It is now almost three years since the June 2015 referendum in , and these three years have demonstrated an alarming acceleration of the multiple crises that Europe faces. Nationalism and the far right have rediscovered their power in the streets and parliaments of Europe, in both North and South. Even in the

01/13 contemporary art world, we see the emergence of the alt-right, which audaciously presents itself as revolutionary and progressive, shouting at the top of its lungs about its right to exist.1 đđđđđđđđđđAt the same time, long-delayed, urgent discussions on decolonization in Europe are taking place not only within governments and the mainstream media, but also within museums iLianađFokianaki and the cultural field at large. There has finally been the addition of much-needed voices and positions from outside the Western canon. Redistribution Nonetheless, these voices are usually framed not only by white people but by white logics. via Institutions, biennials, and mega-exhibitions attack colonial pasts, but not presents. They are Appropriation: quick to be politically correct and “host” the Other – while often maintaining an all-white staff, and a clearly rigidly Western approach as to White(washing) how to institute.2 đđđđđđđđđđBefore attempting to address what is to be Marbles done, one must first understand the limitations of the contemporary art institution and the mega-exhibition. These forms fail to escape the mechanisms of power they wish to condemn, since they cling to a notion of “civilization” with roots in modernism that continues to structure particular modes of discourse. đđđđđđđđđđImperialism, nationalism, and capitalism form the corners of a triangle built and sustained to this day by what I call the WWW (White Western Westphalian) order of patriarchy. The three components of the triangle – are in fact communicating vessels that are deeply interconnected – and they define, ignite, sustain, and perpetuate crises. As with most institutions of the capitalist state, the contemporary art institution cannot escape these three components. đđđđđđđđđđIn the center of the triangle lie crises, whether ethical, financial, or democratic. I will look into contemporary art discourse in relation to the three components of the triangle, attempting a reading from the geographical perspective of Greece, in order to explain why

e - f l u x j o r n a # 9 1 — m y 2 0 8 đ i L F k R e d i s t r b u o n v a A p : W h ( w g ) M l this particular country offers a pathway to dismantle the “universal truth” of civilization that the WWW patriarchal order seeks to impose. Greece is unique in that it has been appropriated throughout modernity as the mother of the Western canon – as the country on whose “fantasy” the contemporary WWW order was built.3

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Håvard Bustnes, Golden Dawn Girls, 2017. Film still.đCopyright the director and Upper North Film.

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Image copyright of the author.

05.11.18 / 18:28:14 EDT Imperialism, Nationalism, and Greece: Sousa Santos’s description of “internal Guest Nation from Past to Present colonialisms” in Europe, as well as his distinction The country is currently impoverished; citizens between different kinds of colonizers. Santos and residents feel alienated and betrayed by categorizes colonizers into two groups: core their state and are unwilling to deal with their countries of the continent with a colonial past uncertain present – let alone look toward the that produced their wealth, but which also future. Capitalism and its discontents have led to sustains this wealth today through internal the fierce rise of nationalism within the country. 04/13 colonization of weaker EU members; and semi- The neo-Nazi political party Golden Dawn is peripheral countries like his native Portugal, growing, operating for some as an outlet for which used to be colonizers but are now anger and frustration.4 A recent documentary by financially weak and internally colonized.7 I add filmmaker Håvard Bustnes, titled Golden Dawn here a third category to his useful schema: the Girls, follows the life of three women: a wife, a peripheral countries of Greece and most of the mother, and a daughter of three different Golden Balkans that have no colonial history and sit Dawn members of parliament. “What has largely outside the Catholic/Protestant club. happened to Greece?” wonders Bustnes out loud Their financial weakness and constant lack of at the start of this disturbing documentary. When sovereignty (among other factors) blocks them I asked Bustnes what shocked him the most from becoming core countries.8 while filming these women, he replied: “That đđđđđđđđđđThe creation of the modern Greek state in they believe in the same old conspiracy theories 1832 involved the de facto lack of sovereignty of as the Nazis during the Second World War.”5 the country, when the Great Powers appointed Bustnes demonstrates how the triptych “family, the seventeen-year-old Bavarian Otto as the king religion, country” – (πατρίς, θρησκεία, of the newly founded state. This lack of οἰκογένεια) a favorite slogan of Greece’s independence in state affairs would continue military junta in the 1970s – has shaped the throughout the following centuries: via the rhetoric of Golden Dawn and lured in desperate genocide of Greek minorities in Asia Minor in Greeks.6 This triptych taps into the national 1922, or during the resistance against Nazi identity of “Greekness” as defined and occupation from 1940–44, when the British embedded within Orthodox Christianity and the funded Greek leftist guerrillas to fight Hitler.9 fantasy of an ancient lineage leading back to the Churchill then “gave” Greece to the US so as to golden age of Pericles. It symbolizes strength for halt the spread of communism to the citizens who feel lost, forgotten, or toyed with by Mediterranean, thus causing an extremely the EU – and even more so by their own corrupt bloody civil war (1944–49), considered to be the politicians. first proxy conflict of the Cold War. Remnants of đđđđđđđđđđThis phenomenon is visible across the this conflict still politically divide the country peripheries of Europe. In recent trips to Hungary, today. Social turmoil following the assassination Slovakia, Croatia, Kosovo, and the Czech of progressive politicians by paramilitary forces Republic, through discussions with locals and led to the US installing a dictatorship in Greece colleagues, I traced common factors forming the in 1967, which deepened the divide and created sentiment that has greatly influenced recent the core leaders of today’s Golden Dawn. After elections and the rise of the far right: the reinstatement of democracy in 1974, the unhappiness with the capabilities and functions deals made by Greek politicians to secure a of the governments of these countries, leading to place in the EEC (now the EU) involved shady a desire on the part of many citizens to align with arrangements, extraditions, and “exchange the European ideal of the strong sovereign state. deals,” demonstrating not only a lack of Greek This ideal state is functional and transparent, sovereignty but its true role as a proxy state. provides welfare benefits to its citizens, but Greece’s desire to finally be accepted by the fights off EU “meddling” with its supposed white Western club is encapsulated by Prime sovereignty. The desire for this state results is a Minister ’s infamous simultaneous attachment to a (fictional) national 1976 speech: “Greece politically, defensively, identity, and a resentment towards the Other. economically, culturally, belongs to the West …

This Other is both the “better-off” Other (rich e - f l u x j o r n a # 9 1 — m y 2 0 8 đ i L F k R e d i s t r b u o n v a A p : W h ( w g ) M l Be it traditionally or because of interest, of Northern Europeans) and the disenfranchised course we belong to the Western world.”10 Other (refugees and migrants). The latter of đđđđđđđđđđWhen it comes to the East/West divide, course is the easiest to attack and blame for all Greece has historically only been concerned with the ills of the world. the extent to which it does or does not belong to đđđđđđđđđđWhen examining the European identity the West – meaning there is a denial of any myth, which by default encompasses Christian connections to the East, be that the Middle East, whiteness and the supposed universal of Turkey, or Asia Minor. This is the reason for the civilization, we need to remember Boaventura de phrase “our own East” (ἡ καθ’ ἡμᾶς Ἀνατολή),

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A world map with countries differentiated by color, according to their role in global trade. Countries that constitute the “core” are blue; countries in the “semi- periphery” are purple; and countries in the “periphery” are red. Based on Christopher Chase-Dunn, Yukio Kawano, and Benjamin Brewer, “Trade Globalization since 1795,”đAmerican Sociological Review 65, no. 1 (February 2000).

05.11.18 / 18:28:14 EDT which marks a geographical and cultural break mid-1990s, when diplomatic incidents with both with the East.11 In 1996, Samuel Huntington’s FYROM and Turkey strengthened the presence of book The Clash of Civilizations claimed that Golden Dawn, a then-marginal paramilitary Greece has never belonged to the West because group that slowly gained enough traction to it is predominantly Orthodox Christian.12 The become, in 2015, a political party with majority of Greek intellectuals and politicians representatives in the Greek parliament. rushed to dismiss Huntington’s idea with a nearly đđđđđđđđđđSomehow, the links between Europe’s core existential anxiety, insisting that Greeks do not 06/13 financial countries, their meddling in peripheral belong to the category of otherness. countries, and their influence on what I call the đđđđđđđđđđToday, after a failed referendum and many “Extra States” (the IMF, Troika, etc.) has memorandums, after being ridiculed for not yet remained opaquely addressed or completely becoming civilized enough, European enough, bypassed in recent discourses during and after orderly enough, financially balanced enough, or mega-exhibitions that landed in the city of in fact white enough, contemporary Greece is and elsewhere.15 The last two editions of counterposed to the image of its “ancient Documenta are prime examples; in addition to glory.”13 This ancient glory has proven dangerous the central exhibition in Kassel, the 2012 edition not only in the hands of neo-Nazis, but also in also held a show in Kabul, and the 2017 edition in the hands of the leftist intelligentsia of the EU, Athens. Documenta 14’s approach to Greece’s which has reprimanded Brussels not for relation to modernity and nationalism was imposing policies that violate human and citizen myopic at best.16 Like imperial powers, mega- rights, but for mistreating the “mother of the exhibitions tend to arrive as they please, in European idea.”14 But Greece’s self-image has different permutations in different locations gone through the blender of the West and around the globe, translating local realities for mutated into something alien, to then be the sake of their (curatorial) narratives. Crises redistributed as the ultimate root and example of are sexy, after all. In juxtaposition to these civilization’s “universal truth.” intentions, which are naive and irresponsible at best and dangerous at worst, lies the disenchantment and hostility of locals toward the arrival of these “foreign bodies.” These feelings are not unlike the aforementioned sentiments of contemporary EU nationalist supporters. This charged interaction results from a collision of different interpretations of civilization, rooted in modernity.17 đđđđđđđđđđTo examine these power structures that manifest through the binary of guest and host, it is useful to turn to Jacques Derrida’s neologism “hostipitality,” which might most strongly resonate when considering hospitality and its performance within the societal structures that define citizenship today in Europe, as contoured by the state.18 Within the microcosm of the art world, the same logic exists. With the term he The Elgin Room at the British Museum,đ1937. Copyright: Wikimedia coined, Derrida proposed that hospitality Commons. contradicts its own definition by necessarily entailing hostility: đđđđđđđđđđWe could end our reflections here in the Host Versus Guest, via the European State formalization of a law of hospitality which With Greece’s unsovereign pasts and capitalist violently imposes a contradiction on the very histories in mind, its newfound nationalisms are concept of hospitality in fixing a limit to it, in de- to be expected. This January, Greece’s Syriza termining it: "hospitality is certainly, necessarily, government brought the naming dispute over a right, a duty, an obligation, the greeting of the Macedonia again to the fore of public discussion. foreign other [l’autre étranger] as a friend but on The dispute led to marches that same month in the condition that the host ... remains the patron, the city of Thessaloniki (capital of the prefecture the master of the household ... maintains his own of Greek Macedonia) and later in the capital authority ... and thereby affirms the laws of Athens, against FYROM – the Former Yugoslav hospitality."19 Republic of Macedonia, commonly referred to as đđđđđđđđđđIn European culture, the politics of Macedonia. It is not by chance that this issue has hospitality are usually settled through state resurfaced today, after initially flaring up in the discourses on multiculturalism, where tolerance

05.11.18 / 18:28:14 EDT Gottlieb Bodmer, Portrait of King Otto of Greece, c. 1835.đCopyright: Wikimedia Commons.

05.11.18 / 18:28:14 EDT and inclusivity (or the rather abhorrent WWW order of patriarchy? Could it be retold as a “integration policies” of the 1990s) are story of mimesis? demonstrated via fixed notions of “diversity.”20 đđđđđđđđđđDuring the late period of Greece’s đđđđđđđđđđYet this discourse of multiculturalism colonization by the in the 1800s, remains inhospitable toward behaviors that the WWW patriarchal order started literally operate outside European “superior knowledge.” extracting the “glorious evidence” of the past In the cultural field, and specifically in cultural with which it identified: ancient sculptures, institutions, the mechanism is clear: European 08/13 temples, and artifacts. To protect the objects and and Western cultural hegemony imposes upon keep them safely away from the ignorant and institutions a certain “civilized” way to behave. careless hands of the Greeks, the British and The presentation and discussion of this behavior French transferred them to the truly civilized is undeniably reminiscent of older Western topos of their Empire (the British Museum, the notions of how a civilized host should perform Louvre, etc.). Possibly the most famous example toward an exotic, uncivilized other. The is the case of the Parthenon Marbles, known as overintellectualization of cultural discourse, tied the Elgin Marbles after Thomas Bruce, the into Eurocentric academia, leaves all those who seventh Earl of Elgin. While traveling in Ottoman- are not trained to write and think with excellent occupied Greece, Elgin removed parts of the English skills or advanced knowledge of critical Parthenon frieze, using chain saws, and sent discourse – often the case in Greece, where the them to Great Britain. This activity was framed production of contemporary art discourse and as preservation: redistributing cultural capital critique is minimal – feeling irrelevant.21 throughout Europe as a means of preserving the roots of civilization. Such capital was then Host Versus Guest in Contemporary Art further appropriated, not only via the Unsurprisingly, the Western “universal” canon of proliferation of cultural artifacts in museums but contemporary art always remains the host – also via the development of architecture that setting the rules and terms of discourse – even simulated the same ancient temples from which when it is a guest. Discussions on the columns and statues were plundered. Proof decolonization, de-modernization, and the art of this process can still be widely seen on world’s current obsession (bordering on buildings and museums in London, Berlin, fetishistic) with “the Other” via indigenous Vienna, and Paris – providing a visual connection artists were prevalent at a recent conference between the extraction and mutation of the called “Collection in Transition: Decolonising, political ideals of Ancient Greece by the Western Demodernising and Decentralising” at the Van cultural canon.23 Abbemuseum in Eindhoven.22 At the conference I đđđđđđđđđđMuseums in rich European capitals, was reminded of how Greece embodies the root symbols of the history of Western culture as of all modernity’s evils. In one conference host, were and still are responsible for presentation entitled “Demodern: Why?” Geeta establishing and reaffirming the status of Kapur looked at modernity from the topos of Western culture as a universal truth, igniting the India: “When I say ‘Demodern: Why?’ one needs universal canon of modern and contemporary to understand that this question comes from a art. The painful – and truly absurd – scandal of particular situation, from a particular location … the damage of the Parthenon Marbles by the I speak from India and this is important.” She British Museum in the 1930s stands as the cause then clarified that her position is not a célèbre of this attitude. The marbles retained the nationalistic one, but rather “a plea to reconsider residue of their original bright colors. British situation and location as important historical Museum conservators – somehow unaware that positions that problematize the legacy of Ancient Greeks painted their statues – cleaned modernity,” stating the obvious: there was never the marbles with strong chemicals to make them one modernity as such. Reflecting on my own as white as possible, damaging the artifacts locality, I would like to note that although beyond repair.24 This whitening and Greece’s appropriation throughout modernity as whitewashing – in both a literal and the mother of the Western canon is documented, metaphorical sense – can be seen as a great not much has been said about how its ancient e - f l u x j o r n a # 9 1 — m y 2 0 8 đ i L F k R e d i s t r b u o n v a A p : W h ( w g ) M l performative act of imposing, reconfiguring, and histories have been so consistently mutated and universalizing Western ideology through art.25 translated according to the desires of that order. đđđđđđđđđđ“Redistribution,” a term taken from Could this focus on the appropriated, mutated, economics, serves to explain how this ideology and mistranslated notions of a place and its performs its power. Economist Dennis C. Mueller histories, particularly in the case of Greek describes redistribution as one of the “major antiquity and its culture, provide a way to activities of the state that seems to benefit one deconstruct the very root of the signifiers of the group at the expense of another.”26 One of the Western canon, and unravel the narrative of the main categories of redistribution in economics is

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Alexandra Pirici, Parthenon Marbles, 2017. Workđperformed on the Acropolis Hill in Athens. Commissioned by KADIST and State of Concept Athens, under the auspices of Future Climates.đPhoto: Alexandra Masmanidi.

05.11.18 / 18:28:14 EDT what is widely described as “redistribution as and economic procedures … lead to material taking.” Typically this process entails the removal expropriation and dispossession, and … to a by an agent (in most cases the state, and usually singular experience of subjection characterized by force or with the threat of force) of goods or by the falsification of oneself by the other. What money owned by one person or group, followed flows from this is a state of maximal exteriority by the granting of these goods or money to and ontological impoverishment.”28 Greece, another person or group. This can be done, for together with many other countries of the example, in the form of taxation or recalculation 10/13 European periphery, has provided a grounds for of pensions. We have seen current expropriation in a different but similar way to the manifestations of this in recent governmental contexts Mbembe describes. Its cultural policies in Greece, where, as I write, another cut histories have been employed in order to map out in pensions has been decided, the fourth in the the origins of Western civilization, and its last five years, leaving 40.62 percent of pensions artifacts used to embody the West’s aesthetics in the country at a monthly gross amount of 500 and legacies, while its people have been euros.27 excluded from the superior all-white club. This is đđđđđđđđđđRedistribution as taking also occurs in the a paradigmatic form of cultural appropriation context of culture via the symbolic and through means of redistribution as taking.29 commodity value that cultural production đđđđđđđđđđThis form of appropriation was clearly generates (cultural goods, intellectual property). exposed in spring 2017, when Romanian artist For the purposes of the argument here, I would Alexandra Pirici presented a piece titled like to invite the reader to look at “redistribution Parthenon Marbles in both Paris and Athens. The as taking” as the performative act of a WWW piece was what the artist calls a “living human patriarchal order that expropriates and sculpture,” a choreographed tableau vivant with appropriates goods and property, under the five performers imitating the poses of figures name of preserving and consequently from the Parthenon frieze. The work references redistributing universal truth. Many have offered the Acropolis Museum’s ongoing request for the ways to dismantle this thinking. Achille Mbembe British Museum to repatriate the looted marbles recently highlighted how, in situations of back to Athens. This repatriation has been an colonization, slavery, and apartheid, “juridical active request of the Greek people since the

Kader Attia, The Body's Legacy, P. 1: The Objects, 2018.đSingle channel video projection, 58'21'' minutes, exhibition view The Field of Emotion, The Power Plant, Toronto, 2018, Photo: Tony Hafkenscheid, Courtesy of the artist

05.11.18 / 18:28:14 EDT reinstitution of democracy in the country in 1974. engaging in the efforts for their return. Pirici’s work also involves a textual component, produced in collaboration with curator and writer Geographies of the Other, or How to Victoria Ivanova, which is read out loud by the Dismantle the WWW Order of Patriarchy performers. The text narrates the story of the Notions of whiteness are part of the sinister Parthenon Marbles and uses the notion of the triangle of imperialism-nationalism-capitalism derivative as a tool for identifying concrete and are nearly inextricable from the notion of the socioeconomic advantages when it comes to 11/13 West. Admittedly, the way the West is defined holding prized artifacts (here in the case of the has changed a lot over the years. Scholars such British Museum) and suggests a means for as Martin Lewis and Kären Wigen identify at least redistributing the value generated by the seven different versions of the “West,” and many artifacts through recirculation. In Athens, Pirici could argue for more.31 chose the Acropolis rock as the site for the work, đđđđđđđđđđWhen departing on a quest to define the effectively proposing a performative Western and the white, one needs to take into repatriation.30 account that the notion of “white” carries đđđđđđđđđđPirici’s work is a contemporary testimony to socioeconomic and political weight. The a familiar process that has been occurring propaganda of the WWW order has always globally for more than two hundred years. The counted on including as many countries as infamous case of the Parthenon Marbles in fact possible in the definition of this Western represents hundreds of cases of looted artifacts, whiteness, “modernizing” and “civilizing” them operating as a metaphor and an entry point into a throughout the centuries, via globalization and larger discussion about capital, accumulation, capitalism, but simultaneously exploiting them. circulation, redistribution, and the role of the đđđđđđđđđđNonetheless, a clear trajectory belongs to arts within today’s economies. particular countries that have always been part đđđđđđđđđđArtist Kader Attia has long addressed the of the West, and another trajectory belongs to notion of reparation, particularly through the others that have hopped in and out of the activities of the space La Colonie, which he Western wagon. They are not equally “white.” founded in 2016 in Paris’s 10th arrondissement. From testing the intelligence of immigrants – The space is a home to cross-disciplinary, anti- which was proposed by French psychologists academic, artistic thought and discussions, with Alfred Binet and Théodore Simon and employed a variety of events that focus on art, music, on all Ellis Island immigrants (no matter how critical thinking, and cultural activism. According pale their skin) for a period of time – to Ralph to Attia, its main agenda is to focus on the Waldo Emerson’s distinction between the Irish stories of minorities in an open-ended, inclusive and the “Caucasian Race,” the constructing of way. Attia’s sociocultural research led him to white Western identity has always been a twisted propose the notion of “repair,” which he believes myth costing millions of lives.32 One thing is is a constant in any system, social institution, or clear: whatever defines White Western cultural tradition. The infinite process of repair is Westphalia today, its de facto imposition of a closely linked to loss and wounds, to supposed superiority is certainly to blame for the recuperation and reappropriation. current socioeconomic and political realities of đđđđđđđđđđAttia’s recent two-part film The Body’s Europe and the world. So how could one Legacies (Part 1: The Objects; Part 2: The dismantle the narrative of the WWW patriarchal Postcolonial Body) is an extensive account of order through the spectrum of culture? testimonies by academics, scholars, collectors, đđđđđđđđđđGreece is only one example, but it is unique and museum directors from Canada, the US, in having a particularly perverse idiosyncrasy: Ivory Coast, and many other locations, relating that of having given birth to the WWW patriarchal the histories behind bodies and artifacts from order’s fantasy of superiority. Paradoxically, it the world over. Attia is currently planning on remains the unwanted child of an unwanted conducting more interviews in Athens, looking at union: West and East. In light of all the the case of Greece as another ground of discussions of the colonial past of some expropriation and cultural appropriation. countries in Europe, we need to face the reality

đđđđđđđđđđThrough these two paradigms of practice, e - f l u x j o r n a # 9 1 — m y 2 0 8 đ i L F k R e d i s t r b u o n v a A p : W h ( w g ) M l of the geo-historical positioning of modernity both artists underpin not only the magnitude of and its evolution up to today. injustice linked to cultural heritage (and the đđđđđđđđđđCultural producers need to carefully socioeconomic and political benefits it carries) reconsider the following: How can we decolonize but the need for contemporary institutions to and demodernize the very institutions we work in look at the legacies the modern museum has and with, if we continue to operate under this bequeathed – not simply by facilitating and WWW patriarchal order that has set the rules of presenting questions and discussions on looted the institution itself? How can we decolonize and and dubiously acquired artifacts, but by actively demodernize unless we look into not only the

05.11.18 / 18:28:14 EDT content institutions produce, but also how this đđđđđđ1 my debate with some See, for example, the situation postcolonial thinkers, content is produced: Under what rules? How is it around the LD50 gallery in particularly in Latin America, but translated into discourse? How is it displayed? In London, as recounted by J. J. also in Europe, who think that Charlesworth in his article “The there is just one Europe or just other words, “educating” and “learning” about strange case of the ‘alt-right’ art one Western modernity. I think the Other has sometimes proven uncomfortably gallery,” Art Review, March 3, that the situation shows that 2017 from the very beginning there didactic in recent contemporary art exhibitions. https://artreview.com/opinio has been an internal colonialism n/opinion_3_march_2017_the_s in Europe. This has now become Since their very foundations, most Western trange_case_of_the_alt-right very visible with the financial institutions have stood as concrete 12/13 _gallery/. crisis. In one of my studies, I argue that the Portuguese and reaffirmations of the universal that the WWW đđđđđđ2 the Spanish in the seventeenth patriarchal order imposes. We need to admit that Here I use the verb “institute” in century were described by the reference to Maria Hlavajova’s northern Europeans in the same this order’s gaze still dictates the very way we call for “instituting otherwise." terms that the Portuguese and operate within and outside of cultural lease refer to her talk at CCA the Spaniards attributed to the Singapore “The Making of an indigenous and native peoples in institutions, excluding all other modernities. Institution – Reason to Exist: the New World and Africa. They Instead of tokenizing and whitewashing the The Director’s Review. Instituting were described as lazy, Otherwise” March 22nd, 2017. lascivious, ignorant, histories of cultural artifacts, artworks, and Video soon to be available on the superstitious, and unclean. Such cultural producers by inserting them into the CCA website. descriptions were applied to them by the monks that came “civilized” and “enlightened” environment of the đđđđđđ3 from Germany or to visit Western artistic canon, instead of “giving voice” Of course, the Roman Empire is the monasteries and the people another signifier used by the in the South.” See by presenting and narrating in the name of the WWW order – Ancient Greece http://www.boaventuradesousa Other, it’s time to consider the unspoken being its predecessor. santos.pt/media/Epistemologi es%20of%20the%20south%20and% hypocrisy of those that charitably include all yet đđđđđđ4 20the%20future_Poscolonialit A poll from January 13, 2018 alia_2016.pdf. remain within this existing narrative, forcing the shows that support for Golden Other into a Eurocentric academic description of Dawn has fallen 0.2 percent, but đđđđđđ8 it is still the fourth-largest party Here, “core,” “semi-peripheral,” its otherness, into a Western display method, in parliament, with 6.7 percent and “peripheral” are terms contemporary language, or “artspeak.” If we of the vote. borrowed from world-systems theory and economics. depart from this premise, then the Western đđđđđđ5 mandate for the universal – which has corroded Private conversation with đđđđđđ9 Håvard Bustnes, March 2018. It’s worth recalling Winston our varied and complex cultural histories just as Churchill’s famous phrase: “It is the chemicals corroded the surface of the đđđđđđ6 not Greeks that fight like heroes, The phrase “country, religion, but heroes that fight like Parthenon Marbles – might finally collapse. family” first appeared in 1851 in Greeks.” This was propaganda đđđđđđđđđđ× the writings of the Greek proper, but Churchill shortly theologian Apostolos Makrakis. changed his tune, collaborated Thanks go to: Gabriëlle Schleijpen for the invitation to curate He claimed that in a vision, with the conservative right that “On Guesting,” an installment of the recurring public Christ and the Virgin Mary had formerly worked with the symposium Roaming Assembly, at the Dutch Art Institute in appeared before him to ask for Nazis, and these leftist “heroes” September 2017, which provided ground for the initial notes the salvation of men – especially were exiled to concentration of this essay. To colleagues and friends that offered their Orthodox Greeks, so they could camps on Greek islands, where thoughts and support: Kader Attia, Dora Budor, Håvard strengthen their glorious nation. they were tortured for years, or Bustnes, Angela Dimitrakaki, Galit Eilat, Charles Esche, To do this, said Makrakis, the deported to after being Maria Hlavajova, Victoria Ivanova, Hito Steyerl, Kate Sutton, “Western ideologies” should be denied their passports and rejected and an Orthodox nationality. For the past few Yanis Varoufakis, Hypatia Vourloumis, W.A.G.E., and the Christian state should be years I have been conducting curatorial collective WHW. Most importantly, to my partner, established. From 1880 interviews with the remaining Jonas, for challenging my writing in the most insightful onwards, “country, religion, survivors of this conflict, manner. family” was a common phrase in collecting oral histories and pious Christian circles in Greece, testimonies. See this interesting and by 1936, during the first article on the British dictatorship of , involvement in Greece in The the phrase was widely known. Guardian The colonels of the 1967 https://www.theguardian.com/ dictatorship used the phrase as world/2014/nov/30/athens-194 an official campaign motto, 4-britains-dirty-secret. making it even more popular. Golden Dawn has continued this đđđđđđ10 trajectory. Konstantinos Karamanlis, June 12, 1976, speaking at the Greek đđđđđđ7 parliament on Greece’s entry Santos states in his lecture into the EEC. Video of the “Epistemologies of the South speech (in Greek) can be found and the Future”: “By the at eighteenth century, Portugal was https://www.youtube.com/watc an informal colony of England: it h?v=-51DbXntglI.

e - f l u x j o r n a # 9 1 — m y 2 0 8 đ i L F k R e d i s t r b u o n v a A p : W h ( w g ) M l was an imperial centre that, in financial terms, was dominated đđđđđđ11 by, or subordinated to, the This phrase first appeared in hegemonic control of the British 1842, with the formation of the Empire. In addition, we also “Great Idea” in a text by Markos witnessed a rise of differences Renieris, later the head of the within the ‘Western World.’ first Greek National Bank. Southern Europe became a periphery, subordinated in đđđđđđ12 economic, political, and cultural Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash terms to northern Europe and of Civilizations and the Remaking the core that produced the of World Order (Simon & Enlightenment. This has been Schuster, 1996).

05.11.18 / 18:28:14 EDT academics. They hail from http://www.e-flux.com/journa đđđđđđ13 various disciplines (often l/80/101116/difference-and-s For more information on US referring to themselves as elf-determination/. categorizations of Greeks and “curators”), and they have a other migrant communities in tendency to overestimate and đđđđđđ29 relation to their skin color, see abuse their power. They provide This is what Clelia O. Rodriguez Nell Irvin Painter, The History of dated, dusty academic analyses calls an “appropriation for White People (W.W. Norton & of art, in which they exclusively intellectual masturbation.” See Company, 2010). quote long-dead white Northern https://www.academia.edu/358 European males, reinforcing the 85848/Ethics_After_Defeat_in đđđđđđ14 WWW patriarchal order. _Kaiera_2_Curating_Research_

See, for instance, an interview 13/13 and_the_Political. with Günter Grass from 2012 đđđđđđ22 entitled “Shame Europe!” (in The conference, which was đđđđđđ30 German) organized by L’Internationale, The action took place on April 5, http://www.sueddeutsche.de/k took place on September 22, 2017 in front of the Parthenon on ultur/gedicht-von-guenter-gr 2017. the Acropolis Hill in Athens. ass-zur-griechenland-krise-e uropas-schande-1.1366941. đđđđđđ23 đđđđđđ31 In a cruel historical irony, these Martin W. Lewis and Kären đđđđđđ15 buildings designed to represent Wigen, The Myth of Continents: A Europe’s core financial countries ancient glory were constructed Critique of Metageography heavily influence the decisions by the same hands that had (University of California Press, of the IMF and the Troika, and in been emptied of their cultural 1997). turn the IMF holds power over property by the West. From the them and the EU parliament. The seventeenth to the early đđđđđđ32 private banking sector also twentieth century, cheap Painter, History of White People. holds a great deal of influence in imported labor arrived in relation to all these Extra States Northern Europe from the and their decision-making. The colonies to sustain the wealth of idea of “Extra States” is empires. From the 1950s developed in my upcoming onwards the labor came from curatorial project Extra States: Greece, Turkey, Italy, North and Nations in Liquidation for sub-Saharan Africa, the Eastern Kunsthal Extra City, Antwerp. Bloc, and the Middle East. If one reframes instances of economic đđđđđđ16 “redistribution” as purposeful Please see my previous text co- taking, such expropriation is authored with Yanis Varoufakis clearly in line with longstanding https://conversations.e-flux European policies. .com/t/we-come-bearing-gifts - iliana-fokianaki-and-yanis- đđđđđđ24 varoufakis-on-documenta-14-a For extensive analysis on the thens/6666 1930s cleaning of the Parthenon Marbles, see đđđđđđ17 http://www.britishmuseum.org See María Iñigo Clavo, /about_us/news_and_press/sta “Modernity vs. tements/parthenon_sculptures Epistimodiversity,” e-flux journal /1930s_cleaning/cleaning_the 73 (May 2016) http://www.e- _sculptures.aspx. flux.com/journa l/73/60475/modernity-vs-epis đđđđđđ25 temodiversity/. Among other things, the term “whitewashing” refers to the đđđđđđ18 practice in Hollywood of casting Derrida’s neologism is derived white actors to play the roles of from the merging of “hostility” POC. (Please see definitions on and “hospitality.” For more, see Wikipedia Jacques Derrida, “Foreigner https://en.wikipedia.org/wik Question: Coming from i/Whitewashing_in_film and the Abroad/From the Foreigner,” in Merriam-Webster online Of Hospitality, eds. Mieke Bal dictionary and Hent de Vries (Stanford https://www.merriam-webster. University Press, 2000). com/words-at-play/whitewashi ng-words-were-watching.) I use đđđđđđ19 the term here to indicate the Jacques Derrida, traditional meaning of the term “HOSTIPITALITY,” Angelaki in international English (to cover Journal of Theoretical up and minimize an action) but Humanities 5, no. 3 (December also to address the action of 2000): 3–18. whitening – both literally in the case of the Parthenon Marbles, đđđđđđ20 but also figurative in the For more on European “whitening” of Ancient Greece by integration policies towards the white European order. migrants from 1973 onwards, see J. Doomernik and M. đđđđđđ26 Bruquetas-Callejo, “National Dennis C. Mueller, Reason,

Immigration and Integration Religion, and Democracy e - f l u x j o r n a # 9 1 — m y 2 0 8 đ i L F k R e d i s t r b u o n v a A p : W h ( w g ) M l Policies in Europe Since 1973,” (Cambridge University Press, in Integration Processes and 2009). Policies in Europe, eds. B. Garcés-Mascareñas and R. đđđđđđ27 Penninx (Springer, 2016). Paper published by the Ministry of Labour of Greece, December đđđđđđ21 2017. Apart from the rare appearance of engaging critical discourse in đđđđđđ28 the Greek press and public Achille Mbembe, “Difference sphere, critique in Greece is and Self-Determination,” e-flux usually conducted by male journal 80 (March 2017)

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