Few towns, however, can compete with Pylos for the purity of its operetta style when it celebrates the Navariniaon October 20.
If chance seems to play an apparently greater role in the affairs of Greece than elsewhere, the battle of Navarino, which took place in 1827 and which the Navarinia commemorates, lends support to this supposition. At a time, during the War of Independence, when the fortunes of Greece were at low-ebb and when some continued state of vassalage to Turkey seemed unavoidable, the combined fleets of England, France and Russia encountered the Turkish-Egyptian armada in the Bay of Navarino. These nations were not at war with Turkey, but there was a strong though unofficial policy in the Allied governments to rid Greece of Ottoman rule. The Allied admirals Codrington, de Rigny and Heyden (a Dutchman in the Tsar’s service) hoped that a Turkish provocation would incite a battle. Their prayers were answered, and by evening most of the Turkish fleet had been sunk and Greek independence was assured.
The Allied admirals, as a result of this dramatic ‘happening’, became heroes and, appropriately, there are streets named after each of them in one of the theatre districts of Athens. They are most lovingly remembered, however, on the occasion of the Navarinia when the Square of the Three Admirals at Pylos is decorated with bunting; and the Union Jack, the Tricolour and the Hammer and Sickle snap smartly side by side in the autumn air. The town band plays each national anthem and military marches and many fine words are declaimed by local dignitaries. The, ambassadors of the three foreign powers usually attend the ceremonies and the climax of the day comes when these plenipotentiaries set off in a launch for three small islands out in the bay. Each country has its own island with its own appropriate memorials, and the ambassadors place wreaths before them. These islands have been described by a high-placed figure in the British Embassy, who, for reasons of diplomatic protocol, will remain anonymous: ‘The Russians, of course, have the largest island, but it is ugly. The French naturally have the prettiest one, but it is small. Ours is the smallest and ugliest of the lot, but at least it is nearest the spot where the bloody battle took place.’
When a Utility is a Luxury
THE QUESTION of whether the Telephone Company of Greece (OTE) exists for the sake of the public — or the public for the sake of the Telephone Company — was partly answered recently when the director of OTE, speaking about the ease with which wires can be tapped nowadays, suggested that the telephone not be used for any serious conversation.
For the last few years, as everyone knows, few Athenians have used the telephone for any reason more serious than eavesdropping on conversations that can be overheard when the lines get crossed — which happens quite often. In a moment of crisis, they have always turned to the telegram, the automobile, or to the oldest method of communication: a visit made on foot. Nor was the question in any way solved when OTE, in its ever forward-looking concern for its customers’ money, announced that telephone subscribers having accounts at any of several banks may authorize bank personnel to settle their telephone bills.
The problem, we shyly propose, is not the inconvenience of paying the bills, but their astronomical size; and it is to be questioned whether the combined assets of these banks could ever equal that which OTE overcharges. OTE, in its devotion to democracy and the general good, listens to thousands of complaints about bills from rich and poor alike, with impartial indifference.
Business offices which depend on telephone communication for their existence may monitor and meter their own calls with scrupulous care, but if the bill is twice their estimate they must pay or else be disconnected. Less organized telephone subscribers are under greater psychological strain. Struck with disbelief by the latest bill, they begin to suspect their maid of having a lover in Timbuktu with whom she must communicate daily, or that a toddler, left alone for a moment, has inadvertently dialled a talkative greengrocer in Yokohama. Yet OTE bills are never so astonishing as they are at the end of summer when Athenians, back from holiday, find huge bills slipped under their tightly-locked doors, clearly dated within the period of their absences.
How in all fairness can one be expected to pay for non-conversations which cannot rationally be described as serious or unserious? OTE’s answer to this, no doubt, is that the telephone, being an unserious object,* must be classified as a useless item of conspicuous consumption and for that reason alone subject to a luxury tax.
Onward, Christian Soldiers!
TWO of the most prominent heavenly bodies in the Junta galaxy, George Papadopoulos and Stylianos Pattakos, recently orbited back into the limelight. Having spent many months contemplating the vanity of worldly things and the wall of a prison cell, it is hardly surprising to see each of them re-emerge as a protagonist in a religious drama.
A new church of vast and inspiring proportions is currently being built in Papagos, a pretty, green, garden suburb of Athens, where many former satellites of the Junta government are spending their golden years gambolling in its bucolic glades. Although the church is dedicated to Saint George, it is reputedly rising in honour of that more recent Christian warrior, George Papadopoulos. The fact that there are already four churches in the area is ample proof of the local residents’ intense piety. Great though it is, however, the limits of this piety are being strained by the promised manifestation of a fifth church.
The overall concept of the building is so grand that the architect (according to a major local daily), Professor Koumanoudis of the Polytechnic Institute, has been offered two and one-half million drachmas to draw up the plans. Following the admonition, ‘render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s,’ the architect’s designs include (besides the usual sacred furnishings) an exhibition hall and twenty-seven water-closets.
Those residents of Papagos who oppose the project, however, fear to voice their objections loudly, according to a report in Ta Nea, because Papadopudlians residing in the area — including some members of the local council which is reputedly backing the project — still carry a fair amount of clout.
Meanwhile, former Colonel — now Private — Pattakos, after a long period of confinement, has been inspired by a new conviction. Eager to exchange the garb of a prisoner for the habit (and, one hopes, the habits) of a monk, he is gathering application papers in order that he may enter a monastery on his home island of Crete. Strait is the gate and narrow is the way, however. Pattakos must first persuade his wife to agree to a divorce, and the courts to revoke or reduce his life sentence.
Yet the consolations of religion are great and if Pattakos succeeds in winning entry into a Cretan monastery, his discarded wife may be comforted by visiting the new shrine in Papagos and recalling there the words of her former spouse spoken in 1968: ‘Forward, sons of Greeks! For Christ’s holy faith, for the freedom of our country! That is the ideal. It encompasses everything!’
Our Men in Antigua
DEAN Inge, an English scholar noted for his wit, once said that ‘the command “be fruitful and multiply” was promulgated, according to our authorities, when the population of the world consisted of two persons’.
However relevant these words are to general world overpopulation, in this country the situation is reversed and the chronic underpopulation of Greece is a permanent government headache. To put matters straight, this situation is not caused — as far as we can ascertain — by any mass dysfunctioning of the Gross National Sex Drive, but by economic and social conditions which have obliged Greeks to seek prosperity in other countries. While the government grapples with this weighty problem, a new threat to our already depleted population was revealed a few weeks ago.
It is not enough that we lose our citizens to Germany, Australia, the United States and Canada. We now appear to be losing them to Antigua.
Early in September Lieutenant Raptis of the Suburban Police discovered that over the past nine years, a still unspecified number of Greeks — most of whom are solid members of the upper class — had turned their backs on President and Country and become nationals of the ‘State of Antigua’.
Now, it may be argued that subject to certain conditions, and after due procedures, one may quite legally and respectably change one’s nationality. The Greece-Antigua ‘quick-change-act’, however, presents certain unique features, the most scandalous being that the villainous ‘State of Antigua’, which has deprived Greece of part of its population and has contributed towards the Greek Diaspora, does not, in fact, exist.
Antigua is a small island, about the size of Zakinthos, in the British West Indies. It produces cotton, sugar and bananas, and is a favourite resort of the Princess Margaret jet set. In 1966 it became a state ‘in association’ with Britain, remaining part of the British Commonwealth. In 1967 it joined several other islands to form the West Indies Associated State. Thus the ‘State of Antigua’, as such, is nonexistent. As far as we can determine, there are no Antiguan embassies or consulates anywhere in the world, and the island does not issue passports.
Nevertheless, in 1967 an Antiguan ‘consul’ appeared in Athens. He did not set up a consulate, but operated from the Byzantine Cafe at the Hilton Hotel. He made it known to a select few that a Greek could become a citizen of Antigua and enjoy all the benefits thereof on payment of between fifteen and thirty thousand drachmas — the amount needed, he would explain, to cover the expenses of producing a passport.
Certain citizens seized the opportunity, not because they felt a sudden yearning for sugar cane, bananas, and the refined atmosphere of the Mill Reef Club, but because the new passport allowed them to avoid taxes, especially those involving cars.
One must resist the tempting view that the entire affair is a Communist plot ultimately aimed at clearing the country of its big car owners and promoting the independence of Antigua from British Colonialism. More likely the ‘unique opportunity’ attracted scores of disgruntled citizens, many of them minor ship owners, who, sick of life in a Mini, dreamed of acquiring tax-free Jaguars and Ferraris.
What is really surprising is that for nine years it did not occur to any employee of the Customs Authority, the Ministry of Transport or the Diplomatic Corps to look into these passports, or into the political status of Antigua.
The ‘citizens of Antigua’ maintain that they received their second nationality in good faith, believing the procedure to be legal. This is somewhat belied by the cloak-and-dagger fashion in which they had to move in order to acquire a passport. The initial application for citizenship was made at the Hilton during a meeting with the ‘consul’. The prospective Antiguan would have been instructed to bring along four photographs of himself, and the sum of money agreed upcn. His application would be sent to Antigua, he was informed, and within twenty days. he would receive ,his passport. The passports were usually delivered by an employee of the ‘consulate’ and the newly Antiguanised citizen would then feel free to appear with his car at the Greek Customs where the authorities would stamp his passport and wish him a happy holiday in Greece.
For the wily tax-evaders, Antigua was a flag of convenience — a convenience further simplified, according to the Minister of Public Order, by the fact that at least two hundred ‘State of Antigua’ passports had been printed right here in Athens.
