Posted by Thank God, because for a monent I thought that the Athenians defeated the Persians!
This is what the Public Broadcasting Corporation of Greece (ERT) broadcasted during the authentic Marathon run of November 2018. Interestingly enough, there have been no resignations over the issue. As a matter of fact, I doubt that the ERT Administration (Government controlled) has even a clue about the incident.
This is not the only incident of blatant ignorance. In October 2018, a reporter of ERT was reading the newsapepr headlines regarding the liberation of Athens on the 18th October 1944, and read “The Greek Police (ELAS) liberated Athens”. However, ELAS was not the name of the Greek Police in 1944, it was the name of a popular massive organization controlled by the Greek Communist Party.
Both incidents reflect the abominable level of public education in modern Greece, and the lack of discourse on historical matters, in addition to the horribly low level of standards in the hiring processes of state controlled entities.
But in my book the most important one is the lack of discourse on historical matters. We turn our back to the past, as if the past did not happen. There is no place for history in our society. It has been replaced by a cloud full of facts “tailored” to our ideas, needs and perceptions, and/or forgetfulness.
This is a phenomenon that I will name “making history a la carte” and is linked to the Greek political power games. As it happens, there are two major political forces playing the top power in Greek politics. New Democracy is the conservative party, and SYRIZA is the “other” party. Both tailor history to their tastes and needs.
SYRIZA originated from the communist left and in the course of its evolution has adopted the ideology of the Greek left. Part of this ideology is the “unjust” treatment of the left following the end of the Greek Civil War (1943 – 1949). As a result the SYRIZA version of history idealizes the left and its role in the civil war. Needless to say, there is no real discourse on the topic. Tailored history has become dogma.
Likewise, New Democracy turns a blind eye to some of the horrific events that took place in Greece in the 1960s, as was the murder of the left politician Lambrakis. When asked to discuss the incident, Mr. Mitsotakis, the leader of New Democracy said that he was not born when Mr. Lambrakis was murdered and therefore he has nothing to say about it.
This way both parties are removing history from the public discourse and place it in the altar with the icons and the symbols of faith. The big divisions of the past are not addressed and the present ones are treated superficially. All of this disables us from understanding our problems and blocks any attempt to solve them.