the Jews.”

One thing that Greek Jewry and the Human Rights Organizations did not certainly expect was how the trial turned into a true farce. A court openly anti-jewish which was not only sympathetic to the defendant but downright hostile towards the witnesses for the prosecution. A court which rejected all greek jewish witnesses as not having legal interest in the case, as if it concerned some uncertain entity and not people in blood and flesh! A court who’s Prosecutor was so favorable to Plevris that he arrived to declare as “scientific work” his book! Even when this scandal came to light through a newspaper article, a complete silence roared deafeningly since no political party, public figure or academic rose to protest agaist the state of the Greek Justice.

What follows is the english translation of the bulletin by the Greek Helsinki Monitor, a greek NGO for human rights, which was actively involved in the law suit. Among else it includes selected excerpts from the trial which document the prejudice of the judges who arrived to defend themselves the defendant instead of letting his lawyers!

Link to the AntiNazi Initiative which covers broadly the trial: http://www.antinazi.gr/ (english and greek)

Link to Greek Helsinki Monitor: http://cm.greekhelsinki.gr/

In particular: Greece: Trial of Kostas Plevris and “Eleftheros Kosmos” for anti-Semitism on 5 September
Greece: On an anti-Jewish trial in Athens (commemoration of Kristallnacht) (english)

Also in greek one can read more extensive reports by GHM:

Δίκη Πλεύρη – Ελεύθερου Κόσμου για αντισημιτισμό στις 5-9 – Εκπρόσωπος ΛΑΟΣ στηρίζει Πλεύρη
Ενημέρωση και ανασκευή ανακριβειών για δίκη Πλεύρη – «Ελεύθερου Κόσμου» για αντισημιτισμό στις 5-9
Τρεις δίκες ακροδεξιού «Ελεύθερου Κόσμου» για αντισημιτικά και αντι-τσιγγάνικα κείμενα
Ψέματα Άδωνι Γεωργιάδη για βιβλίο Κώστα Πλεύρη και αντισημιτισμό
69η Ημέρα Μνήμης της «Νύχτας Κρυστάλλων» και αντιεβραϊκή δίκη στην Αθήνα

Link to DeviousDiva who hosted an article on the International Day Against Fascism and Anti-Semitism and also hosts the bulletin by the GHM: http://deviousdiva.com/2007/11/09/remember

Link to touki8eblom’s blog’s who at the bottom of the page has a cartoon which depicts my view perfectly: http://tuki8eblom.blogspot.com

It is noteworthy, though it hardly appears surprising, the fact that the populist, antisemitic party of LAOS appeared closely linked to this book. LAOS deputy Adonis Georgiadis openly praised the book in various TV shows while the son of Plevris was also elected as a deputy for the LAOS party, though later LAOS tried to disassociate itself from the “dangerous” Plevris. For the record the team of liberal journalists of IOS Press have dealt extensively with both Plevris book and it’s links to LAOS; for more info try clicking (in greek):

Ο Αδωνις Γεωργιάδης και το βιβλίο του Πλεύρη
Το κρυφτούλι του κ. Καρατζαφέρη
Ο ΛΑΟΣ και ο ναζισμός του κ. Πλεύρη

UPDATE: Link to Jungle-Report, a greek-language blog posting about this: http://jungle-report.blogspot.com/2007/11/blog-post_09.html

More…

Bigotry in Greece and World, a survey

In Jaywalker’s blog I happened to run on a post he did on a university study on bigotry; the post was so interesting that I decided to steal his find and post about it also here – no hard feelings I hope. :)

Vani K Borooah from the University of Ulster and John Mangan from the University of Queensland were the key authors in this rather interesting study. The study included 23 countries from the so called Western World; practically Europe, USA, Canada, New Zealand and Australia. The key question was:

“Would you like to have a person from this group as your neighbour?”

The 5 groups were: of a different race, muslims, jews, immigrants or foreign workers and homosexuals. The study didn’t only concentrate on this question but went on to analyse how bigotry was distributed between groups, how it related to the country in question, to political beliefs, unhapiness and other indices.

The results were unsettling both for the Western World and Greece. Copying the findings of the study:

The highest proportion of bigoted persons (bigotry count ratio) was in Northern Ireland and Greece – where, respectively, 44 and 43 percent of respondents did not want persons from at least one of the five groups as their neighbours – and the lowest proportion of bigoted persons was in Sweden (13 percent), Iceland (18 percent), Canada (22 percent), and Denmark (22 percent).

The value of the bigotry gap ratio – the mean, percentage amount by which the bigotry scores of all the persons was above the bigotry line (z=1) – was also highest for Greece (51 percent) and Northern Ireland (50 percent): not only did these countries have a high proportion of bigoted persons, bigots in these countries were, on average, more bigoted than in countries.

Greece scored second worse for people from a different race, universally worse for muslims, second worse for jews (with Spain being surprisingly first), 4th worse for immigrants and 4th worse for homosexuals. The troubling fact was that, while countries usually had some groups that they disliked in particular, Greece scored high in bigotry in all 5 groups; practicaly sharing a first place with Northern Ireland if we take into account all indices. Practically almost 1 out of 2 people in Greece would not like as a neighbour, at least, one of the aforementioned groups, (43.2% to be exact). Also the greek population of bigots is the most bigotted one on the whole western world.

Even after controlling for personal characteristics, the likelihood of a person being bigoted depended on the country in which he/she lived. With Northern Ireland as the residual country, and after controlling for personal characteristics, persons who lived in Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Iceland, Luxembourg, The Netherlands, Sweden, and the USA were less likely to be bigoted (and strongly bigoted) – and persons who lived in Greece were more likely to be bigoted (and strongly bigoted) – than those living in Northern Ireland. The country effect for the other countries was not significantly different from zero.

What I didn’t expect for Greece was such a high degree of homophobia, equally high with the very catholic Italy and Ireland. I didn’t also expect such a high percentage for muslims but I imagine that the equation muslim=turk still works against muslim acceptance. At least immigrants were the most accepted from all groups, though still the rate of rejection was extremely high. As far as jews are concerned there weren’t any surprises with Greece being twice as judeophobic, as the media of the Western World. Interestingly enough, this was also the group were Greece differed more from the western media, scoring 97% more.

To tell the truth I feel that real percentages must be higher. The question was fairly straight-forward and at least some people must have dodged answering in a negative way against some groups, as not to appear racist. I doubt that this is the case in Greece as people still do not actually think that racist behaviors are socially unacceptable – I’m trying this moment to back this sensation with some tangible data.

Anyway still quite disturbing and as far as jewish presence is concerned verifies what we’ve been saying insofar. I’m even more troubled if I think that the paper didn’t included Roma; I tremble when I think what the percentages would be in that case. :(

Again thanks to Jaywalker for finding about this interesting survey.

Burning jews, niggers and gipsies

Wishing to keep the holiday spirit rolling, I thought that it would be interesting hearing about this. Easter in the christian orthodox tradition has always a far greater weight than Christmas and it’s celebrations are always solemn in churches and joyous in the countryside.

One of the characteristic celebrations is the “Burning of Judas” which is also presented as the “Burning of the Jew” and at least in one place as the “Burning of the Nigger”. In the last days of Easter a stuffed doll in humanlike dimensions is being prepared, stuffed with inflammable material and often with fireworks. It is hanged, in some places shot upon and ultimately burned. All this is accompanied by insults, curses but also great joy from the children. In the past it was also a chance for an occasional outburst of the population as various ethnographic and literary sources tell us; the mob set fire to a house or two in the local jewish neighbourhood but usually it was reduced to stone throwing – almost never human casualties were noted but an occasional beating of a jew found nearby, wasn’t completely rare. Of course all these happened where jewish communities were present; lacking jews the “Burning of the Jew/Judas” took a more folkloristic turn with absolutely no physical violence involved and this is the form we find it today.

For details on how it is done and photos one can visit the Akanthou in Cyprus page, a page from Crete containing also anti-jewish carols, pages from Hydra and again from Crete. In the same page one can read the carols that small children sang in Volos cursing jews.

A source from the end of the 19^th century tells us about the Burning of the Jew in a village in the greek Asia Minor:

It remains alive in my memory this custom from home, the burning of the jew.. [...] I waited with anxiety this day. [...] We thought and felt some kind of delight because we were taking revenge [...] Friday night before Easter we would light up the fire and then throw the jew and he would be set ablaze and all the kids would yell like victors after a triumph with something wild together. [...] The fire would become enormous, the flames would reach high and light ,the beach and the boats in see would see from far away the flames and would know than in Petroumi the christians burn the jew. That day jews would hide in their homes and didn’t dare set foot outside. They kept the children inside and didn’t even go to their shops. The children had such a fury, such hatred that searched a jew to burn him alive”.

Centre of Asia Minor studies, Oral Tradition Archive, Karia

This kind of physical violence, which disrupted the public order and the fact that this custom has pagan roots led the Holy Synod of the Greek Orthodox Church to condemn it unequivocally in encyclicals in 1891, 1910 and 1918. In these official papers it is condemned and repeated that this tradition: “…incites religious hatred and fosters fanatism.”; also it repeated that: “the observance of these traditions is going against the basis and foundations of our faith”. Although these encyclicals were never revoked, modern religious leaders have failed to repeat these concepts and even attended such events, indirectly approving them. On the other hand, persons like the spokesperson of the Holy Synod have recalled them in a recent article and claimed that they remain valid examples of the good nature of the Greek Church. Other local religious leaders like the former Metropolite of Alexandroupolis Anthimos, (who isn’t characterised by feelings of love towards greek jews), have issued similar encyclicals as recently as 2005. In his, independently of his other racist declarations, excellent circular he asks the communities of Chilis and Amphitritis: “Does the burning of Judas, which is wrongfully maintained in your communities, have anything to do with the Resurrected Jesus Christ which we will celebrate in a few days? [...] For this I ask you and I urge you and I beseech these two communities of Chilis and Amphitritis to stop this unhistorical, uncivilised and unchristian custom. [...] The Holy Synod of Greece has condemned with encyclicals in 1891, 1910 and in 1918 this atrocious custom.”

Of course later he also states why, in my humble opinion, really gets him mad:
“It is an insult to the holy Epitaph since it includes the immaculate body of the God of love, to forsake it during the procession and stay back to set fire to Judas! ” (exclamation marks follow faithfully the ones in the original).

The antisemitic character of this custom was obvious also to the Catholic Church which in the mixed orthodox-catholic island of Syros forced it’s abolition. We read: “this custom generated anti-Semitic feelings among the Catholics and was therefore abolished by Jesuit monks, despite public reactions”.

It isn’t only opinion of the Greek Orthodox Church that this is a custom that promotes hatred, but also of the scientific community. Professor of Modern Greek Language at the University of Thessaloniki F.Abatzopoulou, concurs that the “Burning of Judas” is the “most familiar and widespread manifestation of traditional anti-Semitism in Greece.” Korombokis and Kotinis also state that in Thessaloniki the custom was linked with traditional hatred towards jews based on religious grounds.

A special reference should also be made in the case of Dalmedico Abba who was the delegate of the jewish community in the ottoman held Chania in Crete. Member of the local Assembly in 1875 he proposed and apparently managed to approve the abolition of the “Burning of Judas” though there are doubts if eventually this decision was implemented. In any case it serves as an example of jewish opposition to the custom and it’s obvious antisemitic character through time.

So, in theory we have a situation where the Greek Church, despite local support to this custom, has officially taken a strong stance against it, the scientific community which also talks against it, the local Jewish Community which has protested against it, we are aware of the antisemitic feeling that creates since it’s well documented in literature and folklore and also Human Rights groups like the Greek Helsinki Monitor, each year protest against it. So where is the problem? The problem is that it still continues today since nobody actually wants to actively move against it. Even worse, it gets promoted officially by the Greek State through it’s National Tourism Organization. In it’s site there are several references, (here, here and here) when describing easter customs in various parts of Greece, showing it’s a widespread phenomenon. Unfortunately even some members of the Greek Church chose intentionally to ignore what the same Church has admitted; an example is the Metropolite of the greek island of Hydra. In 2005 the Central Jewish Board sent a letter to the Metropolite asking him to pronounce on this custom on the island of Hydra. Instead the office of the mayor responded, (!), that this custom was “connected with the greek War of Independence” without of course explaining how these two things are connected. The Central Board was not satisfied with this explanation and responded to the mayor; as far as I know it was also repeated this year.

To an extent it is possible to say that how, greek institutions and greek society, deal with this matter it is indicative of how the phenomenon of anti-Semitism and hate speech are treated in Greece. Although it is clear that the phenomenon is linked with antisemitic manifestations, although official sources like the Church of Greece have condemned it, although nobody denies that even today there are racist outbursts during the burning, although there are numerous documented incidents, it is still regarded as a matter of foreign interference! How is this? Even among known members of the greek blogosphere or among the known neo-Nazi groups like Crissi Avgi and LAOS the whole matter only appears when the State Department accuses Greece of anti-Semitism and lists the “Burning of Judas­/Jew” as one of it’s manifestations. The protests of the greek jewish community simply don’t register! Nobody gives a damn about them; only when the americans make a generic statement, which even they don’t really pay attention, the greek society decides to talk about it! And I think it’s indicative the fact that the government member that is called to comment is the vice-minister of Defence as if we were talking about a foreign state and not about insults to greek citizens!

Anyway to complete the picture we need to state that the “guest of honour” during the easter celebrations isn’t only played by jews. In a twisted deviation of the custom in the village of Gastouni the jew is substituted by a black man and the whole ceremony is called literally “The Burning of the Nigger”. In other pages we also learn that the Roma are accused of forging the nails that were used to crucify Jesus, (no one remembers that there were no Roma in Palestine for centuries so it was physically impossible for them to do it). The oral tradition goes that this is the reason which do not settle in any land, a punishment for their presumed involvement.

I’d like to end this small post with a small discovery I made. One of the sites which lists all of the traditional customs for Easter and relative songs, that are often an open incitation against jews and roma, is this one. To my great surprise I found out that it is the site of the Regional Directorship of the Primary Education in Thessaly, (the organization that coordinates elementary schools in the greek region of Thessaly). The page is listed as a page which includes recommended material for Easter celebrations inside the schools. It contains things that are already known but it is simply amazing and disgusting that they are officially proposed to be taught at small children! Some of the things that the greek educational system considers that need to be taught in all schools, re-enacted in schools plays and be sang by children from 6 to 12 years old, include the following:

1)Of course the Burning of Judas/Jew with relative details.

2)The Easter carols which says:

“Σήμερον μαύρος ουρανός, σήμερον μαύρη μέρα, “Today black sky, today black day
σήμερα κόσμος θλίβουνται και τα βουνά λυπούνται, today the people grieve and mountains grieve
σήμερα βάλανε βουλή οι άνομοι Εβραίοι, today the wicked Jews decided
οι άνομοι και τα σκυλιά κ‘ οι τρισκαταραμένοι, the wicked dogs and the threefold cursed
για να σταυρώσουν το Χριστό, τον πάντων βασιλέα to crucify Christ, the king of all

3)The carols that accompany the Burning of Judas/Jew; they testify how these two figures are interchangeable to the public opinion, (the poem is in rimes so difficult to translate):

“Ράτσα, κεράτσα lady, milady
δώσ‘ μια κληματσίδα give me some vine wood
να κάψουμε τον Οβριγιό to burn the Jew
πόχει πολλή κασσίδα, that has a lot of filth
Οβριγιός φορεί φτερό the Jew wears a feather
στο κεφάλι τ‘ το ξερό…” on his mulish head…

4) In Easter, jars are broken “to the joy of Christ and ridicule of the Jews”.

5) Among the traditional customs it mentions that on Good Friday “no craftsman touched a nail because the gipsy nailed with nails Christ”.

It is completely unacceptable that small children learn how and why to hate Jews and Roma. It is simply appalling that these traditions are passed upon small children in the form of songs and there isn’t even recommended that the hatred towards jews should be minimized. It is simply frustrating and disappointing to see that the hatred towards jews, even at the form of traditions which are by the admission of the Church antisemitic, is passed from the elders to the younger with the blessing of the Greek State and the educational system which fails miserably even to understand that what it does is contrary to it’s mission or even to common decency. Maybe this is an exception? Evidently not since the Parents and Guardians Association of the 3^rd Elementary school of Alimos has a site containing the same carols.

I’d like to expressly state that in no way I think that people who participate are raging racists who yearn to burn jews and since they can’t, they limit themselves to dolls. I’m sure that most of them consciously do not understand that what they do is wrong. The problem here is that the Greek State and generally people like the mayor of Hydra do know the racist nature of it, but still they choose not to act against it. This isn’t simply a case of jews being oversensitive; it is the Greek Church herself who has condemned it as an act against the christian faith and modern religious leaders describe it as atrocious.

Each time I think of anti-Semitism in Greece I think that the situation is hopeless. Not because the situation is so desperately violent, (even though each year that passes it becomes significantly worse), but because nobody seems to care. The same institutions that are supposed to work towards diminishing the hatred, are the ones who work actively to propagate it! When in school the textbooks often have antisemitic references or completely ignore jews and the Holocaust, when school actively perpetuates racist traditions and songs, when the school teachers are often completely ignorant on racism issues, when the system fails to pursue a policy of integration and often schools end up as the privileged place of nationalistic actions, how can we ever hope in a change? A quote says that “A pessimist is only a well informed optimist” – I think it fits perfectly in this case.

(Belated) Happy Easter to all…

PS. The greek Helsinki Monitor, a human rights group, recently protested on the Burning of Judas. Some facts which I state here derived from that report and I’d like to thank them – read about it here -> http://deviousdiva.com/2007/04/13/burning-judas/

Martin Luther King

Recently a comment by Donna reminded me of a famous speech which was attributed to Martin Luther King . In that speech Dr.King allegedly attacks anti-zionists as being in fact anti-semites. I searched a bit to see if it’s true and I’ve found that: “The idea accurately portrays the opinion of Dr. King, but the speech as quoted is a forgery” as BoycottWatch refers.

This is what Dr.King actually said and what has been confirmed as authentic:

King was, however, quoted by Dr. Seymour Martin Lipset, who is currently the Hazel Professor of Public Policy of George Mason University and a professor at the Hoover Institution of Stanford University. The noted sociologist and political analyst wrote the article “The Socialism of Fools: The Left, the Jews and Israel” which was published in the December, 1969 (page 24) edition of Encounter magazine, and was reprinted in other publications.

The article states: “Shortly before he was assassinated, Martin Luther King, Jr., was in Boston on a fund-raising mission, and I had the good fortune to attend a dinner which was given for him in Cambridge…One of the young men present happened to make some remark against the Zionists. Dr. King snapped at him and said, “Don’t talk like that! When people criticize Zionists, they mean Jews. You’re talking anti-Semitism!”

 

I’m not here to debate on whether in fact anti-zionism is another name for antisemitism, or it is simply used to avoid legitimate political criticism to Israel. Although I have to remind that the term “antisemite” was invented in the late 19th century when “antijew” or “jew hater” became politically undesirable terms and one wished to cloak his hate under more scientific terms. Anyway I just wanted to give the opinion of one who definitely can’t be accused of being controlled by the almighty World Domination jewish lobby! :D

Love photos

Panayote Dimitra’s from the most excellent Greek Helsinki Monitor, (link to be found under Misc on your right), sent me some photos on racism in Greece which carried so much love inside them so I thought it was a waste not to share them! :D

He also posted them as a reply in a post of mine dealing with my first encounter with racism, kindly published by DeviousDiva – check this one out, too.

Death to jews!

The only good Turk is a dead Turk

And this a hiphop song that circulates in schools and is promoted by the xenofobic party LAOS. It contains anti-albanian, anti-pakistani, anti-immigrant and generally anti- stuff. I’m gonna post the english translation that Craig supplied, he’s an english teacher in Greece and confirmed that many kids are familiar with this song. :(

“Good morning Greece
F**k Albania.
We gave them food
and a Greek education
All the Albanian kids take up school places
and the Greek kids can’t get into college
They shouldn’t stay

Theodorakis on the Old Testament

Mikis Theodorakis, the famous greek composer, emblematic figure of the greek Left and resistance fighter during the 7yr military regime did it again. The other day during a ceremony for the presentation of a new work he began a phillipic against those who dare to talk against the Archibissop of Greece, Christodoulos. “In Greece we have two institutions, he said, the President of the Democracy and the head of the Greek Church, whoever dares to talk about them should rinse his mouth first!” I remind that Christodoulos is accused of being racist, politically oriented and supporter of far right groups.

But then he went on to his favorite target, the jews wanting to rule the world. He suggested that: the Old Testament should be removed from the schools because it is written than Israel shall overpower and exterminate his enemies. We can’t say these things today. Look at what is happening in the Middle East with the help of Bush and the help of Rice.

Theodorakis in the past had described jews as being “the root of evil” and controlling the world’s economy, banks and mass media. He had also said that they control the world music industry plus the usual stuff about jews having a superiority complex and wanting to control the world. I repeat these things just for the casual reader who might thing that the guy wanted to be politically correct. He again made his favorite mess of jews, Israel, religion and antiamericanism while never ever showing any awareness of how deeply insulting his words are.

Typical of the greek paradox nobody rose to challenge these new views of Theodorakis. There was only a moderate criticism on the fact that he decided to support the Archibissop which has risen into a protagonist of the greek political life in a negative manner. Even more when the Archibissop is accused of supporting the dictatorship during and aftwerwards, while at the same time Theodorakis was exiled because of the regime!

Because of the objective value of his work and his anti-dictatorship fight Theodorakis is venerated in Greece; he was even the greek candidate for the Nobel prize for Peace. I can understand that and I feel he might have been worthy of it in the past. But for the past years he has made one huge mistake after the other and now I can’t find a reason why he shouldn’t even join the xenophobic LAOS party, (he has shown that he doesn’t have problem with changing parties in the past).

Thanks to Panayote Dimitras for pointing to the actual newspaper article which I am attaching here -> original article in greek.

How I learned what malakas means

I’m grateful to DeviousDiva for publishing another small story of mine even though some words were a bit not nice. ;)

Again thanks and if you want to read it visit -> http://deviousdiva.com/2007/03/27/guest-blogger-3

UPDATE,13th of April. Posting also here the complete article:

Malakas (Greek: nom. μαλάκας, voc. and acc. μαλάκα, μαλακισμένε, fem. μαλάκω, μαλακισμένη) is a slang word, whose literal translation is wanker but the register of the term varies widely between its America/British English usage and its Greek usage. A more appropriate rendering covers a much broader spectrum of applications, including both English equivalents of asshole or jerk or dick or son of a bitch, and the contrasting friend or pal or dude, depending on the context.

I grew up in a rather poor part of my city which still maintained the populist image of the neighborhood/γειτονιά typical of the Greek cities in the past decades. It was a time where parents were a bit less anxious and maybe a bit more naïve and let their kids roam about freely and play in the open spaces that still existed, (the Greek term is not translatable but certainly will invoke memories for the Greek readers: αλάνες).

Each day my best friend N. would come by my house and yell my name for me to come down.

US State Department’s Report on Human Rights Practices

As every year the US State Department issued it’s “Report on Human Rights Practices”. Surely it’s gonna create malcontent in Greece since it isn’t all flowers and roses and will be perceived as US intervention in private affairs but still I think it’s a good initiative; hope the greek/EU protests on Guantanamo will create the same clamor. :P Here’s the excerpts dealing with the greek jewish community:

The law provides for freedom of religion; however, non‑Orthodox groups at times faced administrative obstacles or legal restrictions on religious practices.

The law establishes the Eastern Orthodox Church of Christ (Greek Orthodoxy) as the “prevailing” religion. The Greek Orthodox Church continued to exercise significant political and economic influence. The government financially supported the Greek Orthodox Church and also paid the salaries and some expenses of the two official Muslim religious leaders in Thrace. Jewish leaders requested that the government pay rabbis’ salaries, given its practice of paying Orthodox priests’ and Muslim muftis’ salaries; the government had not responded to this request by year’s end.

The government, by virtue of the status of the Greek Orthodox Church as the prevailing religion, recognizes de facto its canon law. Privileges and legal prerogatives granted to the Orthodox Church are not extended routinely to other recognized religions. Orthodox Church officials refused to enter into dialogue with religious groups that they considered harmful to Orthodox worshippers, and they instructed their members to shun followers of these faiths.

Non-Orthodox citizens claimed that they faced career limits in the military, police, fire‑fighting forces, and civil service due to their religion.

Legislation providing for religious worker visas was passed in 2005, remedying the difficulty reported in the past by some religious denominations in renewing the visas of non-EU citizen religious officials.

Religious instruction is mandatory for all Greek Orthodox students in primary and secondary schools, but not for non‑Orthodox students. Some government-approved religious textbooks made derogatory statements about non-Greek Orthodox faiths. Since schools did not supervise non-Orthodox children while Greek Orthodox children were taking religious instruction, non-Orthodox parents complained that they were effectively forced to have their children attend Greek Orthodox classes.

The Jewish community has approximately 5,000 members. Anti-Semitism continued to exist, particularly in the extremist press. The mainstream press and public often did not clearly distinguish between criticism of Israel and comments about Jews. In 2004 the European Commission against Racism and Intolerance, the Wiesenthal Center, the Anti-Defamation League, and GHM criticized the press for carrying anti-Semitic stories and cartoons on several occasions. For example, on August 16, Eleftherotypia, the second largest daily newspaper, published a cartoon depicting an Israeli soldier praying with a rifle that was firing swastikas. Candidates for the political party LAOS, the fifth largest party, have made anti-Semitic statements during the campaign for municipal offices in the Fall. The party’s weekly paper A1 published strongly anti-Semitic articles accusing the Israelis of genocide against the Lebanese people. A July editorial stated that if “the Jews continue this way, they will beat Hitler’s number of victims.” Anti-Semitic references as well as comparisons with the Holocaust were common in the press during the July-August conflict involving Israel and Lebanon, while some major media promoted the image of Israel as the “Nazi-state.” On the other hand, Hezbollah fighters were often seen as “freedom fighters” and “resistance groups.”

Vandalism of Jewish monuments decreased, although the Holocaust monument in Thessaloniki was vandalized during an antiwar demonstration in August; the government condemned the vandalism. As of December, police had not found the perpetrators of the 2004 desecration of Holocaust memorials in Komotini in Thrace. Several times throughout the year extreme right-wing groups painted anti-Semitic graffiti along with their symbols and organization names at multiple locations, including the busy Athens‑Corinth and Athens-Tripoli highways, and other public structures. In February the prosecutor filed a lawsuit against “Golden Dawn” for defacing public property and painting anti-Semitic graffiti during the course of the last several years.

In April the Central Board of the Jewish Communities of Greece continued to protest the Easter tradition of burning a life-size effigy of Judas, sometimes referred to as the “burning of the Jew,” which they maintained propagated hatred and fanaticism against Jews. One Greek Orthodox bishop, a local NGO, and the Wiesenthal Center expressed formal written objections to this tradition. The Jewish Community also protested anti-Semitic passages in the Holy Week liturgy and it reported that it maintained a dialogue with the Orthodox Church about the removal of these passages.

Some schoolbooks carried negative references to Roman Catholics, Jewish persons, members of Jehovah’s Witnesses, and others.

Negotiations continued between the Jewish community of Thessaloniki and the government to find acceptable restitution for the community’s cemetery, expropriated after its destruction during the Holocaust. Aristotle University, a public institution, was built on top of the expropriated cemetery.

Jewish community leaders condemned anti-Semitic broadcasts on small private television stations, but authorities did not bring charges against these largely unlicensed operators.

The government co-sponsored commemorative events in Athens and Thessaloniki in January for Holocaust Remembrance Day. This was followed two weeks later by the visit of Israel’s President Moshe Katsav, the first official visit of an Israeli head of state. The Ministry of Education distributed materials to schools on the history of the Holocaust to be read in all schools on Holocaust Remembrance Day, and teacher-training seminars on the Holocaust were held.

Religious affiliation was very closely linked to ethnicity. Many attributed the preservation of national identity to the actions of the Greek Orthodox Church during approximately 400 years of Ottoman rule and the subsequent nation-building period. The Church exercised significant social, political, and economic influence, and it owned a considerable, although undetermined, amount of property.

Many Greeks assumed that any ethnic Greek was also an Orthodox Christian. Some non-Orthodox citizens complained of being treated with suspicion or told that they were not truly Greek when they revealed their religious affiliation.
In June 2006, an amendment to an existing law was accepted by Parliament abolishing the practice by which the ministry sought the opinion of the local Greek Orthodox bishop on whether to grant house of prayer permits for faiths other than Greek Orthodox. Non-Orthodox faiths had objected to this practice.

For more info and the full report including Roma, refugees, ethnic turk greeks and others issues visit here and here. For a more detailed talk on these matters visit DeviousDiva’s post where was also the first place I read about the review. :)

small edit just to claim the blog at sync.gr

How to insult a greek!

Greece isn’t characterized by a high sense of civil duty when it comes to respect of private or public property and graffiti, (and I don’t mean nice drawings like this but pointless slogans usually politically or sport oriented), is widespread. These slogans are great social indicators and often are excellent to use when analyzing social trends.

Teacher Dude’s Grill and BBQ blog had some interesting photos from Thessaloniki. The last one is especially colorful, was spotted near the stadium of PAOK, (a soccer/basketball team from Salonica) and is the one reproduced here. Out of respect for his students, I imagine, he didn’t translate it but I thought it was worthwhile:

“Jews Gay…” – “Jews cunts”

I thought it was interesting to see how in an effort to insult their opponents the fans use the classical insults from the racist/sexist repertoire. For a man, presuming that all supporters are male, an opponent is so low in the food chain that he can be compared only to women and homosexuals. While for women they use the derogative term “cunts” concentrating on what women are good for, (as their philosophy implies), we see that for homosexuals they simply write “gay” and not a worse term like “fagots” or something similar; maybe they feel just the word is enough to procure offense. And of course a standard adjective is the “jew” which is the carrier of a wide variety of negative values and always a sure way to denigrate an opponent.

Always the hooligan insults in Greece are characterized by an extreme actuality and the exact opposite of political correctness. It is interesting that once a friend asked me if, as a greek Jew myself, knew if indeed Jews had founded the team of Aris Saloniki. I answered that to the best of my knowledge that this was not true and I inquired on why he wanted to know. He replied that often other fans accused him that his team was founded by Jews and he wanted to verify it! Apparently the simple fact that possibly a jew could be involved in the founding of a team was a reason enough to be contaminated, a kind of original sin. It wasn’t important that Aris doesn’t have anything to do with jews, (neither players, nor managers, nor anything else in his history), it was enough that a jew might have “touched” him to contaminate him forever without any chance of redemption. By the way probably this is the reason of why jews get the dubious honour of getting mentioned twice on the same wall, they get identified with the arch-enemy of PAOK, the team of Aris. So they become target for two reasons: one because as jews they’re a just object of hate and also because they’re identified with the traditional opponents.

Although hate speech in Greece is proscribed by law, people aren’t really scandalized when seeing it and in the specific case of graffiti no action is ever taken. Even repeated and specific requests by human rights organizations to erase them have no effect like the numerous reports by the Greek Helsinki Watch show. Anyway to wrap this post up here’s an advice for our foreign readers: next time you’ll want to insult your greek friend go with the “jew”, it’s a no-brainer!