Galery

1

Anastasia Balezdrova

Over the past two years, Greece has been experiencing perhaps the worst crisis ever. It seems mainly political, but it is deeply ethical. For a long time, viewers worldwide have seen on TV street clashes between demonstrators and police, strikes and occupations of government institutions and the refusal of state officials to undertake their duties diligently. This creates the impression that the people of this otherwise beautiful country jointly reject any reform and are fully determined to fight for their own benefits, although they are at everyone else's expense.

This is not true. Many of the Greeks want changes, they are tired of paying taxes to pay the salaries of people who do not work and have taken a clerical post with bribes and because they know a politician.

According to Dimitris Gousetis, author of many articles and commentaries in the Greek daily Kathimerini and member of the DARSI party, "the battle between the Greeks has lasted many years and apparently it will continue much longer, but its outcome is uncertain."

"Our country has won many negative records in Europe. Greece ranks last in competition, environmental protection, recycling, etc., but it ranks first in corruption, denial of justice, air pollution, etc. On the other hand, we are members of the European Union, and of the euro zone too, i.e. we belong to the rich men's club. This is a contradiction, which I have been trying to understand for many years. I have concluded that it is due to our having different cultural values from our European partners."

To explain the nature of Greek society, he referred to the definition of society by philosopher and social anthropologist Ernest Gellner. According to him, society is a collection of various governmental structures that are powerful enough to oppose the state and if they do not prevent it from fulfilling its role of ensuring freedom and being a referee of major interests, they could still stop its domination and prevalence over the rest of society.

"If we take the definition literally we will see that in terms of "prevention " we are European champions, as over the years we have prevented the Greek governments from doing many things. Examples include foreign policy, the security system reform in 1997 that the then Prime Minister Costas Simitis withdrew, the pursuit of education policy with the occupation of schools and departments, planning about 2 million illegal constructions in the country. We could therefore conclude that we are leaders in civil society, without having non-governmental organizations that are its constituent cells. "

Despite its apparent similarity with civil society, Greek society has very little in common with it. "Just to avoid this confusion Ernest Gellner explains that there are social formations which, although preventing the state from prevailing over society, are far from the concept of "civil society". He said it should be distinguished very clearly from its antithesis, which is segmented society. It may actually be pluralistic and it opposes centralization but it does not provide its members with the type of freedom we seek and expect from civil society. No ideology could survive in such a society because socialism, capitalism, fascism and every other "ism" is a precondition for social coherence and consciousness that is common to the whole society of the country and its fate. This is something that Greece is lacking and any of these ideologies could not survive. According to Gellner, an example of such a society was ancient Greece, where Socrates was convicted and poisoned for his "daymonion" and Muslim societies. "

Dimitris Gousetis pointed out Gellner’s definition for these type of societies and compared it with the Greek: "In Muslim countries the society is managed by circles (which resemble tribes) and unions, created on the basis of kinship or mutual exchange of services (i.e. bribes) or common religion and common experience. In general, it is based more on personal trust rather than on the formal relationships that exist in a structured bureaucratic system. Oddly enough, in particular countries this system does not cause great dissatisfaction, almost all members of society accept it and consider it normal. What impresses the researchers most is the strange combination of strict religious, moral and cynical clientelist relations. I found my country in Gellner’s definition of Muslim societies ," said Dimitris Gousetis.

In a segmented society, people are divided into small groups within which they are willing to do anything, even to give their lives to other members, but they are completely indifferent and even hostile to others. This is a typical example of lack of coherence in a society. The most typical types of segments in a society are family, professional organizations and local communities.