Can a Swallow Make a Summer in "Orthodox Ayatollahs"' Greece?

AIM Athens, June 22, 2000

Hundreds of thousands of Greeks filled the main squares of the country's two largest cities, Athens and Salonica, in the most numerous rallies held in recent memory, on 21 and 14 June respectively. Were they demonstrating their anger for the continuing activity of the urban terrorist group "17 November" that had killed on 8 June a British diplomat, its 23rd victim in 25 years? No! Perhaps then were they celebrating that their country was joining at long last, on 19 June, the EU's Economic and Monetary Union (the EMU or "euro zone")? Neither! They were on the contrary protesting against the decision to remove the mention of one's religion in the identity cards; they were also attacking the government and the intellectuals who were, according to the Orthodox Church's leadership, planning to de-ethnicize Greece by cutting the links between Orthodoxy and Hellenism...

This confrontation started on 8 May, when the new Minister of Justice, Professor Mihalis Stathopoulos, in an interview to the daily "Ethnos" stated inter alia that the inscription of one's religion in the state-issued identity cards -until now obligatory- violated the Law on the Protection of Personal Data. On 15 May, the relevant Independent Authority established by that 1997 law issued a binding ruling that asked the state to remove religion as well as other personal data (fingerprints, citizenship, spouse's name, and profession) from the identity cards. The removal of religion has been one of many pending demands of a handful of human rights groups and of all religious minorities (and of hardly anyone else...). They argued that such mention violated international human rights standards and also helped discriminate against religious minorities in Greece, a country notorious for its religious intolerance. After all, in the last ten years, the European Court of Human Rights had convicted Greece in cases involving all its major religious minorities (Muslims, Jehovah's Witnesses, Catholics, Protestants). While a UN Special Rapporteur had submitted to the General Assembly in 1996 a report severely critical of the lack of religious freedom in Greece.

Within a month, a deep division had been created in the country. The socialist (PASOK) government held steadfastly to respect the Authority's regulation, but very few ministers or deputies of that party publicly backed that choice. Most stayed silent if they did not implicitly or explicitly criticize the government's handling of the issue, if not the decision itself. In fact, many of them in private conversations and at least two with public statements asked that the Minister of Justice resigned to "help diffuse the crisis." On the contrary, almost all politicians of two small parliamentary parties, the Liberals and the Progressive Left Coalition, as well as the latter's new splinter Renewal Modernizing Movement of the Left (AEKA), became the main public backers of that decision. At the other end, the conservative New Democracy, the splinter socialist Democratic Social Movement (DIKKI), as well as the Communist Party of Greece (KKE), directly or indirectly backed the Church's protest and found no words to oppose the holding of theses two huge rallies. The first two even opposed the removal of religion from the cards, preferring instead, like the Church, the optional mention.

The pictures from these rallies that were broadcast around the world, showing scores of black-robed bishops sitting on a podium under the main speaker, the Archbishop of Greece Christodoulos, were reminiscent of similar public rallies in the ayatollahs' Iran. The populist if not obscurantist public calls by Church leaders -who like all clergy are civil servants in Greece- for civil disobedience ("if a law is unacceptable it should not be applied" and "the Scripture is above the law") were in stark contrast with the country's entrance to the club of modernist and secularist states that are abolishing borders and currencies, the EU's EMU. Likewise for the Archbishop's decision, on 22 June, to boycott the state reception marking the latter historical accession, perhaps to remain consistent with his and his bishops' repeated eurosceptic if not europhobic arguments made in the course of the last month.

Indeed, the Church's attacks against the abolition of the inscription of religion in the identity cards amplified the latent insecure, xenophobic, anti-Western, intolerant and anti-Semitic traits of Greek public culture. The "identity card crisis" was presented by the Church and most of its followers as an "identity crisis." Abolishing the mention in the cards was equated to banning the public demonstration of one's religiosity. Since the Minister of Justice -a renowned academic and human rights activist but not a politician- had been a prolific writer on the need to modernize the church-state relations, all his past academic suggestions were suddenly publicized by the Church in an effort to mobilize its followers. Like many human rights and legal experts, Stathopoulos had previously advocated a large series of measures that would make the state neutral towards the various religions. Naturally, some of these reforms would lead to the loss of the privileged status the Church has had in the modern Greek state.

To counter such changes, the Church equated the loss of privileges with an "attack against Orthodoxy;" and since "Hellenism and Orthodoxy are inseparable" the aim of the reformers was supposed to be the de-Hellenization of the country. Since, regrettably, Greek public culture has been characterized by a sense of insecurity of the Greek people, similar arguments can quickly mobilize a large section of the population. As they did in the early 1990s, when the -equally imagined- "Macedonian irredentist threat" mobilized Greeks against its newly independent neighbor, the Republic of Macedonia, and -in the process- against its assorted alleged Western supporters.

In both instances, these nationalist and retrograde mobilizations legitimized forces until then considered reactionary and extremist, allowing them to join the mainstream. As a result of this "mainstream extremism in a country that tolerates intolerance," anti-Semitism became once again part of the acceptable public dialogue. The "Jewish lobby" was held responsible for this "plot against Hellenism and Orthodoxy," by at least two deputies elected with the two main parties, as well as by Church publications. Moreover, such climate may have contributed to the resurgence of anti-Semitic actions, like the desecration of scores of graves in the Greece's major Jewish cemetery in Nikaia (Greater Athens) and the inscription of nazi slogans at the home of late Melina Mercouri and her Jewish husband Jules Dassin, in late May. The condemnations of the latter acts were scarce and went widely unreported in Greece, while there was absolutely no condemnation by the Church or by political parties and Parliament of the multiple anti-Semitic statements. On the contrary, the Church used the television infrastructure of the most notorious anti-Semite deputy, George Karatzaferis, to broadcast its Athens rally...

Despite the calls by many PASOK politicians that the government postpones the implementation of the regulation for the new religion-free identity cards, Prime Minister Costas Simitis appears determined to have the new cards issued within a month. If so, the move of Minister Mihalis Stathopoulos, against a very negative framework where there was not even a serious intellectual debate to prepare such action, would have been successful. However, this is only the first step towards the badly needed overhaul of the Greek legal system and administrative practice so that this country would come to sincerely respect the human rights of all its citizens. Especially the rights of its minorities, the presence of many of which is yet to even be acknowledged. The Church's strong reaction to the first reform really aims not so much at overturning it, as to show its power (hence its decision to collect millions of signatures against that reform) and prevent other more important and profound reforms. The Minister of Justice raised many hopes with his first action that he could be the swallow that can, against all odds, make a summer for Greece. The "identity card reform" only helped bring the country out of the winter though. The long way towards summer is filled with many "Orthodox ayatollahs" and assorted anti-reformist forces. If the swallow does not acquire Herculean powers, and is joined by many other swallows along the way, it may end up been swallowed by the vultures.

Panayote Dimitras