I just finished reading "The Byzantine Republic", a wonderful book by historian Anthony Kaldellis. In the book the author argues that "Byzantium" should be viewed as the continuation of Rome, and indeed that the republican polity of Rome survived in the politics and life of Constantinople as well as the...
Category: Planet Greece
A short film about austerity Greece
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s2d8BSxDepw] Garbage Alchemists describes the life of four creative designers, architects and sculptors in Thessaloniki, Greece who formed a company called "Scoopa". They dig into garbage and pick things that they transform("upcycle") into designer objects. The film was written and researched by George Zarkadakis and directed by Kyriakos Bouyouris for...
Greece and Europe: a troubled relationship
http://www.slideshare.net/zarkadakis/greece-and-europe On March 25th 2013 I was invited at the Catholic University of Lille to give a lecture on Greece and Europe (see my slides above). My lecture explored some of the ideas in my Washington Post article. March 25th is Greece's National Holiday commemorating the Uprising against the Ottoman...
Amoral Familism: my experiences, and travails, living on a Greek island for a year
Kithira is a beautiful Greek island half way between the Peloponnese and Crete. It's big, almost the size of Malta, but with a sparse population nowadays of barely 3,000 souls. For the better part of the Middle Ages and until the Napoleonic Wars Kithira was part of the Venetian Republic....
Spoiled child goes to the market: two conflicting narratives about the fall of Greece
Are the Greeks the victims of unjust circumstances, or are they sinners for whom paytime is justly at hand? The international discourse about Greece has been debating this question since the beginning of the Greek crisis in 2009. Most economists generally focus on the inherent errors of the euro to...
The inexorable rescue of Greece
When the Roman armies of Julius Caesar and Pompey met in 48 BC near the Greek city of Pharsala the Athenians made the mistake to side with Pompey. Following Pompey’s crushing defeat Caesar advanced his legions towards Athens where he was met by a citizen delegation who pleaded to him...
The positive side of the Greek elections
Last night (6/4/12) the political system of Greece since the restoration of democracy in 1974 collapsed. The two dominant political parties, centre-right New Democracy and centre-Left Pasok, were thrashed by the electorate. The liberals, split in two tiny parties, did not manage to enter Parliament. The big victors were the...
How to fix a “communist” country (Greece)
The latest bailout for Greece is one more product of the prevailing philosophy among EU governments: austerity measures in return for bail-out money. Strongly influenced by the IMF’s prime tenant, bailouts such as these protect primarily the interests of bond investors by transferring costs to societies and citizens. This makes...
A new Greece is born
Lector caveat: this is a fantasy tale. After one hundred and eighty years of pointlessly trying to emulate a western-type state, Greeks decide to face up to their true cultural facts. They are not children of the European Enlightenment, or the Renaissance. Nevertheless, they are democratic and communal. So in...
Some further comments on my article in The Washington Post
What has been happening with Greece over the past several months is not of significance to Greeks only.Greece is the canary in the mine; the metaphorical mine being in this case the European Union. Greece is dying because the European, social-democratic welfare state is falling apart.Greece is the first victim...