Category World

Willingly At the Forefront or Perpetual Testing Ground?

Mark Mazower is perhaps one of the most prominent historians of his generation, one that I respect and whose works I've have studied extensively over the past decade. This is his latest article on the NY Times and a good read; it may not be comprehensive --- as no newspaper article could ever be --- it may skim over a two thousand year period, in the process making an impossibly romantic, and if it weren't for its author I'd dare call it naive, argument: that Greece has repeatedly throughout its history had a leading role in shaping world events by being a forerunner of (r)evolution. The argument is romantic and flattering, but it's also flawed. It purposefully ignores that Greece has long lost its position as an enviable country (if it ever really had one) and nation, that it encompasses a society, a state and (a modern) culture admired by very few people that can discern between Classical Greece and Modern Greece. It hides the fact that since the founding of the modern Hellenic state in 1830, it is seldom Greece (the state) or its people that have chosen to shape the world, as Mazower puts it, but rather the world that has repeatedly coerced, if not forced, it to partake in its experiments, a guinea pig of sorts, the testing ground for change; whether for the imposition of western european monarchy on newly constituted nation-states in the 19th century, the fight against the Axis, the field testing of napalm in the 1940s, or the slow dismantling of the post-WWII status quo in Europe and the West that's happening now. In that respect, Mazower's article is unfounded and misleading; it makes the same mistake so many western historians, philhellenes and intellectuals have made over the past two hundred years: it flatters an intellectually, politically and economically corrupt state and an ignorant yet proud people by ignoring the very causes of their predicament, viewing the world through the stained rose tinted glasses of its long and glorious history and a form of nationalism, irrational as it always is. And that is the last thing that Greece needs, right now and --- arguably --- has ever needed.

/ˈpōgrəm/

My generation has been fortunate enough to grow up in a society where the horrors of racial hatred were not the norm but the exception, where the rule of law — despite the rampant, by Scandinavian standards, corruption — prevailed over extremism, mass murder, hate crimes, street mobs and racial violence. The events that took […]

Μια Προσωρινή Πολιτική Τρικλοποδιά ή Μόνιμη Απαξίωση της Ευρώπης;

Διαβάζω το άρθρο στο BBC για τα παιχνίδια με Προσωρινές Άδειες Παραμονής σε Τυνήσιους μετανάστες στην Ιταλία, το Σένγκεν και τα τρένα. Η γειτονική μας χώρα, χρόνια ‘σκληρή’ απέναντι στους μετανάστες που κατέφθαναν στα λιμάνια της από την Αφρική, αλλά και την Αλβανία, αντιμέτωπη με αυξημένη, ενδεχομένως υπερβολική, εισρροή μεταναστών από την βόρεια Αφρική μετά […]

Unrated.

Today, Greece and Portugal saw their credit ratings downgraded, once again. Greece’s socio-economic mess notwithstanding, reading the linked BBC article made the absurdity of the dependence on the ‘markets’ (and the ‘unrated’ rating agencies that drive them) clearer than ever: in 2010 Greece woke up to the realisation — or at least some in that […]

Inside Job (2010)

The Inside Job is a documentary like few of its contemporaries: mainstream and accessible enough to win an Academy Award, yet sharp, piercing and well-researched enough to actually convince even the most sceptical among the viewers. This is a film narrated by an A-list hollywood star, Matt Damon, that dares to shred the current global […]

Divergent Thinking

With the occasion of the University of Cambridge planning to raise the tuition fees to home/EU students to £9K/year, and the increasingly flawed, purely economics-based view of education, here's another one of the RSAnimate sketches, based on a lecture by (Sir) Ken Robinson.

Τέλος Εποχής για το VoIP στην HOL.

Λίγο πριν τους Ολυμπιακούς της Αθήνας, με το ADSL να γράφει μόνον έναν χρόνο ζωής στην χώρα μας, η Hellas On Line έκανε το αδιανόητο: πρόσφερε, μέσω του προγράμματος evoice, την δυνατότητα απόκτησης αριθμού αθηνών (213xxxxxxx) χωρίς πάγιο τέλος, βασισμένο σε SIP και με ιδιαίτερα ανταγωνιστικές χρεώσεις για αστικούς και υπεραστικούς προορισμούς. Γνώρισα την υπηρεσία […]

Why a student should pay a graduate tax on top?

The linked mini-article at 'A Fistful of Euros' goes to show how wrong the British Government got it with regards to the tuition fees at British universities. It's one thing to argue that higher-quality education can only be the product of additional private funding of universities, as opposed to public funding which --- as in many other parts of Europe --- is being reduced, and another to argue that profit should be made out of the loans students take to fund their studies. Both make little sense to me, but the latter makes no sense at all, besides being totally unfair for those borrowing money to study.

Eternal Spring

Climate change is obvious to anyone over twenty five years of age; things have certainly changed since I was a kid. It’s December and the temperature this evening in Athens is 20°C (mornings and afternoons are way worse. Under normal circumstances 15°C would have been considered a very mild evening). At the same time, northern […]

Περί Παράνομων Πινακίδων

Εδώ και αρκετούς μήνες έχει ξεκινήσει η προσπάθεια που γίνεται από την κυβέρνηση για την απομάκρυνση των παράνομων υπαίθριων διαφημιστικών πινακίδων. Από τον ιστότοπο του εγχειρήματος διαβάζω για 893 επιβεβαιωμένες καταγγελίες και 175 αποξηλωμένες πινακίδες. Παρατηρώ πως, δυστυχώς, στο blog της προσπάθειας, αλλά και το twitter επήλθε μια σιωπηρή περίοδος γύρω στα μέσα του περασμένου […]