Greece Simmers Under the Colonels

Three old men are sitting on a park bench in Athens, reading newspapers. The man on the left coughs. The man on the right coughs. The first one spits on the ground. The second one spits on the ground twice. They both sigh. The man in the middle throws his paper away and gets up angrily, saying, "For God's sake, enough political conversation."

The plane comes down toward Hellenikon Airport, between the scintillating blue sea and the burning bare stones of Mt. Hymettus. Perfectly clear sky, a flood of light. Has anything changed in Greece?

Our passports are checked. We proceed to customs. One line is for Greeks--second-class citizens: slow and thorough inspection. The other is reserved for foreigners. We breeze through with unchecked baggage. The regime is desperate to attract tourists.

Next door is the domestic terminal of Olympic Airlines. Well, something has changed. The walls are plastered with posters and slogans. "Remember, where there is Communism, there is no Fatherland, Religion, Family, Honor." "The Revolution of April 21 is the continuation of the Battle of Marathon, of Salamis and Thermopylae." "Learn to listen well and for a long time, instead of speaking out of turn." I read incredulously. A few people look at me. I look at them. We all smile furtively.

A few days later, in Crete, I go to visit a young girl, an American-educated friend from previous trips. At the travel bureau where she works they tell me she is out of town. On vacation? No, not exactly. She's gone to Chania. When is she expected back? Well (whisper), you see, she is in jail. She took part in a demonstration in support of Papandreou and against the Junta on the day of the coup. The prosecutor demanded six months on parole. The court-martial meted out three years in jail. This is how it always happens these days--the young officers judging "acts against the State" are merciless.

I remember her telling me about her father, whom she never saw. He was in the Resistance during the German occupation. An informer led the Nazis to the cave where he was contacting the British on the wireless. They executed him on the spot. My friend became a fervent Papandreous supporter in the late fifties, when she learned that the informer had emerged a candidate for Parliament on the Conservative ticket. He had never been brought to trial: in the name of anti-Communism, most Nazi collaborators escaped punishment in post-war Greece. In fact, Kollias, the head of the present military government, reportedly collaborated with the Germans himself.

I walk away, sad but not surprised. Somehow, my friend's arrest doesn't seem unexpected. This is the tragic and beautiful land of Kazantzakis' Freedom or Death. Each generation has to offer its own sacrifice to regain the same, always incomplete, freedom of its fathers.

Next day, up in the rugged mountains of the interior, I walk into a coffee-shop for a shot of raki, the local brandy. A huge poster on the wall extols the "National Revolution" of the colonels. But above it, illuminated by a devotional oil lamp, like the holy icons, I see three photographs: E. Venizelos, the fiery Cretan liberal of the 1900's, John F. Kennedy, and George Papandreou! Gingerly, I steer the conversation into politics.

The proprietor, a proud man dressed in black, with high boots, says resolutely: "We are all liberals here. That's why we fought the Germans. When they burned out villages and killed our families, we dressed in black for mourning--but we kept fighting."

But then, I ask, why the poster? He laughs. "The police captain came here himself, and ordered me to put it up. Well, it does no harm, we all know how we feel. But then he asked me to take down the pictures of the politicians. Look here, I said, I did you a favor, putting up that poster, now scram. These pictures are not coming down, as long as I am alive. He left--up here they respect up old fighters. Elsewhere I would have been arrested, I guess."

Out in the village square, the tree-trunks are no longer white-washed. The police have painted them blue and white, the national colors. Every house is adorned with a new flag-pole. Policemen come by to tell the people when to raise the flag, and when to pull it down again, for the frequent nationalist celebrations proclaimed by the Junta. A goat is spread asleep in front of an old stable, under-neath a flag. Thank God the Greek national colors are beautiful!

Down in the city, the presence of the dictatorship is more noticeable. At first sight many people seem uncharacteristically apathetic for Greeks. I soon discover, however, that the apathy is in fact fear.

In the merriment of a wedding banquet, I propose we sing, "Make Your Bed For Two," last year's hit song. Everybody shudders. No, not that, my young friends whisper, we'll all end up in jail. Don't you know it was written by Theodorakis? It's strictly forbidden. Later on, after we leave the banquet, the same friends roll up the car windows and softly sing the song. Warmed up, they continue with "The Rebel," the centuries-old anthem of the Cretan revolutions against the Turks. That is also forbidden, because of its suggestive language: "When will the stars break through the clouds, when will spring come...."

Whenever I meet a friend, we reminisce about past encounters--endless philosophical discussions, fiery political argument, wild village dances. Then, he says, "But now, with this situation...." And the conversation stops.

The Old Spirit

THEN, one night, we all got together at a friend's house. No strangers, that is, no potential informers. And the old spirit came back. For hours we told one another the latest anti-junta jokes. The Greeks have a biting sense of humor. When the coup came, the terrified people, totally unprepared for resistance, reacted with the only weapon it then had-ridicule.

"Have you heard the latest? They arrested a man who was accused of making up jokes. They brought him to Pattakos. -- Are you the man who started that joke about the old men sitting on the park bench? -- Yes, my general. -- Did you start the joke about the four meatballs, one of which was a microphone? -- Yes, my general. -- Did you tell the story about the dog who went to Italy so that he could bark freely? -- Yes, my general. -- And why did you do all that? Don't you know this government enjoys the support of 98 per cent of the nation? -- Excuse me, my general, I never started that joke."

We exchanged news. A girl, just back from Athens, cried as she recounted what happened at the ancient theater below the Acropolis. A young actress, Greece's leading interpreter of classical tragedy, was bowing to the audience, when a government minister stepped up to the stage to congratulate her. She ignored him and kept bowing to the wildly cheering crowd, until he turned around and left.

They discussed the current situation. One of them, a high-school teacher, was particularly gloomy -- all of Papandreou's American-oriented educational reforms had been revoked. The desiccated old system of instruction was being re-established, complete with "purist" or academic Greek, as the obligatory school language. The "purist" is an artificial language despised by all artists and writers; Kazantzakis once went to jail for agitating against it. But those who want to "purify the nation" have made it a symbol of their crusade.

All high schools, both public and private, now have to give compulsory courses in "The Meaning of the National Revolution." Teachers of doubtful loyalty are usually put in charge--either to break them morally or to snare them into a faux pas that will lad them in a desert island. My friend had found an ingenious solution: he reads to his class the most outrageous speeches of Pattakos and the rest of the junta, thus exposing them to silent ridicule; any extra time is used to analyze the grammar and syntax of the speeches.

The political situation has had serious repercussions on Athens University. All professors have lost tenure and may be fired by government decree. As the underground resistance movement grows, more and more of their students are arrested and disappear. Rumor has it that a certain specified number of military officers' sons and daughters will henceforth be admitted to the University automatically, regardless of their scores on the stiff admissions rest. This should ensure the presence of a vigilant and militant pro-government faction in the University and, ultimately, a reactionary educated group to take power in the government.

Private employees, anticipating economic collapse, are afraid for their jobs. Unemployment is already wide-spread, as both government and private business continue to fire "unnecessary employees" as well as "troublemakers," regardless of an official ban on dismissing workers. About a third of the government's understaffed Archeological Service has been discharged as a measure of economy. There is no unemployment compensation and, of course, no free labor union to protest.

A frequently discussed subject is the Civil Service. The permanence of government employees, guaranteed by the Constitution, has been suspended. The future of 200,000 civil servants will be determined on an indivdual basis by special committees. Heavy emphasis will be placed on a questionnaire that all civil servants have had to fill out. This questionnaire is so incredible, that the government made special efforts to prevent its publication. It is marked "Top Secret," and a single copy was issued to each employee, to be filled out on the spot. When I saw a copy in the United States, I could understand the fear and uncertainty of all my friends: it is virtually impossible to get a "perfect score."

Probably half the University students had been members of the now outlawed National Students Union. And of course, it's impossible not to have had contact with a "communist sympathizer." Any mildly liberal past is cause for alarm. McCarthy has been redeemed!