Technically, they were never caught with positive doping results, but they lied about a motorcycle crash to get out of one drug test and were found to have evaded a couple more. For a country of small means, Greece produces some very fine athletes in a wide variety of sports, but this was a shameful moment in our athletic history, right before we hosted the Olympics no less.

Erdogan more or less did what Putin did, as an increasingly dictatorial leader who, for a spell, pretended to bow out of power for a while in order to maintain the illusion of a democracy. There is a very real threat of him going no holds barred totalitarian Islamist in the aftermath of this coup. Here in Greece, we are trying to weigh which side succeeding would be the lesser of two evils. Long story short: Turkish military coups have been devastating for Greece.

Turks really are big on conspiracy theories, as are Greeks. I disagree that it’s as simple as chalking it up to a lack of intelligence. My (isteve-ish?) take on it is that bureaucracy and procuring any services in general is so needlessly complicated and often illogical in both countries, that convoluted, outlandish theories come quite naturally to us. Truly Byzantine, indeed.

He thought that sounded like a ridiculous thing to bring up in conversation with Bulgarians, but then it turned out that Bulgarians appreciated his anecdote about one of the highlights of their history.

That’s hilarious, but they are undermining themselves. Bulgaria has a very interesting culture with regards to a number of hot topics, such as gender equality and multiculturalism. Their role in WWII is also fascinating and ought to be more known. Did your son enjoy his time there? Sofia is a really pleasant city despite its poverty, and Bulgarians have a surprisingly warm, open, and level-headed character considering their history and Balkan geography.

Most lower-end pizza & pasta places in northern Europe tend to be run by Middle Eastern and Turkish immigrants who have no connection to Italian food, and the results are terrible. I wonder if they ever made an effort to introduce their own native “pizza”, namely lahmajoun and manakish, and it just didn’t catch on?

There are a number of delicious, similar dishes that could compete with pizza if their ambassadors were as popular as the Italians, such as peinirli and kachaphuri. I watched Eurovision recently with my mom, and she remarked how pop culture has entirely lost its French and Italian influence, whereas in her youth (born right after WWII), what reigned supreme was Italian music, cinema, and style. Not sure if that was the case in America, but in Europe, that surely must have crossed over to culinary popularity as well.

When did it become standard for the American middle and working class family to have an oven at home? In southern Europe, it was only around the 1960’s. Families would prepare large pans of food, and take them to the ovens of their neighborhood bakery, particularly on special occasions. Like a lot of Mediterranean food that is popular abroad, pizza was street food or simple restaurant fare, not a home meal.

In Greece, the historical perspective is that the Battle of Thermopylae (more famous as the movie 300) and its aftermath are the “birthplace” of nationalism.

From the view of presentism, Orpheas and Sappho (who was an oral poet/singer) were major rockstars of their day. I don’t remember the word, but one of Orpheus’ most common epithets literally means ‘celebrity’ or ‘famed person’. Fun fact: Based on ancient sources, there is a decent chance that he was a real-life historical person, so legendary was he that his story got entangled with myths (as it seems to happen with many celebrities throughout history).

Not true. In European healthcare systems that offer free IVF treatment , there are strict standards and controversy about who is entitled to it, and I assure you that a 44 year old woman with nine children would garner immense public anger if she was granted it, regardless of race and ethnicity. And as the article states, Austrian taxpayers still have to cover all the hospital and other medical costs even if IVF itself is privately paid for.

And of course it’s compounded by the fact that they are already reliant on government aid to feed their existing nine children, and then doubly so that they are only recent Austrian residents who have never contributed to its society in taxes or any other form. What a way to sustain national social security! They are the very definition of leeching off generous national social security (…in case you were wondering why all those refugees already in safe territory are desperate to go to northwestern Europe.)

Last I heard from Black Cleopatra proponents, Cleopatra’s mother is unknown.

There is a tomb that is believed but not verified to be Cleopatra’s younger half-sister Arsinoe, who, using scientifically contested methods studying the shape of the skull, was found to have Greek, and African admixture. Unfortunately that skull is now lost, preventing more recent methodologies.

Using this shaky information, Afrocentrists make a major conjecture and conclude that Cleopatra herself had an African mother.

It is legitimate for scholars to research and hypothesize on who her mother may have been, but this has not been applied in a scientific way at all, but rather with agenda-driven cherry-picking and wild leaps of faith, and hysterical accusations of racism when the theory of a black mother is criticized for lack of evidence. Afrocentrists don’t care who Cleopatra’s mother is, in fact they would fight to discredit any evidence to the contrary of their agenda. With Arsinoe, they just seized upon another way to promote Black Cleopatra.

Then you have proponents who believe Cleopatra was black because the Macedonians in Egypt were black Africans. Don’t forget those people. And they usually devolve into the people who believe that Greek civilization was made up of black people, or taken from sub-saharan Africans.

You know what’s funny? An article about him in a men’s interest supplement of a (respectable) Greek newspaper describes him looking like a Middle Easterner or North African than a Greek.
http://www.tovima.gr/vimamen/guys/article/?aid=466131

This is only half-true. There are some Greeks who look like him, but it’s not the typical or average Greek appearance. We consider those looks foreign-looking, even though it seems to be the stereotype of us in America and Northern Europe.

You can put together a decent outfit and take care of your appearance on a threadbare budget. If you observe the lower working class of many countries (or, say, visited the Eastern Bloc at the height of food shortages and poverty), you can still peg them for poor, but they have put effort and pride into their appearance. I’m not certain if these dandies could be interpreted as an exaggerated version of that, or if it stems from something altogether different. In any case, in many cultures the way you dress in a sign of dignity and self-respect, and respect towards others. For some reason, this attitude is not very prevalent in American culture; perhaps remnants of Calvinism?

Who knows what color the gods are supposed to be?

Actually we do know, because apart from some gods who had fantastical, unnatural colors, cultures envisioned gods in their own image, idealized of course. In the case of Egypt, Greece, and Rome, there is no shortage of physical descriptions and images of their gods. I don’t mind taking artistic license in the casting of mythological characters, even if it is culturally inaccurate. I also don’t mind if an actor of a very different ethnicity plays a real-life historical character, as long as the ethnic resemblance is convincing, or at least not distracting. But even-keeled views such as mine are drowned out by the furious Voices of Diversity, because to them, it’s not about art or creativity, but a political agenda.

Neither. They have medium-light skin that tans rather than burns, like most Balkan people. They resemble the less elvish, more brunette Russians. Icy eye colors are fairly common.

I don’t know how common those blonde Berbers are so I can’t comment on that, but Greeks aren’t that swarthy on the whole. A low percentage of blue eyes to be sure, but despite that, they run the gamut from light coloring to that swarthy stereotype, sometimes even within the same region. For example, the actors Billy Zane and Tracy Spiridakos are from nearby areas in the southern mainland (at least on their fathers’ side). As for the Ptolemaic dynasty, there are many descriptions and images of them, and they were no lookers, but they weren’t swarthy.

You’re being way too charitable the Guardian. Othello and Cleopatra are depicted with the same skintone, and Afrocentrists have long claimed Cleopatra as their own. Just you wait for the angry backlash if a white actress is cast as Cleopatra in a future movie or tv show. A tiny peek of what is to come:

http://rollingout.com/2014/06/03/black-twitter-blasts-angelina-jolie-portraying-egypts-queen-cleopatra-upcoming-film/

If you can handle the stupid, don’t miss the comment section but for one or two brave dissenters. All of this is widely taught in Critical Race Studies and African Studies departments, by the way.

Tsk tsk, such grouchiness on here. If nothing else, Prince was loads of fun. Another video before it gets yanked off YouTube:

“How can I put this in a way so as not to offend or unnerve?
….let a woman be a woman, and a man be a man”

Eh, Turks don’t hold any Arabs in high regard (and absolutely hate it when they are erroneously lumped in with Arabs). Turks have a worryingly consistent history of violence and cruelty towards practically everyone but themselves, so it’s a good thing they have a high “national self-esteem”, because truthfully, no one else likes them, including Arabs as far as I can tell. Maybe Gulf Arabs are an exception? Any historical episode relating to Turkey will invariably include this trajectory: “There was progress/peace/cooperation/agreement, but then the Turks stabbed _____ in the back.”

My handle instantly betrays bias, and I own up to it. (Though it may surprise you that I love and also identify with many aspects of Turkish culture.)

I don’t understand your comment, but for what it’s worth, there have been strong rumors for years that Prince was HIV positive or had AIDS.

You might be interested to follow @hbdchick on Twitter, who has an ongoing theme of linking many of the recent terrorism attacks to Maghrebi culture/ethnicity.

Having spent time there, I’d argue it did happen in the cities, as well as smaller towns that had a strong presence of culture and the arts. Although the state has always straddled between being a dictatorship and a democracy, there was still a truly secular, modern-minded dominant culture. That’s no small thing when you consider that Istanbul alone is as large or larger than many European countries. It has noticeably regressed terribly in the last few years. I’m not convinced Erdogan’s government is to blame; it’s a chicken/egg question. A key thing to understand about Turkey is that such cities and towns are facing the exact same problems with immigrant communities (from rural areas) that places like Brussels and the West in general have with Muslim immigrants.

I always thought checkpoint-free travel was too good to be true. It always seemed too laidback and easy to last. May there come better days.

Greece is trying to send back some of its migrants to Turkey, and Turkey is being uncooperative, surprise, surprise. Greece has handled the migrant crisis badly, mostly because of being poor, overcrowded, and understaffed/funded, although I could believe a portion of the conspiracy-ish theory that we didn’t act in good faith. There were definitely some passive-aggressive remarks by government clowns about unleashing chaos on northern Europe. But I’m surprised and worried by how little crap Turkey has gotten throughout all of this. It’s very difficult to understand where the allegiances of our most powerful people in Europe lie, and to what ends.

The Greek genius of the 20th century was getting rich on running diners.

That’s it? Oh, how the mighty have fallen.

Yes, Greeks are very, very family-oriented, and it must have served Greek immigrant communities well. Back home it’s more complicated, because it’s at the very heart of the nepotism and clientelism/cronyism that corrupted the country. Apparently there is a strong genetic component to that kind of clannish behavior, so I guess there’s no escaping it now. At the same time, strong family bonds (or at least a sense of obligation to one’s family) are the main thing keeping the shattered Greek populace standing. A blessing and a curse.

In the past, I can understand how immigrants from Greece and (southern) Italy to the USA must have felt out of place in this race-obsessed country, where their cultural practices and, as we discussed, often appearance did not fit into what it meant to be ‘white’, as a shorthand for northwestern European culture. They had never even grappled with the concept of whiteness before, having created divisions in other ways (regional, religious, social class, etc.) The Greek-American Johnny Otis identified and chose to live as member of the African American community, and in many ways, it makes sense in terms of the cultural climate he grew up in. Moreover, Greeks found a lot of common ground with the African American experience of racism, displacement, and persecution, specifically refugees from Asia Minor, and they had a very empathetic bond with each other. But a Greek-American in this day and age not identifying as white, and on top of that being anti-white, is absolutely bizarre, with no logical precedent.

The average Greek looks far more Arab than Aryan.

This is true for many Cypriots and some regions of southern Greece, but on the whole, the average Greek doesn’t look Arab. Our average coloring is far more ‘medium’ and tawny than the impression foreigners seem to have of us, and although our bone structure errs on the stronger side, you could still easily tell a Greek from an Arab apart. I’m not responding to your comment out of hypersensitivity or offense, but because I’ve always been perplexed by the American and north European impression that Greeks are dark, swarthy, and heavy-set. Many cities with a large Greek diaspora have communities from Greek regions where people don’t look like that, so where does that impression come from? (I’m also amused that we are considered ugly. Greek-American comedians allude to it all the time, and there is this quote in the Rodney Dangerfield comedy Back to School. “I knew a Greek once. He had an ugly wife, two ugly kids, but good coffee.” We don’t get no respect.)

Members of Golden Dawn have latched onto an imagined kinship with Nordic ethnicities, not most Greeks. As someone in a previous iSteve post said, GD really toned down that part of their narrative since hitting the mainstream, so not even the majority of their supporters can be said to hold such beliefs. The average Greek would find it as strange to be considered close to Germans in appearance as to Arabs. (Of course, this also comes from our own stereotype that Germans are all fair, light blonde, and blue-eyed with elvish features, which is also not quite true.)

On a last note that complicates things, you’d be surprised by how light-colored and delicate-featured many Arabs can be, including in Syria and Lebanon. So in a way, Syrians and Greeks really are alike, in that they deviate a lot from the stereotypes about their appearance.

I didn’t say the Catholic church doesn’t view all people as sexual beings, but (with the exception of some converts) it mandates celibacy from its clergy, and it views any sexual act that’s not between two spouses not just as wrong, but as inherently evil and severely immoral. Its language and doctrines on sexual morality are far more harsh, laden with evil and shame, than in the Eastern Orthodox Church, and a critical exploration of that, in addition to the other institutional problems shared by most other Christian churches, would go a long way in understanding why it’s been plagued by so many sexual abuse scandals.

I was taught that most early priests were married, but maybe it was misinformation.

Actually, many ranks of bishops can be widowed, though not divorced. If I understood correctly, Jonathan Mason’s original comment inferred that one of the “perks” of early Christianity was that the very male-populated and celibate environment attracted a lot of homosexual men (perhaps free from the pressure to marry and produce children?). That’s what I think doesn’t seem likely, given that Eastern Orthodox priests can be married. And you’ll actually find that the majority do get married, and there is a common tradition of many generations of priests in a family, from father to son(s). Yes, there are various strict marital rules and limitations, but the ability to be recognized as a sexual being (without the atonement for that inherent sin, as in the Catholic church) and work for the church has been present since the earliest forms of Christianity.

Your theory doesn’t work because the Eastern Orthodox Church has always permitted parish priests to marry, and early (pre-Schism) Christian clergymen were largely married. That said, you could probably find sexual abuse in any rigidly hierarchical institution, but all the more in an environment of enforced celibacy. Both monks and nuns have been haunted by accusations of sexual abuse of boys and girls, respectively, and I assume it’s less because of a proclivity to homosexuality or certain ages than, to put it rawly, what beings are available, powerless, and easily silenced.

@nc, @asdf, @tbraton I am really confused about the Greek government’s stance, but as for the response of regular people, it is shades inbetween the compassion in typical media depictions and hostility. ‘Philoxenia’ or hospitality really is a Greek value, it’s not just a platitude, and there is a degree of social shame in openly expressing negativity and ill will towards migrants. But many hiss under their breaths, or show hostility towards migrants indirectly. Many of our grandparents and parents were war refugees from the diaspora, and their experiences are instilled in our pedagogy from a young age, so it is not true that the media depictions of compassion are fake. But much of it is mixed with fear, and you are right that there’s also a lot of anger. The overall response of regular people has been very mixed, and very, very conflicted.

@Jerseyguy Very few migrants intend to stay in Greece, like the isteve reader in Athens says. Not the recent ones from Syria and “Syria”, and not the South Asians that have been here for a while. The dream is Northwestern Europe, but it is extremely difficult to go there, so the real question is how feasible it will be for them to leave the country. My family employs a Bangladeshi handyman who has a renewable work permit. For many years, he has been trying to legally move to Germany or Sweden to start a house-painting business, to no avail. I really don’t understand how the refuge and immigration process to move through Europe works, and I’m not surprised by the increasingly aggressive tactics to game or bypass the system.

@sparklr Sure, the underground economy is thriving, but it’s not something that you will be exposed to as a visitor. Respectfully, I’m not sure what you are imagining, but Greece is not like some third-world countries where you’re forced to pay a bribe at every turn. (Be mindful of the usual tourist rip-offs and manipulations that you would in any country.) Also, you can legally refuse to pay for any service, including everyday stuff like cabs, if you are not given a valid receipt. As for Greeks paying taxes, this impression foreigners have that your average Greek Joe just says Haha! I’m not going to pay my taxes! is not that straightforward. The problem is systemic tax corruption and a retarded tax system. Is there an economist who could explain this better than me? Going back to the underground economy, many of the people part of it want to pay their taxes! It would give them access to public health insurance and other necessary social security. But they literally can’t afford many of these taxes; they are taxed far more than they actually earn.

@anon Until recently, SYRIZA was just concerned about securing the vote the second time around, and then restructuring a broken government coalition. They did nothing notable for the migrants (or the island residents, for that matter) that previous, less sympathetic governments wouldn’t have done. I’ve heard very polarized assessments of their actions since then, and I don’t know who to trust.

What they have done is approved the building of the first mosque in Athens, to accomodate the Muslim immigrant population. There has been a lot of pushback by the Greek church and regualar Greeks over it. (There are actually hundreds of mosques in Northeastern Greece, where there is a fairly large population of ethnic Turks and Muslim Pomaks, who have both lived there for centuries, generally in peace.) Even if the mosque is built, the church has too much political and cultural clout to ever grant Muslims a lot of visibility in society. In general, Greeks are about the least politically correct Europeans you’ll meet, so none of this Islamophobia crap. There strong cultural understanding of the threat of Islamic takeover, due to our history with Turkey. However if there have been Islamic-related crimes (honor killings and such) or radicalized groups among the immigrants living in Greece, the media has not told us about them. After the Paris terrorist attacks, our secret service assured us of no imminent threat to Greece, and that Greece is generally not considered a target. Again, I can only hope that’s true, God help us.

@istevefan I will get back to you about Golden Dawn, but the short answer is yes, Greeks are fully aware that they are thugs, by and large. Including their supporters, and that’s where it gets interesting.

@CJ I suppose you’re asking if things have visibly, palpably imploded, and the answer is no, except perhaps in the poorest neighborhoods and towns. On the surface, Greece is still a very pleasant, lively place to be, in that chaotic Southern European way. The devastation lies underneath. There are few social security provisions, or welfare to the Americans. The poor, including those with drastically slashed wages and pensions (that you absolutely cannot live on), are dependent on charity to get by, the state does nothing for them. The rich are still rich, but Greece is not run by oligarchs like some of its Eastern European neighbors. Contrary to popular belief, taxing the rich properly, although necessary and useful, would not solve the country’s ills. The middle class is getting by fine on the surface, but they have little of the disposable cash and sense of ease and security that makes a community vibrant.

It’s the overwhelming numbers of educated people in their 20’s, 30’s, and 40’s who are either unemployed or incredibly overqualified for their badly paid jobs. We can’t dream, we can’t innovate and build, we can’t afford to marry and start families. The intelligent, trustworthy people who could reform the public sector have mostly left or are going to eventually leave, or be pushed around by the corrupt, clientelist, incompetent hires. State support for the private sector is a joke, it’s more like state obstruction. Public education and health services are hanging by a thread in the worst areas, adequate at best in the most privileged areas.

As for politics, Greeks want to have their cake and eat it too. Any dreary scenario is possible. It’s clear that the majority wants to stay in the EU, but they’ve also voted twice now for full-blown demagogues who literally told them things would go back to how they were before the crisis, without explaining how, except that they would “stand up to the man” (or Merkel, as it were). I can’t tell you why people buy it. Ignorance? Denial? Blind hope? The EU and IMF definitely made some terrible calls that have caused understandable resentment and distrust, but you have not ever seen shirking of responsibility, blame on others, and incompetence like that in Greece of the past 5-6 years.

@disambiguated All the reports on rampant native prostitution can be traced directly to one three-year research study by a sociology professor in Athens. It’s a decent university all things considered, but as a public institution, plagued by the same corruption and political agendas elsewhere in the Greek public sector. Make of that what you will. The study has caused a furor here in Greece, with the sociologist claiming he was misquoted about some of his wilder claims (such as prostitutes who are college students earning just enough to buy a spanakopita). The research implicates our country’s young women, which really hits at our cultural values. Like the isteve reader in Athens says, prostitutes here are known to mainly be African and Eastern European, or part of some deviant class (transvestites, addicts). Greek families simply do not leave their women out in the cold. The idea that there are significant amounts of native Greeks who have been forced turned to prostitution for spare change has devastating implications about our culture if true. But the question of veracity is not resolved. We haven’t confirmed if the research is sound (I can’t even locate where it has been published), and we have been burned in the past by highly sensationalistic reports of our country.

I’m a regular isteve reader from Greece (I comment sometimes, but without a consistent username), and I can offer my own perspective on some of the questions.

@22pp22 Santorini is part of the Cycladic islands, which are not affected. Crete and Cyprus are not the most affected islands, but they have seen migrant crossings. Crete is a huge island, and it’s on a remote part of the island that you will have no contact with, and I assume it’s a similar situation with Cyprus. The very wealthy islands that are affected by migrant crossings swiftly transfer their migrants to the nearest, less wealthy island. A friendly acquaintance from Rhodes who lives in Athens visited the island in mid-late August, and went to donate supplies to a camp that’s supposedly overcrowded with migrants. Contrary to media depictions, she found it nearly empty, and was told by friends in the know that the municipality invested money into shipping the migrants over to other islands, because they were weary of the tourist industry being hurt. I suppose this also relates to the wider question of how Greece is faring in the crisis. Some of the more tourist-heavy, soil-rich regions have barely been affected. The same acquaintance is worried what will happen to her friends and family in Rhodes if the country abruptly returns to the drachma or some other sudden downfall; they are simply not living as if we are in a recession.

@Mr.Blank Anecdotally, my parents visited Leros over the summer, one of the primary destinations of the migrants (and where one of the Paris terrorists passed through posing as a migrant). They saw groups of young men just wandering aimlessly around town. You do hear and read similar anecdotes from other people who visited such islands. Of course, this is not to say that some of them don’t have wives and children back at the camps. Culturally, the women feel far more inhibited in wandering around town, especially with children in tow. But the idea that migrants in the Greek islands are mostly made up of families, the way it was depicted on Humans Of New York for example, seems extremely unlikely. I can’t report directly from the scene in Athens, because I won’t visit a migrant camp (someone close to me is immunocompromised), but my family donates food, clothing, and other supplies to charity, and for what it’s worth, even the groups dedicated only to migrants request baby food, diapers, sanitary pads, and other women or children-specific items. On the other hand, even on some websites, men’s clothing only is curiously specified.

I don’t know how long a comment can be. If this isn’t repetitive information, I can reply to some of the other questions.