TRUTH BE TOLD: It’s a mad mad neighbourhood for Greece

Opinion Piece

by Le Grec

Ωϊμέ ωϊμέ.

Greece doesn’t get much bang for its diplomatic buck these days as it enters a new phase of Herculean tasks with so many fronts to do battle on, left, right and centre.

No matter how many beastly heads it cuts off from the regional Lernaean Hydra, there’s always a new one emerging to bite and bark at Greece.

Again a case of graft and corruption with big pharma in Greece, as Novartis continues to give the political class migraines they are desperate to recover from. But this issue is not endemic to Greece, but a familiar pandemic that festers in the pockets of all societies.

Meanwhile across the street, Turkey’s Erdogan is parading a 6 year old girl in military garb promising her an honourable flag-draped funeral, should she, God willing, fight and die for her country.

Again Erdogan’s well-oiled and obedient regime questions the Treaty of Lausanne over the sovereignty of the Greek islands and threatens Cyprus with war should the latter dare continue with its legitimate oil and gas explorations. War? Surely 1974 was enough.

To think that Turkey wants to join the European Union.

Greece lives in a pretty tough neighborhood and as such needs street smarts to survive. And survived it has, no matter how many barbarians came crashing through the Gates, somehow, both culture and language survived and thrived.

Be it the Persians, be it the Nazis, be it the Turks. Whatever.

To the north, Albania is arguing with Greece over the delimitation of the maritime border whilst the Greek minority in Himara only recently saw their properties demolished and their community pressured.

Close by a group of Slavic peoples speaking a Slavic language with a cultural presence in the region only since the 6^th century AD are claiming to be the descendants of Alexander the Great and insist on being called Macedonians. Someone forgot to test them in their Greek reading skills. Any ‘ol ancient inscription from ancient Macedonia would’ve sufficed as a reading test.

So successful has been their propaganda, most non-Greeks have no idea of the existence of the Greek region of Macedonia nor that etymologically the very word “Macedonian” is Greek.

Again, Greece is at the negotiating table negotiating its birth right with FYROM’s government hoping for a respectable compromise whilst FYROMians in Australia and elsewhere are burning Greek flags and calling Greeks, Turks. Is that a bad thing? I’m pretty sure they meant it as an insult. And to think that Prime Minister Zaev visited Turkey in the hope of some indirect leverage from Erdogan over Greece.

Let’s face it, Greece’s geostrategic location, the weather and those great frappes make her the envy of many imperialistic appetites, past, present and future and it won’t stop until they turn the country into their holiday resort.

But do not fret fellow Greek and Phill-Hellene.

As long as Greece has you, she has nothing to fear.

She gave birth to Gods and Heroes this classy battle-hardened lady.

Her empire is not land mass, but her culture, and with it she has already conquered the world.