Report from Greece

Reprinted fro~ THE AMERICAN Scuo~, Volume 119, Number 11, Summer, 1970 Copynght@ 1970 by the Umted Chapters of Phi Beta Kappa. REPORT FROM GREECE Under the Junta NICHOLAS GAGE and EUAS KULUKUNDIS The hold of Greece's military dictator arrested for insulting a representative of ship on the average Greek citizen might the regime, condemning the coup or other be compared to the effect of a choke col such offenses. But they have been held lar on a dog. The colonels hold the leash only briefly and then released. In one vil carefully-the repression, the controls are lage in the northwest corner of the coun there-but the leash is so long that it is try, for example, a merchant was arrested not felt until someone forgets and steps for calling the new junta-appointed mon too far, and is brought to the realization arch of the province a thief, in the heat of that the initiative for his actions is not his a debate with fellow villagers. He was own. arrested, imprisoned for a month and The regime has an unusually good sense then tried and acquitted. The purpose of of when to pull and when to give rein. such arrests is to cut off open criticism At the funeral of the late Premier George by making the threat of imprisonment Papandreou, the junta did not use its real in every village. People are made an full police power to scatter the huge example of, and then freed to create the crowd that had gathered. Had it done so, impression that the regime is not arbitrary it probably would have caused further and oppressive but capable of compas demonstrations that would have been sion and even justice. These arrests are hard to put down. But when some news also used by the colonels to dramatize the papers tried a little criticism of the regime difference between them and the Com after direct censorship was lifted recently, munists. In many of the same villages dur the colonels made sure the papers never ing the Greek civil war of 1946-49, Com reached the countryside. munist guerrillas executed as many as a The colonels have gone to great lengths dozen people for criticizing them or their to make it clear that they will not tolerate methods. (All told 57,383 Greek civilians open opposition to their rule, . but they were killed by the guerrillas and 684,6o7 have been careful not to make such lessons driven from their homes.) In the village so painful or so dramatic that they incite where the merchant was arrested, the even greater opposition. In a number of Communists in 1948 publicly executed five areas in the provinces, people have been persons, including two women, and piled their bodies in a gully. ln comparison, the 0 NICHOLAS GAGE is a journalist whose junta's treatment of the merchant did not work has appeared in the New Y()Tk Times seem oppressive to his fellow villagers, but Magazine, the Atlantic and the New Leader. He rather restrained. One said, "I would rather was born in Greece, but he is an American citi have the junta for a hundred years than to zen and was educated here. He is currently writ have those bastards back for one day." ing a book on Greece. ELIAS KULUKUNDIS, an American citizen, currently resides in Lon Knowing the depth of such feelings, the don. His father-in-law, George Mylonas, was colonels still maintain in the villages that minister of education in the Papandreou gov their intervention on April 21, 1967, kept ernment. Mr. Kulukundis is the author of The Greece from falling to the Communists, Feasts of Memory. although in the cities they find it hard to 475 THE AMERICAN SCHOLAR justify such a line, and now say that they tiny (population 154) Cretan village of saved the country from political chaos. Aghia Paraskevi, and Nikolaos Makar It is in the villages of Greece that the ezos, the minister of coordination, comes junta enjoys its strongest public support, from a village in the Peloponnesus called and for good reasons. The governments Gravia, which has a comparatively large that ran Greece before the coup concen population of 613 people. In such vil trated on developing and expanding the lages women do not smoke, wear makeup cities, neglecting the villages on the theory or speak to a man who is not a close that most Greeks were leaving them for relative except to say good morning or metropolitan areas anyway. The junta has good evening. The colonels still hold gone to some pains to redress this im tightly to many of the values they knew balance. It increased pensions for agri in such villages, and Greeks still living in cultural workers, which were the lowest the countryside admire them for it. in Greece. It cancelled the outstanding Despite attitudes in the rural areas, loans of all farmers, a move highly criti however, the regime is strongly opposed cized by economists but roundly applauded by large numbers of Greeks in the cities in the countryside. It accelerated pro and on the islands. It is in the cities that grams of electrification and road construc the damage dorte by 1:he colonels has tion. Plans are underway, for instance, to been felt most. Greeks in Athens and other build the longest highway in Greece cities were moving rapidly toward a Euro across the rural northern section of the pean life-style and standard of living. But country. The highway will stretch from the colonels have slowed the movement Igoumenitsa on the Ionian Sea to the down and in some cases stopped it al Turkish border in Thrace. Economists together. The slowdown of the economy have argued that there is not enough and the drop in tourism that followed movement in this area to justify the $150 their arrival has lowered the incomes of million that will be spent on the road, many Greeks by as much as thirty percent. but the junta seems determined to go In addition, thousands of people have been ahead with the project. dismissed from their jobs because they There is another, perhaps equally sig were considered unfriendly to the regime. nificant, reason the colonels are strongly The regime's harassment of artists and supported in the villages. They were born writers has stunted cultural life in the and brought up in isolated villages and country and aroused a great deal of contro the puritanical measures they have tried versy. Almost all o£ the plays produced in to enforce throughout Greece epitomize Athens last season were revivals or im the values of such villages. The colonels ports and there have not been any sig may seem old-fashioned and foolish to ur nificant books published in Greece since the ban Greeks when they are expounding on colonels seized power. Because of the such evils as miniskirts and beards or such reputation of the junta abroad, there has virtues as church attendance every Sun been little cultural communication with day, but they appear strong and wise to the rest of Europe. The Athens Festival, rural Greeks. "The closest analogy to the which has featured some of the best per kind of people the colonels come from is formers in the world in past summers, the poor whites in America who support did not boast one major name last year. George Wallace," says an American edu Aristotle Onassis tried to persuade Mar cator who has lived in Greece for many got Fonteyn and Rudolf Nureyev to per years. Premier Papadopoulos, who grew form at the festival, and their appearance up in a small Peloponnesian village which was widely publicized in advance, but now has a population of 280 people, is they thought it over and declined. considered upper-class by the other officers Continued censorship of the press in who staged the coup because his father Greece constantly frustrates this nation was the village schoolteacher. Stylianos of insatiable newspaper readers. "The Patakos, the deputy premier, is from the newspapers were hardly objective before R.EPOR.T FROM GREECE: UNDER THE JUNTA the coup," says a hotel manager in Rhodes, list and said: "The big thing is about the "but at least you had the freedom to choose attack in Beirut. The censor said we must what lies you read. Now it is all one lie." riot mention that it was in retaliation for Circulation of Greek newspapers is at the attack at our airport." sixty percent of the level before the coup. "There must be some mistake," the Six papers stopped publishing after the editor said. "We can't run a story about takeover; the crypto-Communist ones an attack and not give the reason for it. were banned and the publishers of the He must mean they don't want us to others refused to publish under censor emphasize the shooting at our airport. ship. Call him back and ask him to repeat the On October S· tg6g, the junta an instructions, please." The assistant left nounced with great fanfare that it was the room and returned a few minutes later. lifting press censorship. At the same time, "I had it right the first time, and he wasn't however, it handed editors a long list of too happy I called back," he said. "As forbidden subjects that in effect kept press far as we are concerned there has never control almost as tight as before. The re been an attack of any kind at our air gime has published a code of 101 articles port.

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