In these large multinational financial institutions there are a myriad of ethnic groups eagerly working away trying to meet their deadlines. However, depending on the historical legacy and current location of the company will depend which voices tend to predominate. For example, if the financial institution is located in Sydney it is likely to be dominated by Australians; although, this is not guaranteed. If one is working for an American headquartered corporation located in Sydney then there is likely to be a smattering of Americans on secondment. If one is working for a Swiss or German corporation one is likely to hear Germanic accents around the office. If one is working for a British financial institution one is likely to hear many English voices. It appears the Irish and Chinese are ubiquitous in all these organisations no matter where they are located.

The result of this Babylonian work environment is that no one really expresses any serious political thought. In fact, by expressing political thought employees are in danger of contravening company policy or the legislation of the jurisdiction in which the company is located because any political thought may be deemed to be offensive to one of the many ethnic groups which populate these financial institutions. For example, one would not dare show strong support for the Palestinian cause because that may cause offence to some which could be construed as racist. Of course, fashionable causes are acceptable such as freedom in Tibet; particularly, when China is a market the corporation wants to enter, whereby political activism softens the ground. This does not preclude the ethnic groups in these corporations clearly displaying their ethnic origin. But this is done via benign means such as football teams or reference to the medal table of the Olympic Games. Perhaps, there may be some ethnic jokes. But again they are always benign.

References to history are also severely frowned upon. History is an impediment to doing more business. It can also impede the search for "talent".  Greek concerns over the use of the name Macedonia is seen as trivial and arcane compared to next year's earnings announcement.   

Therefore, because we are told that competition in the world of finance is so fierce, and that working for these companies is such a joy, no one dares to utter a serious political thought or make reference to history due to the potentially adverse consequences. Any grievances are hidden away and forgotten. People are made mute. Loyalty is switched from one's nation, culture and history to the corporation and its objectives. No one is to rebel against Pax Americana. This is strict monotheism. Profit is the only God.

Postscript: another interesting phenomenon is that many of the workers eat their breakfast cereal at their desk. Obviously, they do not have the time to sit down with their families to eat breakfast and perhaps skim the newspaper in the morning. This is another sign, along with corporate social gatherings and sporting events, of the encroachment of work into our private lives. Perhaps sleeping in the office on an expandable mattress, which is kept underneath the desk next to the hard drive, is the next step on our road to the Pax Americana.

- Panajotis Kondylis

Following the fall of the Berlin Wall Francis Fukuyama, author of the The End of History and the Last Man, argued that the progression of human history as a struggle between ideologies was finished, with the world settling on liberal democracy. Of course, Fukuyama, who later became a sniveling court philosopher for the Neoconservatives, really meant that the United States and its ideas were to reign unchallenged for ever more. Not surprisingly, many Anglo-American commentators fell in lockstep with Fukuyama’s triumphalism, indicative of their lack of intellectual honesty and courage, mostly due to their appropriation by corporate and military forces.

Meanwhile, in Germany and Greece, Panajotis Kondylis, philosopher and historian of ideas, a largely independent scholar, was writing a series of books which described a world radically different from that described by the mandarins in the Anglo-American world - a world of increasing global strife. This world has now largely come into being.

Kondylis’s style was highly abstract and covered such topics as the Enlightenment, Conservatism, war, bourgeoisie thought, metaphysics and more. His main influences were Heraclitus, Thucydides, Aristotle, Niccolò Machiavelli, Thomas Hobbes, Carl von Clausewitz and Max Weber, Karl Marx, Friedrich Nietzsche, Max Weber and Carl Schmitt. He wrote in German and Greek. It is interesting, that like his compatriot Cornelius Castoriadis, Kondylis began intellectual life as a Marxist, but rapidly shed his youthful infatuation; even more rapidly than Castoriadis, towards a largely non-ideological position.

One of Kondylis's main concerns were changing power relations and the way these relations were driven by acts of human will. In one of Kondylis's most famous books, Power and Decision, he claims that all human ideologies, perceptions and beliefs are nothing more than an effort to give personal interests a normative form and an objective character, deriving from the existential "decision" on the means that should be used, developing or adapting a distinction of true/false, good/bad, friend/enemy, in a Hobbesian struggle for self-preservation and power. Ideologies are nothing more than a part of a personal "world-construction" which is a subjective view of the world deriving from the Nietzchean desire to increase power and Hobbesian survival instincts. Ideology in general is used as a weapon in the never-ending succession of confrontations between human wills for claims of "power" and self-preservation.

For example, during the height of the Fukuyama hysteria, if one criticized American and EU plans for the Balkans they were called a disbeliever in human rights, authoritarian, reactionary, anti-democratic, a Marxist, a nationalist, a Fascist, anti-Islamic and much more. The Serbs and other intransigent groups were established as the enemy despite the fact that their way of life had more in common with Americans than Bosnian and Albanian muslims. Older rules of discourse were made obsolete by political correctness.

However, according to the Kondylis framework, behind the rhetoric about freedom and democracy was simply another claim for power and self preservation by mostly Anglo-American elites. For example, human rights activists, usually conjoined to the US State Department, had carte blanche in the Balkans, backed up by American military power. But Serbs had little opportunity to influence American policy on the death penalty. Kondylis saw the thought constructs of Anglo-American intellectual discourse, following the release of Fukuyama's book and American rise to hegemony, as just another drive for power.  There was really no truth in their claims, but an assertion that the world had come to settle on some sort of Pax Americana in order to further their own interests.

Kondylis died 1998 because of medical error in a Greek hospital; he had no family of his own and was not married.

-Royal Decree of February 23, 1835

Often it is said the laws of most Mediterranean countries are very strong, but it is the policing of those laws which results in the rampant corruption that is so often reported. Another interesting feature is the continuity, despite numerous invasions and occupations, of civil laws and certain criminal and commercial laws, dating back to Antiquity, with a part of this continuity attributable to the occupiers adopting the same laws, as the occupied.

The Hexabiblos ("Six Books") was written in 1345 (a little more than 100 years before the final destruction of the Byzantine Empire) by Konstantinos Armenopoulos, then a universal judge of Thessaloniki (an office which corresponds to that of Chief Justice of the Court of Appeals today) and later Professor at the School of Law of Constantinople and Justice at the four-member Supreme Court of the Empire.

The Hexabiblos was a simple compilation, making previous Greek and Roman criminal and civil laws easily accessible, and accompanied by two prefaces by Armenopoulos. This was something that happened for the first time in Byzantium. Perhaps this was one of the reasons why it was translated into many languages of neighbouring peoples and formed the basis of the civil law of the Greeks not only during the period of Turkish rule but also in the modern Greek state until the new Civil Code and took effect in 1946; amazingly, amidst the mayhem of the Greek Civil War.

After the foundation of the modern Greek State, in 1822, the first revolutionary assembly adopted a constitution modelled on the French Declaration of Human Rights. This constitution as well as the second revolutionary constitution, adopted in 1823, designated “the law of our ever-memorable Byzantine Emperors” as the main source of Greek civil law.

However, during the formation of the third constitution finally adopted in 1827, many people expressed a desire for all future codes to be based on French models. The influence of French legislation preceded the revolution, where parts of the French commercial code of 1804 were in use among Greek merchants and a Greek criminal code of 1823. However, the adoption of French models was confined to these two codes only. The first Governor of the newly established Greek State, Ioannis Capodistrias, from all accounts an incredibly far sighted man from Kerkyra (Corfu), who was also responsible for the construction of the Swiss Constitution, clearly disregarded other directives, and designated the Byzantine laws as the source of Greek civil law. In 1830, he announced his plan for collecting and classifying all Byzantine laws in an orderly fashion. Sadly, his work was never accomplished due to his assasination.

Thereafter, under King Otho, the Commercial, Criminal codes and Civil, Criminal procedures based on French and Bavarian models were drafted. A civil code was not drafted. Fortunately, the jurists at that time were adherents of the German historical school of jurisprudence, a movement borne out of the ideas of Johann Gottfried von Herder, which had as an aim that native institutions and ideas of law should prevail at least with regard to civil law. Accordingly, they started collecting local customs and current interpretations of Byzantine laws that were regarded as manifesting in the spirit of the people.

Subsequently, a Royal Decree of 1835 declared that “the civil laws of the Byzantine emperors contained in the Hexabiblos of Armenopoulos shall remain in force till the promulgation of the civil code whose drafting we have already ordered” and that “customs, sanctioned by long and uninterrupted use or by judicial decisions, shall have the force of law wherever they prevail.” This decree became the cornerstone of civil law in Greece during the next hundred years.

A new five-member committee of Greeks was appointed to the task of codifying a new set of civil laws in 1930. This committee published a series of drafts up to 1937. The project was successful and resulted in the passage of the Civil Code of 1940 and implementation in 1946. The backbone of this code was Byzantine law; therefore, ancient national Greek tradition was dressed in modern clothes. Since 1946 the only major reforms have been family law.

The Library is generally thought to have been founded at the beginning of the 3rd century BC during the reign of the Greek king Ptolemy II of Egypt. According to some sources the Library was initially organized by Demetrius of Phaleron, a student of Aristotle. A famous inscription was carved into the wall above the shelves: The Place of the Cure of the Soul.

The Library was the largest library in the ancient world. Ptolemy II is said to have decided upon 500,000 scrolls as an objective. Regardless of its size, the Library contained a large part of the accrued knowledge of the ancient world. It was an enormous treasure house which made its destruction all the more painful.

Fifteen hundred years later a similar phenomenon is occurring in Greece where a spate of arson attacks on bookstores continues. Just a few weeks ago there was an attack on Pelasgos in Thessaloniki and another attack (apparently there have been over 10 attacks) against Neas Thesis. Neas Thesis stocks classical Greek and Roman texts and secondary literature of classical texts. Last Saturday, the nearby Eleftheri Skepsi (Free Thought), which stocked a similar range of books, was attacked by arsonists.

In addition to these attacks, one of Adonis Georgiadis’s (a member of political party LA.O.S) bookstores (he is also a publisher) previously located in the Exarcheia district of Athens has been targeted and burnt several times by unidentified persons. It has been said that Georgiadis, who sells Greek classics at steep discounts, has been able to bring these books to households that previously only read sports dailies. Georgiades has since moved this bookstore. Nevertheless, a different bookstore of the same publisher was targeted in early 2007, the eighth attack against bookstores of Ekdoseis Georgiadi. Again, these bookstores mostly sell copies of ancient texts by such luminaries such as Plato, Aristotle, Plutarch, Epictetus and Plotinus.

The arsonists are suspected to be anarchists with links to the radical Left party SYRIZA led by Alekos Alavanos and his pimple faced toy boy Alexis Tsipras. In fact, SYRIZA newspapers such as Avgis (Dawn) have openly condoned the attacks. One of the reasons some people have given for the arson attacks has been that Nea Thesis and Georgiades sell books by controversial Greek author Konstantinos Plevris and some others which are said to incite racial hatred. We should note there have been no reported attacks on Jews and Jewish property caused by the recent publication Plevris’s book on Jews. Georgiades has countered that he sells these books like other Greek bookstores including the large chain store Eleftheroudakis. He has stated he disagrees with their content.

The issue of inciting racial hatred or hate speech is very controversial. For example, there is considerable hate speech in the Torah and Talmud sometimes directed towards Greeks/Romans. There is also considerable hate speech in the Septuagint, New Testament and the Koran. Therefore, should activists also burn down Christian, Jewish and Muslim bookstores just to balance the ledger? There is also considerable hate speech against Greece and the Orthodox Church in SYRIZA affiliated bookstores. Should activists burn those down as well? Indeed, probably one of the most inciteful hate books of all time, Meinkampf written by Adolf Hitler, is stocked by Amazon which can be found here. Should activists burn down Amazon? And the Communist Manifesto by Marx and Engels, which gruesomely incites violence against the bourgeoise and which indirectly has resulted in the deaths of millions of people around the world is also stocked by Amazon which can be found here.

In addition, if people do not like Plevris’s books, then rather than burn down bookstores that sell his books they should perhaps write books that refute his arguments, that is assuming the attackers and their patrons have the intellectual capability to write complex arguments and refutations. Some other people have even suggested that books on ancient Greece are Fascist in essence. Ignoring how ridiculous these claims are, should activists burn down the classical libraries of Cambridge, Oxford, Sorbonne and Harvard?

Regardless of whether the some of the books "incite racial hatred" or are "Fascist", there is no justification for anti-democratic arson attacks which can potentially degrade civic democratic culture.

As the Greeks had realised in Antiquity the transmission of knowledge and ideas via the written word is one of the cornerstones of the civilised world. The Greeks believed that education or more accurately paideia allows one to partake in the Divine Mind. It is ironic that the anarchists, whose arguments are increasingly incomprehensible, are destroying the very books which may help them to better articulate their position.

Although it is doubtful Downer even knows where the island is located, some believe Downer may be more sympathetic to Greek interests. He hails from Adelaide which has a strong and active Greek community. In addition, Australia’s Greek community dwarfs the Turkish community. However, offsetting factors are that Downer represents a very Anglo electorate in Adelaide. And he was part of the Howard government which was in cahoots with George Bush and the American neoconservatives in their Mesopotamian misadventure. These same neoconservatives tried to subvert the democratic process when Greek Cypriots were asked to vote in a referendum on the criminal Annan Plan. Since then they have also shown scant sympathy to Greek national interests on the island of Cyprus and everywhere else.

In addition, we should not forget Australia’s growing Philoturkism which most acutely manifests itself during ANZAC Day celebrations which commemorates the efforts of the Australian and New Zealand armies at the request of their English overlords at that time to defeat the Turks at Gallipoli during WWI. It was also during this time that the Ottoman Turkish campaign to exterminate the Armenian Christians went into overdrive. Their pogroms against the Greek and Assyrian Christians were also being implemented. One could argue that Australia is too closely associating itself with a criminal regime of history and a modern regime that refuses to concede its past horrors.

More broadly, Stefanos Evripidou from the Cyprus Mail writes that “a number of European leaders have reservations over Downer’s appointment, given his perceived reputation for being strongly opinionated and averse to minute details”. With Downer acting as intoculator it looks like the obstacles for Christofias and Talat will continue to mount.

Pareto was born in Paris in 1848 of mixed Italian-French ancestry. He was educated in France and Italy; ultimately completing his degree in engineering at the Istituto Politecnico of Turin. He initially worked as a civil engineer but then became interested in economics and politics. Pareto gave private lectures; increasingly attracted controversy. Pareto then retired from active political life and was appointed Professor of Political Economy at the University of Lausanne in 1893. There he established his reputation as a sociologist. He wrote his monumental Treatise on General Sociology, and two smaller volumes, The Rise and Fall of the Elites and The Transformation of Democracy.

A lifelong opponent of Marxism and liberal egalitarianism, Pareto also published a broadside The Socialist Systems aimed against the Marxist-liberal worldview in 1902. Apparently, Lenin lost many nights sleep after reading it. Not surprisingly, in our age saturated with cultural Marxism, this book has not been published in its entirety in English. This is unfortunate because it provides early insights into the failings of our decadent age. For example, Pareto writes:

"A sign which almost invariably presages the decadence of an aristocracy is the intrusion of humanitarian feelings and of affected sentimentalizing which render the aristocracy incapable of defending its position”

Most of the Greek and European elite (present day aristocracy) who very often work together with pseudo human rights activists such as the one found here (the Robert Mugabe of Greek blogging) have succumbed to this sort of sentimentalising. For example, they will show a picture of a poor Kurdish illegal refugee child stranded in Athens or a refugee detention centre on the north Aegean filled with illegal refugees. Invariably, they are attempting to use shallow sentiment and emotion to replace robust rational argument as the method of decision making on issues of national importance. If anyone disagrees with their sentiments, they are branded names or use more sentiment and emotion, rather than engaging in a sensible but vigorous argument. As Pareto alludes to above sentimentalising makes the aristocracy incapable of defending its position 

But despite the empathy we all have for the plight of illegal immigrants, sentiment and emotion should not override serious strategic analysis of the long term deleterious impact of higher illegal migration. The problem is that sentiments, emotions and feelings are different for everyone – there can be no common ground reached because we all react differently towards issues. Sentiments cannot be proven true or false and/or valid or invalid. They are independent of truth.

In contrast, using rational argumentation we can attempt to reach a position which can be mutually agreeable and applied uniformly. The argument can be proven valid or invalid. Of course, sentiment and emotion are part of decision making; particularly in deriving presuppositions and assumptions, but they should not be the only factor.

In addition, sentiment and emotion should be applied more evenly. For example, we often hear about the plight of illegal immigrants and refugees, but we rarely hear about the dangers to national culture. Usually, this is because our sentiments and emotions are more easily aroused for the immediate problems with a human face rather than for problems which will come to fruition in 10 or 20 years time which have more serious consequences. This inability to connect emotionally to problems in the long term future also stops us from developing long term solutions for illegal immigrants themselves. We place all of our energies in housing and feeding illegal immigrants today rather than developing plans to help them stay in their country with their family and community and contribute positively to the development of their nation.

Pareto has a propensity to see things how they really are. He also has this to say:

"When a living creature loses the sentiments which, in given circumstances are necessary to it in order to maintain the struggle for life, this is a certain sign of degeneration, for the absence of these sentiments will, sooner or later, entail the extinction of the species. The living creature which shrinks from giving blow for blow and from shedding its adversary's blood thereby puts itself at the mercy of this adversary”

The ideological foundations of the Greek elite’s rapprochement with long time adversary Turkey, despite the complete lack of reciprocity by Turkey and the machinations of the United States, provides a perfect example of the sentimentalising softness alluded to by Pareto. The Greek elite continue to assume that the Turks will make reference to the same humanistic sentiments as they do resulting in a Utopia of hand holding across the Aegean and Asia Minor. However, reality continues to prove them wrong, and with time, the opportunities for gaining any strategic advantage continue to diminish.

But this complete ignorance of reality is not surprising. The Greek elite have swallowed wholeheartedly or have been bludgeoned by concepts of “soft power” and disciplines such as conflict resolution and peace studies which impede the identification of the looming problems ahead.

Pareto goes on:

"Any elite which is not prepared to join in battle to defend its position is in full decadence, and all that is left to it is to give way to another elite having the virile qualities it lacks. It is pure day-dreaming to imagine that the humanitarian principles it may have proclaimed will be applied to it: its vanquishers will stun it with the implacable cry, 'Vae Victis.'

All over Europe and Greece the elites happily go about their business believing that their values are equally respected by the hordes of people entering their countries. They are oblivious to the fact that their own sentimentalising assumptions are not the ones held by the hordes. Inevitably, they are sowing the seeds of their own destruction.

“The knife of the guillotine was being sharpened in the shadows when, at the end of the eighteenth century, the ruling classes in France were engrossed in developing their 'sensibility.' This idle and frivolous society, living like a parasite off the country, discoursed at its elegant supper parties of delivering the world from superstition, all unsuspecting that it was itself going to be crushed."

It is no wonder Pareto is not on academic sociology reading lists.

Its most famous rendition is the one sung by young Spaniard, Remedios Silva Pisa for French director Tony Gaitlif’s cinematic effort, Vengo. The song featured during the opening credits which can be heard here. The song also featured during an important scene in the movie which can be seen here. The singer Remedios Silva Pisa was plucked out of obscurity when she was only 16.

Another notable cover version of this song was made by Israeli singer, Yasmin Levy which can be heard here. And another version can be heard here by Talya G.A. Solan performing live with the Israeli Ethnic Ensemble. There have also been dance remixes of her version of the song. As far as we can tell there has also been Turkish, Italian and Arabic cover versions of this song.

The Greeks have also covered this song extensively. Paschalis Terzis can be seen performing the song live here. Whilst the brilliant clarinet player Vassilis Saleas can be seen performing the song here. Finally, we have the truly abominable hip hop influenced version by Greek Fame Story contestant, Foteini performing it here.

Actually, the Greeks have an affinity with this song because the song and lyrics were originally written by a Greek, Dionysis Tsaknis in 1986, and sung by George Katsaris. Here is a rendition that is relatively close to the original by Yiannis Koutras. Unfortunately, the idiotic Thanos Mikroutsikos also features in this version.

One of the better Greek renditions was by Eleni Vitali. She has some Gypsy background. The exceptional Manolis Lidakis has also covered the song on his recent Strictly Laika CD. And of course, George Dalaras also covered the song. In fact, George Dalaras has covered every song that has ever been written since the beginning of time.

Aesthetically, traditional negative Gypsy stereotypes in art and literature such as the Bizet’s racy Carmen, colourful gypsy caravans, flamenco dancers, wild gypsy music, the sinister fortune-teller, the thief or the work-shy vagabond have in some cases become positive stereotypes in recent times. There is even a fashion trend called Gypsy Chic. However, maybe there is something deeper going on here which is making Balamos or Naci en Alamo such a popular song. Perhaps it is just European guilt culture. Or perhaps it is something else. For example,  the verses of the song are interesting in that they recognise the singer has no place, no fatherland. Alarmingly, the singer also has no hope:

“I have no place, I have no hope,

No fatherland will miss me”

As for the chorus it is kind of untranslatable, being sung in some apparent Greek Romany dialect.

Maybe globalisation and increased mobility has made us Gypsies of some sort; with the song becoming something of a cult anthem for  our increasingly deracinated ontology. Even that doyen of globalisation, The Economist, featured a set of articles somewhat related to the gypsy fetish alluded to above on what they call the “New Nomadism” or Homo Mobilis or even more ridiculous Techno-Bedouins. It can be found here. Fortunately, the special feature mentions the potential dangers of nomadism such as the degradation of language, communication and human relationships.

Undoubtedly, civilisation began and was fostered when nomads settled in one fixed location and created Kulturvolk. Physical and mental place is essential to identity formation. Without place we cannot orientate ourselves to somewhere or from somewhere because that somewhere is everywhere and nowhere. We end up in confusion. More concretely, why would anyone relate to squalid living conditions, high rates of crime, low educational attainment, alcohol and drug abuse and misogyny.

Directed by Fred Zinnemann in 1952, High Noon begins with Will Kane played by Gary Cooper, the longtime Marshal of Hadleyville, Kansas, having just married Quaker Amy played by Grace Kelly. Following their marriage Kane has decided to turn in his badge, and is preparing to leave the town and become a storekeeper. Shortly after, the people of Hadleyville learn that Frank Miller, a criminal Kane had previously brought to justice - but recently pardoned - is due to arrive on the train at noon. Miller had vowed to get revenge on Kane. Miller has also assembled three gang members. Hoping to defuse the situation the worried townspeople encourage Kane to leave.

Kane and his newlywed do leave the town but Kane suddenly has a crisis of conscience and turns back. He reclaims his badge and tries to get help. But no one is willing to get involved. Then his wife threatens to leave on the train with or without him but he refuses to give in.

In many respects High Noon resembles (and was probably inspired) by a certain section of the Iliad written by Homer. Andromache, the Trojan warrior Hector’s wife, realises that he is fated to fight the great Achaean warrior Achilles. Andromache understandably wants to hold Hector back from the battle to keep him in her secure world with their child. However, Hector will have none of it. Hector says he would not be able to face his people if he refused to fight,  seek glory and immortality. Like all good warriors Hector must do what he must.

However, this is where the similarities between High Noon the Iliad end.

In High Noon, Kane faces the gang alone. He guns down two of Miller's men; although, he is also wounded. Amy returns when she hears the sound of gunfire. She then overrides her pacifist religious beliefs and kills the third gunman. Miller then takes her hostage and offers to trade her for Kane. Kane agrees but Amy scratches Miller freeing herself. Kane then shoots and kills Miller. Kane then leaves town with his wife happily ever after.

In contrast to High Noon, Hector goes to meet Achilles, is slaughtered in a tumultuous battle and is horribly dragged around until Priam, Hector’s father and the King of Troy, comes to take the corpse for a proper burial. The crucial point is that Hector’s death is the whole point; whereas Kane does not die. He is even reconciled with Amy.

The heroic life is a constant pursuit of arete - an almost untranslatable word meaning virtue, excellence, power, courage and nobility. However, the Greek readers of Homer, rather than American viewers of High Noon, are left pondering the dilemma of the hero and their heroic code - a code which gives the hero wealth and status - but tragically leads him to death. There is a necessary tension in the Iliad  between the battle and the welfare of Hector’s family. More broadly heroic self assertion is in conflict with wider society. This tension represents one of the main tragic themes in epic poetry. However, this tension is neutralised in High Noon, helping to turn a profound statement of tragedy, into a trite fairy tale.

Although, there were increasing signs of Tragedy in later films, and even Westerns, in the 1960’s and 1970’s; American films have largely reflected the psyche of the average American or the psyche of the average American has been reflected in film. Nonetheless, they have been largely unable to comprehend the insights of Greek tragedy.

This in itself is an American Tragedy.

Although somewhat rectified in recent times, Papadiamantis was hugely unpopular with the westernised Greek intelligentsia for a very long time; considered to be only a quaint and romantic chronicler of a rapidly changing way of life. And even if there was some appeal in his short stories it was driven by historical or anthropological interest. However, beneath the seemingly innocent but acute portraits of island life Papadiamantis’s stories provided deep psychological and existential insights into the human condition that resonate with empathy for people and their suffering - regardless whether they are saints or sinners. He has often been compared to the Russian, Fyodor Dostoyevsky.

The opposing sides that criticize Papadiamantis’s works are similar to the fissures that have increasingly developed in Greece and throughout other parts of the world. One obvious manifestation was the controversy surrounding Maria Repousi’s 6^th year history book that occurred in 2007 between what can roughly be described as the globalist liberal elite and localist patriotic class.

The liberal elite are part of a long tradition going back to the Enlightenment; a thought system predominantly concerned with rationalism, an obsession with rational planning, a fondness for "totalizing" views of the world, the standardization of knowledge, universalism - a belief in universal truths and values - and a belief in linear progress of reason and freedom.

The Enlightenment triggered a series of emancipatory projects. At first, Enlightenment thinkers sought to free man from the Church and the ancien regime. Later this project extended to the landless urban proletariats from their capitalist masters. Eventually, this project's subjects became even more fundamental including God, sex, culture, ethnicity and even family. Today, many children of the Enlightenment advocate emancipation from time and space itself.

The liberal elite’s path towards emancipation has resulted in an increasing divide between them and the localist patriots in terms of truth. Liberal elites tend to think and operate in terms of disengaged, analytical and objective truth, localist patriots tend to operate in terms of truth as lived experience and authenticity. From a liberal elite perspective truth is embodied in a series of abstractions, for the localist patriot truth is revealed through concrete actions.

Liberal elites find it difficult to deal with localist patriots because their actions violate some of their most cherished assumptions. For example, “people are rational individuals with universal interests and aspirations; that nations are nothing more than an aggregate of individuals; and that nationalism is irrational, parochial, and retrograde”. The interests of the localist patriots are considered irrational and even pathological - not worthy of serious thought and consideration.

However, the short stories of Papadiamantis show that deep philosophical questions about existence can be asked without even physically and mentally leaving a small Aegean island. And he achieves this without compromising the character’s humanity.

Perhaps some of the emancipatory project has been misguided because if we seek to "free" ourselves from God,  sex, ethnicity, family and even time and space - can we still consider ourselves human?

The documentary shows a balanced account of the plight of the Serbian people who for a number of years have lived in state of permanent fear, despair and suffering. Also, the documentary critically analyses the causes and consequences of the Kosovo crisis. The participants are historians, clergy, soldiers (including Russian volunteers), publicists, journalists, pathologists and ordinary citizens. There are no politicians. This is a unique perspective that people of Western nations rarely get to see anymore – with the increasing concentration of syndicated news sourced from Anglo-American broadcast and information content providers. 

The absurd claims of “freedom and democracy” by the United States and the EU become apparent when watching this documentary. Leading up to the recent independence vote, using hysteria and hyperbole channelled through “independent mediators”, Anglo-American media outlets and appropriated “objective” third parties; the United States and the EU attempt to intimidate and threaten the Serbs to accept their grand strategy whilst claiming they were undertaking a “negotiation” process over the status of Kosovo. As Srdja Trifkovic has stated:

“the post-modern US-EU understanding of “democracy,” judges a process democratic entirely on the basis of the “rightness” [to the US-EU] of its outcome”.

The whole sickening episode resembles the intimidation by the Anglo-American powers towards the Greeks of Cyprus in 2004 to accept the criminal Annan Plan. Only later did we discover from Claire Palley, constitutional advisor to the Cyprus Government, that Kofi Annan and his staff misled the public in regard to the plan and that in her opinion, the plan “represented nothing more than a one sided bow to Turkish wishes while sidelining legitimate Greek-Cypriot concerns over the plan”. She also points out that the US and the UK promoted the plan by threat, disinformation, by violating cardinal rules of the UN Charter, Security Council resolutions on Cyprus and European law.

Furthermore, if anyone was in any doubt of the real American motives in assisting the Albanians in Kosovo, the video also mentions the largest US army base in the world located in Kosovo, Camp Bondsteel. Lastly, it also highlights the tacit American support of radical Islam in the middle of Europe - more than likely a deal has been struck to sacrifice the Christians in the Balkans and secure the safety of another people.

Lest Greeks think that the Serb’s fate will not befall them; it already did in Cyprus over 30 years ago.

Looking further ahead the signs are ominous. Minor US State Department officials (who are used to test public reaction), “human rights” organisations funded by American oligrarchs, academics funded by certain lobby groups and Greeks eager to cower to their overseas patrons, are already murmuring about the “Turks” of Thrace, the “Macedonian” minority in Greece, the Chams, “grey zones” in the Aegean and the “Mother of Israel”, Salonika.

Contrary to what many governing elites have been saying for years, and it is also befitting after the recent commemoration of the Pontic Genocide, that Greeks recognise the struggle will have to continue.

The icon above is from Decani monastery in Kosovo.