Greece of the Greek Christians (?)

On December 30th I am to receive guests from abroad. Two really good friends of mine are planning to visit me in Athens for New Year's eve and spend a week or so in the "cradle of civilisation" before heading back to Spain. While in Greece, they will have the chance to "live their myth" as the Greek Tourism Organisation's slogan will undoubtedly urge them to. This includes the Acropolis, museums and ruins, greek hospitality, great food and walks around the center of an -otherwise- ugly-ish city.

For us Greeks that live here however, the ones that have chosen to come back and make a living and the ones that will carry on living here after my friends are gone the "myth" is somehow more complicated. That is because we'll have to keep living in a country where 60% of the population describes himself as conservative and where people have a better opinion about "neoliberalism" than the "left".

The Greek "myth", in the form of the Greeks' ideological Atlas was published in yesterday's Kathimerini and can be found here for the Greek readers who care reading it. The non-Greeks should not feel bad about it, for various reasons. One one hand it's true that they are not in the position of reading Euripides or Plato from the prototype but on the other they don't have to live in a country where more than half of the people would like their religion to be declared on their official documentation. Where 65% still consider "marijuana is bad" but somehow manage to smoke in every single restaurant, bar AND hospital. Where every parent is trying to get his dear son out of the army but where an outstanding 66% is in favour of keeping the military service compulsory. Trully, my friends cannot appreciate Aeschylus or Thucidides but neither do the Greeks, who read on average 1.1 books per year, and who are so fond of "knowledge" that 7 out of every 10 demand that the teaching of religion (the ONE religion) in schools be kept mandatory.

Yes, my friends are more than welcome to live their myth in Greece. A country of warm, smiling people, who prosper under an eternal sun. What the Greek Tourism Organization forgot to mention in the ad is that 60% of these warm, smiling Greeks does not agree that the rights of the ones charged (which means NOT convicted yet) with terrorism are to be respected. I just thought I should warn them.