Athens only became host to the European Athletic Championships for the first time in 1982 and the following year first took over the presidency of the EEC. It was former President Karamanlis’ belief that Greece belonged to Europe, yet if one looks at PASOK’s multi-faceted foreign policy of recent years, it seems to belong equally to the Near East and north Africa. On a recent visit here the French academician Marguerite Yourcenar expressed the belief that the genius of Greece, ancient and modern, lay in its being just where it is, partaking of both east and west.
Still, it’s gratifying to see Athens leading the pack of European cities this year as the first one to be designated the cultural capital of Europe. By seniority alone this is as it should be. As the cradle of almost everything cultural in western Europe – even most forms of government (good, bad and indifferent) – Greece is certainly the right place to begin.
For most foreigners who have suffered through the recent political campaign, a cultural fiesta will be greeted with a wave of relief. It’s difficult to put a finger on it and answer ‘why’, but even for philhellenes the Greek people are at their most trying during a preelection period. Forget the rubbish and the road manners, and remember (if you can) the unexpected kindnesses, the flashes of understanding and the moments of illumination – in all the hubbub, in the sheer passion of the thing, Greeks are at their most extreme form of Greekness during a campaign. This is when they are most aggressive, insistent, overbearing, contentious, impatient, restless, reckless and noisy.
So, by logical extension, this is also the time when the foreigner is at his most dubious, diffident, circumspect and confused. It doesn’t matter if he arrived the day before yesterday or 50 years ago, for him this is when the country is at its most inexplicable. Being non-political has become quite common in many western countries, but a number of foreign residents here, after living through a series of election campaigns, have come to express an aversion to politics as causing rows at dinner parties, creating traffic snarls and interfering with a good night’s rest.
The misunderstanding has to do with what is meant by politics itself. To Greeks, both ancient and modern, politics simply means public life, and in a country where privacy is minimal, this means almost all of life.
Culture, then, is public life, too, and if anyone imagines that the upcoming cultural capital of Europe is going to be non-political, he is living in a fool’s paradise. Only a very fine line divides culture from politics, even etymologically, in Greece. Culture as a world apart, appealing only to the initiated and the happy few, is rare and this may account for its success. The true Greek muse is not some fairy-like creature whispering sweet inspirations into the artist’s ear in the privacy of his study but a public deity who is invoked in the presence of a large company. Like everyone else, artists express their opinions on all subjects out in the agora just as their forefathers did, and are listened to with respect.
Historians have said that the ancient polls was a work of art, and that can certainly be said of modern politics, too. All these rousing rallies, brilliantly lit, cleverly directed, rehearsed to a polish with choral entrances not missing a beat, plus the rhetoric and the meaningful gestures of the chief actors, are the scenes of a great unfolding multi-media psychodrama in which only the dialogue is missing. And one must assume they have a power to arouse pity and fear, just as Aristotle said they ought to, for why else would they be mounted for the telly audience on so grand a scale, so often and at such vast expense?
Famous museums and superstar companies of performing artists from nine sister nations will be stunning us for the next six months with exhibitions of sculpture and painting, concerts and operas, ballets and theatre, but it is unlikely that many – if any – will surpass the spectacles of last month’s campaign. In fact, whatever government is in power next year should think seriously about sending a whole panhellenic rally – made up of all parties according to the percentages won – as Greece’s contribution to Europe’s next cultural capital. Thus, by adding a spice of the east to the western European cultural stew, it should run off with all the blue ribbons.
