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Here is an article by Alexander Zaharopoulos, he describes how the Greek schooling system systematically lies to its pupils.
Source: http://b-info.com/places/Macedonia/r...3/94-03-28.mle
TM I took the liberty to post this great article here as well, I hope you do not mind.
GREECE A LAND OF HEROES - AND DISTORTIONS
The controversy over Macedonia owes much to the Greek mind
set, writes ALEXANDER ZAHAROPOULOS
("Sydney Morning Herald", Australia, Wednesday, March 23,
1994)
Although the Australian media have overwhelmingly supported
the embattled Macedonians, and although most Australians would
do so instinctively, it is unlikely that more than a handful
of people are able to fully comprehend the Greek position. It
is far from trivial to say that that is because they have not
experienced a Greek education.
In retrospect it is clear to me that my 12 years of Greek
schooling, mainly in the 70's, conspired to instil in me
precisely one attitude and almost unshakeable belief in the
purity and unity of the Greek people, language and culture (to
which three, I would add "orthodoxy" if my parents, who once
had to bribe a priest to allow my Anglican great-grandmother
to baptise my brother, had not thought the religion irrelevant
and in bad taste).
The attitude I am referring to was taught to us at school in
images. Each year, at the school parade to commemorate the
uprising against "the Turk", the story was wheeled out of the
Greek general who had killed so many infidels in a single day
that his sword had to be prised out of his locked hand. Our
textbooks exalted those Byzantine kings who had managed to
keep the Eastern riff-raff out of the empire. All epochs
contributed Great Cleansers to our list of heroes.
Belief in the continuity of Greece against all odds was
enabled also by a method of withholding information and
sealing off interpretative paths. We had, as children, neither
the capacity nor the inclination to explore disunities and
"impurities" in the history of the Greek people, language and
culture. The Pelloponesian War of antiquity was never more
than a family squabble. We could not have savoured the thought
that Sparta might have had more in common culturally with
Persia (with which it formed alliances) than with Athens. The
long history of the land in which we lived had been reduced
for us to the opposition of Greek and non-Greek.
One carried such views to maturity. Melina Mercouri (in 1981 I
worked as assistant to her senior adviser, Vassilis
Fotopoulos) used to tell me that the importance of the Elgin
marbles rests in the fact that they are the heart of a body of
Greek culture inherited from the ancient past. Until her
recent death she believed that modern Greece, as the sole
inheritor, had a duty to preserve the organic coherence of
that body. When the bishop of Florina (a town just south of
the Macedonian border) said that the very stones he stood on
testified to their Greekness, he was, sadly, echoing the
opening lines of a popular epic revered modern Greek poet
Giannis Ritsos.
It was not until I left Greece that I understood that our
education resulted only in intellectual arrogance and moral
poverty. I came to know of the strong African and Asiatic
influence that operated upon early Aegean culture. I
understand that Alexander spread eastward not Greek
civilisation but terror and misfortune. I learnt that Salonika
had a Jewish culture to rival Vienna's before local Greeks
collaborated in its extermination. I was ashamed to discover
that in the Greek provinces of Macedonian and Thrace live
communities who in this day and age are treated as outcasts
because Greek is not their first language. I was horrified to
realise that for decades they had resisted policies of forced
"hellenisation".
Away from the country I quickly learnt not to use the words
"gyfots" (gypsy), "vlachos" (Romanian) and "Arvanitis"
(Albanian) for the common swear-words that they are in today's
Greece. When the Greek Government used "Skoupa" ("broom" or
"broomsweap") as the code name for the massive drive to remove
destitute Albanians from Greece in 1993 I seriously considered
changing my surname.
Needless to say, it has not been my intention to suggest that
the stifling, chauvinistic education we received cannot be
overcome. Not that Greeks are presently incapable of
accommodating difference. When the grave of Karolos Kuhn, the
genius of the modern Greek theatre, was covered with anti-
Semitic slogans in 1992, the Athenian press was swift to
condemn the action. Yet even as Greeks are expunging old
racisms, in respect of the Macedonian issue there has been
precious little dissent from the official government line, and
none that I have heard of among Greek Australians.
One would like to believe that dissenters are keeping low out
of fear. The rest must realise that the conventional method of
perpetuating their identity as Greeks -- a method never of
their own choosing -- has no place in a modern, tolerant,
culturally diffuse world.
Note: Dr Alexander Zaharopoulos left Greece after completing
his secondary education, but returned frequently while
studying at University College, London. He settled in
Australia in 1992.
The controversy over Macedonia owes much to the Greek mind
set, writes ALEXANDER ZAHAROPOULOS
("Sydney Morning Herald", Australia, Wednesday, March 23,
1994)
Although the Australian media have overwhelmingly supported
the embattled Macedonians, and although most Australians would
do so instinctively, it is unlikely that more than a handful
of people are able to fully comprehend the Greek position. It
is far from trivial to say that that is because they have not
experienced a Greek education.
In retrospect it is clear to me that my 12 years of Greek
schooling, mainly in the 70's, conspired to instil in me
precisely one attitude and almost unshakeable belief in the
purity and unity of the Greek people, language and culture (to
which three, I would add "orthodoxy" if my parents, who once
had to bribe a priest to allow my Anglican great-grandmother
to baptise my brother, had not thought the religion irrelevant
and in bad taste).
The attitude I am referring to was taught to us at school in
images. Each year, at the school parade to commemorate the
uprising against "the Turk", the story was wheeled out of the
Greek general who had killed so many infidels in a single day
that his sword had to be prised out of his locked hand. Our
textbooks exalted those Byzantine kings who had managed to
keep the Eastern riff-raff out of the empire. All epochs
contributed Great Cleansers to our list of heroes.
Belief in the continuity of Greece against all odds was
enabled also by a method of withholding information and
sealing off interpretative paths. We had, as children, neither
the capacity nor the inclination to explore disunities and
"impurities" in the history of the Greek people, language and
culture. The Pelloponesian War of antiquity was never more
than a family squabble. We could not have savoured the thought
that Sparta might have had more in common culturally with
Persia (with which it formed alliances) than with Athens. The
long history of the land in which we lived had been reduced
for us to the opposition of Greek and non-Greek.
One carried such views to maturity. Melina Mercouri (in 1981 I
worked as assistant to her senior adviser, Vassilis
Fotopoulos) used to tell me that the importance of the Elgin
marbles rests in the fact that they are the heart of a body of
Greek culture inherited from the ancient past. Until her
recent death she believed that modern Greece, as the sole
inheritor, had a duty to preserve the organic coherence of
that body. When the bishop of Florina (a town just south of
the Macedonian border) said that the very stones he stood on
testified to their Greekness, he was, sadly, echoing the
opening lines of a popular epic revered modern Greek poet
Giannis Ritsos.
It was not until I left Greece that I understood that our
education resulted only in intellectual arrogance and moral
poverty. I came to know of the strong African and Asiatic
influence that operated upon early Aegean culture. I
understand that Alexander spread eastward not Greek
civilisation but terror and misfortune. I learnt that Salonika
had a Jewish culture to rival Vienna's before local Greeks
collaborated in its extermination. I was ashamed to discover
that in the Greek provinces of Macedonian and Thrace live
communities who in this day and age are treated as outcasts
because Greek is not their first language. I was horrified to
realise that for decades they had resisted policies of forced
"hellenisation".
Away from the country I quickly learnt not to use the words
"gyfots" (gypsy), "vlachos" (Romanian) and "Arvanitis"
(Albanian) for the common swear-words that they are in today's
Greece. When the Greek Government used "Skoupa" ("broom" or
"broomsweap") as the code name for the massive drive to remove
destitute Albanians from Greece in 1993 I seriously considered
changing my surname.
Needless to say, it has not been my intention to suggest that
the stifling, chauvinistic education we received cannot be
overcome. Not that Greeks are presently incapable of
accommodating difference. When the grave of Karolos Kuhn, the
genius of the modern Greek theatre, was covered with anti-
Semitic slogans in 1992, the Athenian press was swift to
condemn the action. Yet even as Greeks are expunging old
racisms, in respect of the Macedonian issue there has been
precious little dissent from the official government line, and
none that I have heard of among Greek Australians.
One would like to believe that dissenters are keeping low out
of fear. The rest must realise that the conventional method of
perpetuating their identity as Greeks -- a method never of
their own choosing -- has no place in a modern, tolerant,
culturally diffuse world.
Note: Dr Alexander Zaharopoulos left Greece after completing
his secondary education, but returned frequently while
studying at University College, London. He settled in
Australia in 1992.
TM I took the liberty to post this great article here as well, I hope you do not mind.
I never mind Daskalot.
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