So, necessity being the mother of invention (especially on the eve of municipal elections), the authorities last month had the bright idea of inaugurating Bread Week.
Greek bread, like Greek water, is a superb local product rarely matched abroad. Whatever modern scientists may say about its nutritive values, it certainly has more vitamins than Chivas Regal, gold-tipped Dunhill products and other luxurious imports which are the bane of economists trying to balance the ethnic books.
Greece, like other Western countries, is becoming health conscious, as can be seen by all those fitness studios which are sprouting up, like frontisteria, all over Athens. Yet Greece still consumes more meat per capita than any country in the EEC. It is high time that its “back to the roots” movement included the healthy, traditional diet of feta, fruit, tomatoes, olives, yogurt, bread and water.
Bread Week, organized by the Federation of Greek Bakers, was a great success. The government’s plea that local elections not be politicized was clearly a cry in the wilderness. In Greece everything is politicized instantly, including bread (and even earthquakes, which were once thought to be merely acts of God).
Inaugurated under the aegis of incumbent Mayor Beis and Minister of Commerce Katsifaras, Bread Week opened with fanfare and brilliantly colored floodlights in Omonia and Syntagma Squares, where prefabricated bakeries had been erected. As many opposition deputies were also on hand, it can be safely assumed that bread-and-circuses is now a bipartisan policy. Pretty girls in aprons handed out two and a half million pamphlets and distributed a quarter of a million loaves, which were consumed by an estimated 603,000 people. Twenty-five million tons of flour were kneaded, 25 bread “artists” were employed in the showplaces, and the federation received 1,312 telephone calls requesting further information. If it was any harbinger of the future, it could be said that Athenians joined their first breadlines enthusiastically.
In a similar spirit of “austerity can be fun”, but also following the more solemn belief that “man cannot live by bread alone”, President Sartzetakis betook himself on a three-day official visit to Mount Athos, where, it is well-known, lentil soup is reserved for feast days. In the old times, Byzantine emperors went to the Holy Mountain for reasons of penance or retreat, but chiefs of the modern secular state rarely have the spirit to go. There is the path of Caesar and the path of God, but socialism has found a third path, which means visiting monasteries by helicopter accompanied by cameramen, deftly combining the best features of both.
It was at Grand Lavra, founded by Saint Athanasios the Athonite over a millenium ago, that the president made the appropriate, much publicized statement:
“I tell you frankly that the President of the Democracy lives in the most unassuming way, just like any unskilled laborer. Because, if you came and shared my table, you would find that what they all say about high-living is without foundation. The expense of the trip to Tinos on the Argo (the former Onassis yacht presented to the state, which carried the president to the Feast of the Assumption on August 15) was nothing, next to nothing. It was made just to keep the ship’s machinery from getting rusty. Others,” he added pointedly, with a sly twinkle in his eye, “have used the Argo for cruising.”
Later, when a monk hazarded to say, “Our major problem, Mr President, is the stealing of antiquities, thefts which have scourged the monastic community in recent years”, he received the following rebuke:
“These are the made-up stories of newspapers. They are written by stupid and wicked journalists and I forbid you to repeat them”. Thus, in one fell swoop the godlessness of the press was exposed and the essential goodness of man reaffirmed.
Later, the president, in short sleeves and necktie askew, donned the iron cross and collar of Saint Anastasios and, grasping his two staffs, posed for a picture. It was widely distrubuted for its symbolic meaning, since one staff was used by the saint to cudgel the devil, who was breaking his ankle, and the collar, worn penitentially, is still put about the shoulders of novices being initiated into the monastic life.
The president, however, took up his official duties once again. On the day of his return to Athens, he sent a congratulatory telegram to Colonel Khadafy on the occasion of Libya’s national holiday.
