Some remarkable reportage on Greece PS

When I got to the end of the Vanity Fair article posted earlier this week, I remembered something that happened in our first week in Athens, January 2007. Here's the line from the magazine:

But [Greece] does not behave as a collective; it lacks the monks’ instincts. It behaves as a collection of atomized particles, each of which has grown accustomed to pursuing its own interest at the expense of the common good. There’s no question that the government is resolved to at least try to re-create Greek civic life. The only question is: Can such a thing, once lost, ever be re-created? (Michael Lewis, Vanity Fair, 1 October 2010, final para).

Now I am not Greek and I have not even lived here for four years, but I feel somewhat defensive as I read that. How would you feel if you were Greek, reading such a black-and-white national character assassination?

A few reactions: first, that is not far off a useful summary of human nature. I think we're all at heart accustomed to pursuing our own interest at the expense of the common good. Societies do it in different ways, and some of the ways Greeks do it are just less culturally acceptable in, for example, England. (I'm not sure our civic life is inherently better in England though. You don't find Greek high streets that are no-go areas on Friday nights as you do the length and breadth of England.) But fair enough to an extent - Greece has societal sin. No surprise there.

Second, I really don't know how fair a characterisation of the Greek nation this article is. I'm going to sound it out among some of our friends here. Most people we've got to know here don't hold back about criticising their compatriots (as Lewis points out) so it may be that people don't get as defensive as I think they might - maybe it's spot on.

Third, as I said I was reminded of something trivial that happened nearly four years ago.

Moving these days seems to assume a fair amount of IKEA purchasing and we were no exception - with many, many flat-pack boxes opened and the contents assembled. What to do with the mountains of cardboard? Rubbish collection here takes place each night and you have to carry your stuff to the nearest wheelie bins, in our case just at the end of our short street on the main road. I set out with load upon load and was a little concerned to find the bins already full. There was no way I could leave all those boxes without encroaching on the road itself, or piling up precariously high.

I asked Costas what to do - our friendly neighbour, now in his mid-20s. 

'Costa - should I leave a few here now and some more tomorrow and so on?

'No, just leave them all.'

'But there's too many - it will be a problem on the road.'

'Eh, this is Greece. We don't care.'

This was said with shrug of shoulders and most certainly in the sense of 'someone else's problem - sleep easy my friend'.

Part one - the moving boxes (can't locate picture of IKEA boxes which followed)

Perhaps the lack of civic duty is much more pronounced here. Can it be recreated, once lost?

As we think about teaching the truth about Jesus, the one who is Lord over all of life - including tax demands, litter and illegal software copying - we are beginning to see more clearly the way the gospel will challenge the students who epitomise the 'we don't care' of modern Greece.