Author: Dr. Georgios Nakratzas

Publisher: BATAVIA PRESS, THESSALONIKI

ISBN: 960-85800-3-X

Size: 21 cm x 28 cm (8.3" x 11") 95 pages

Order:
Batavia Publications, 1998
Thessaloniki, Greece
tel. ++30 31 239560
fax. ++31 7868 17300

For up-to-date information please
contact the author, Dr. Nakratzas
via email at: g.nakratzas@wxs.nl

Viewed in the light of the general situation in Europe, Greece's present foreign policy has shown that the country's modern ideological armour is still very much the product of a nationalist upbringing, the roots of which go back to somewhere around the beginning of the nineteenth century. But the nation will never find its way in the European Union carrying this sort of ideological baggage.

One of the cornerstones of this ideology is the unrealistic theory that the modern Greeks, expressing as they do the enduring nature of the Greek language, are the biological descendants of the ancient Greeks. It was concocted in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries to serve as an ideological arsenal in the efforts to create a modern Greek nation in view of the impending collapse of the feudal, theocratic, Ottoman Empire.

The philosophical challenge to theocracy as a social model of governance first emerged, together with the concept of human rights, in north-western Europe in the sixteenth century, the century of philosophical humanism that produced Erasmus, Shakespeare, and other great thinkers.

In Greece, 400 years after the theocratic beliefs of the Middle Ages were first challenged (in 1967, to be precise), there was still talk of 'the Greece of Greek Christians'; and even today we hear a great deal about 'Greek Orthodox culture' -- a culture that has never in fact existed as such, being known as 'Orthodox Eastern Roman culture'.

A large segment of modern Greek society, which has never really embarked upon the process of ideological modernisation, oscillates desperately between modernism and Greek Orthodox fundamentalism, displaying an inherent inability to make any sort of ideological distinction between the terms 'race', 'nationality', and 'cultural or ethnic identity'.

Apart from the fact that even well-respected journalists are engaged in daily attempts to convince the younger generation that we are directly descended from 'our ancient forebears', views that go against the theory of 'one race, one religion, one nation' are regarded as nationally reprehensible.

It is on this theory that most Greeks base their belief that there are no minorities in our country, apart from the 'Greek Moslems' of Western Thrace. Greek citizens who have publicly proclaimed that they do not feel like Greeks but like ethnic Macedonians or ethnic Turks have been pursued and convicted by Greek justice, which just goes to show that modern Greek society not only fails to show the necessary respect for what is different, but cannot even tolerate it. And, being in the grip of virulent Hellenocentric egomania, this same society, while denying Greek citizens the right to any ethnic identity other than Greek, constantly exhorts Greeks living in other countries to preserve their Greek ethnic identity.

Personally, I couldn't care less what race the citizens of modern Greece belong to; the only purpose of this book is to show, and substantiate with written documentation, how rotten and historically untenable obsessive nationalism is, in the hope of infusing as many young people as possible with respect for the right to self-determination of every Greek citizen and of every ethnic group that calls itself a minority, as long as the country's laws and territorial integrity are respected.