Alexandra Fiada - Xenophobe’s Guide to the Greeks

It is not that the Greeks do not acknowledge their shortcomings; it is rather that they do not recognise any outsider having the right to point them out.

The Greeks are the personification of contradiction and nowhere is this more pronounced than in their view of themselves. A Greek, speaking to other Greeks about the Greeks, more often than not will be outspokenly critical, even downright rude about how fellow Greeks conduct themselves in any given situation. His pronouncements will be received by his cronies with much head-nodding, appropriate expletives of acquiescence and, further, with even more disparaging remarks. But woe betide the hapless foreigner who takes any line other than that of the classicist Rex Warner: If you cannot love the Greeks you cannot love anything. The same Greeks, who a minute ago were so disparaging of themselves, will turn on him like a tigress defending her cub and, while extolling Greek virtues, accuse him of all the sins of omission or commission his country has committed against Greece since the dawn of civilization and beyond.

It is not that the Greeks do not acknowledge their shortcomings; it is rather that they do not recognise any outsider as having the right to point them out. When we were building the Parthenon, they might well declare, you were painting yourselves blue.

Modern Greeks pat themselves on the back because, although they fall short of what their ancestors achieved, they managed to come through a 400-year Turkish occupation (one of the cruellest in history) with their identity, their religion, their customs and their language virtually intact.

They carry a burden of resentment towards the West. Its a state of mind continually fanned by what the Western world has achieved through the exploitation of Greek heritage.

However, this occupation prevented them from enjoying the benefits of the Renaissance (for which they provided the means) and precluded their taking part in the Age of Exploration, the Enlightenment, and the Social and Industrial Revolutions. When they threw off the Turkish yoke in 1827 they found themselves not only living in a country that had lost more than three quarters of its former territory, but pitched headlong into the industrial age without the know-how or cash to cope with it. They have been trying to catch up with the West ever since.

The transition was traumatic for Greek psyche. They feel a sense of inadequacy compared with ancient and Byzantine Greeks because they have failed to recreate the Great Greece of their forefathers, and they carry a burden of resentment towards the West. Its a state of mind continually fanned by what the Western world has achieved through the exploitation of Greek heritage, which makes the Greeks feel as if they have been robbed of it. The result is a bizarre inferiority-cum-superiority complex vis--vis the West. We gave them the light of knowledge and we have been left with the light from cheap tallow candles is one of their favourite sayings.

Until recently, slang dictionaries defined a Greek as a gambler; a card-sharp; a cheat; a highwayman.

On the other hand, nothing shakes their fundamental belief that they are the most intelligent and the most ingenious people on earth, and also the most brave.

So when in Greece, avoid looking down your nose at anything Greek because it will get you nowhere. The Greeks have famously long noses to look down.