Wait a minute – how many Americans know that Condi Rice was in Greece yesterday where her visit was greeted by a fiery reception from a group of flame throwing anarchists and a more orderly demonstration by – 2,000 to 3,000 or so hard line communists (KKE) and anti-globalization folks?
The pyrotechnics in downtown Athens produced vivid television footage which I caught on the BBC news last night, but the Albuquerque Journal, our local paper, didn’t even bother to mention Rice’s visit even though this city has a sizeable and influential Greek-American community.
The New York Times, the WaPo, Reuters and AP, however, published a number of stories written by reporters on site and others who are traveling with the secretary.
Yet of all the stories I’ve read, only a Reuters report by Stuart Grudgings and Alkman Granitsas, put Rice’s stopover in Athens, the first secretary of state to visit since 1986, in the context of Greek politics and the country’s all too often rocky relations with the U.S.
It isn’t that the other reports are poor – it’s just that they ignore the major issue which I think is “the elephant under the table.”
Instead the news coverage here emphasizes what Rice wanted emphasized – her view that Greece and Turkey are over-reliant on Russian gas supplies, that “progress in Iraq might aid efforts on Turkey,” that the Cyprus problem (for which the reporters don’t provide the background) is solvable (which it is- but why? how?) or the soon to be signed Bulgarian-US bases agreement for which Nick Kralev of the Washington Times gives an excellent overview.
Perhaps then the reporters or their editors at home decided the anti-US demonstrations in Athens, Thessaloniki and smaller ones in Istanbul and elsewhere in Turkey weren’t important in the overall scheme of things. Maybe they’re right. She was only in each country for what seems like a nanosecond. And the demonstrations - for the most part - did not get out of control.
The reporters who traveled with the secretary would not even have seen them. And obviously neither the State Department’s Office of Public Affairs nor Rice’s Greek or Turkish government hosts would have wanted the coverage of her visit to be overshadowed by negative reports of anti-American demonstrators clashing with police.
I don’t think Rice and company set eyes on the demonstrators in Greece because the Athens police – long experienced at keeping angry Greeks away from 93 Vassilias Sophias – succeeded yet again. And in reality, an anti-American demonstration of only 3,000 people in downtown Athens is not a big deal: I saw, or actually tried to avoid, far larger ones when I worked for USIS in Athens from 1970-71, 1981-84 and earlier in 1965-66 at Anatolia College in Thessaloniki.
Besides, the Greek foreign minister the conservative Dora Bakoyiannis, whose husband, Pavlos, then New Democracy (ND) parliamentary spokesman, had been murdered in 1989 by a Greek terrorist group called November 17, welcomed Rice warmly at the Foreign Ministry. This is the photo op in Greece that both governments wanted the media to show – not the commotion caused by the rabble in the streets.
But I think Americans should know that Rice was not met with open arms and or bouquets of those bright red Flanders Fields poppies that bloom in profusion this time of year on her visit to democratic Greece and Turkey – and I think our news media has the responsibility to tell them – even though our government won’t.
Both Greeks and Turks are upset with the U.S. but for different reasons. The Iraq war and the U.S. support for the Kurds in Iraq angers the Turks and the Turkish government – who have their own troubled Kurdish population to handle. This was, in fact, a primary subject of discussion when Rice met with Turkish Foreign Minister Gul earlier today.
For Greece, Americans should be reminded that anti-Americanism there has very deep roots even though - according to the news reports that did cover the demonstrations - part of the justification was to oppose US policy towards Iran. Actually, Greece’s position on Iran will be important because Greece is on the UN Security Council. Greek Foreign Minister Bakoyiannis made no promises, but if Condi thinks the country will break with its EU allies or go against Greek popular sentiment which dislikes big countries threatening or worse attacking smaller ones – she needs to think again.
As the Reuters reporters point out, the real problem goes back to the US government’s enthusiastic support for the Greek junta (1967-1974) particularly after Richard Nixon became president.
In Greece history does matter
The junta’s wretched decision to overthrow the government of Archbishop Makarios in Cyprus and push for unification with Greece brought about the Turkish military invasion of Northern Cyprus and the division of the island. Cyprus remains divided and a sore point today. And the Greeks blamed the US for allowing the Turks to invade.
But I think the story of anti-Americanism in Greece really begins with the end of WWII when the U.S. helped Greek government forces defeat Communist insurgents from taking over the country in a bloody, civil war that began before the Germans retreated and ended four years later.
A substantial number of Greeks were eternally grateful for U.S. post-war help, but a minority was not. Some fled to Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union. Some went to Australia and Canada – but others remained in Greece and formed the political left. The Communist party was banned, but a crypto-Communist party emerged. Even in 1965 when I worked in Thessaloniki, the movement was politically active, highly organized and easily mobilized.
Much of the movement’s funding came from the Soviet Union. After the junta fell and democracy returned to Greece, the Communist Party was legalized. It split into two major factions – one Moscow line (KK- Exterior) and the other European (KK-Interior). The hard liners remained very anti-American. Further, the split between left and right as a result of the bloody civil war did not heal. N-17, the tiny terrorist group that murdered Dora Bakoyannis’ husband descended from a Trotskyite off-shoot. It was a lethal part of the extreme left that combined Trotsky’s vision of communism with ultra-nationalism intermingled with a strange version of the Greek Orthodox faith.
There’s a lot more to the story of Greek-US relations than what I’ve described above.
But I think part of the problem began when the large U.S. military and diplomatic presence in Greece remained too big, for too long and intruded too deeply into Greek domestic politics after the civil war was long over. Had the US been content to rid the country of malaria, improve its educational system and help the tattered economy get back on its feet – then perhaps relations might be different today. I don’t mean to say that Greeks would not oppose our invasion and occupation of Iraq – or disagree with the Bush administration’s policies towards Iran. Like other Europeans, I suspect they would. But I just wonder if the strong visceral anti-Americanism that under girds today’s reaction to the US would be so deeply rooted if years ago we’d handled our relations with the country and its politicians differently.