Opinion
In Greece, sterile anti-Americanism has been expressed by agents and institutions with major ideological differences – from the archbishop to the Communist Party. As a result, if you wish to criticize the Western world – not because you reject it but because you’re part of it – then it is very likely that you will be identified with one of these groups; with people who have carried flags with two-headed eagles next to red flags, yelling Macedonia is Greek. This notion (the cramming together of all ideologies, the creation of a supposedly universal resistance to evil, the oversimplified overlapping and popularization of political ideas) is so irritating that it finally breeds self-censorship. In our country, the war between modernization and tradition is expressed with an obsolete vocabulary and typical 1970s reflexes – [this applies to] not only the events which shocked America, but every aspect of modern life. Technology is either good or evil – there are no shades of gray. For the pro-modernizers, globalization is the magic pill that will make us European; for traditionalists it is the spawn of the devil… Words… have been depleted by unfettered demagogy… Just say modernization, globalization or capitalism and you can hear the word’s bones cracking due to their excessive use. Say Europe or America, and the words simply lose all backbone. They are flexible concepts for every use. This is the reason why anti-Americanism, as a concept, is fatally flawed – it lacks nuances. It is plain demagogy… The striking capitulation of party dissenters at the assembly proved that their criticism did not stem from political differences – for if one has substantial disagreements, then one stands for his views to the end – but rather involved self-serving objectives that remained unfulfilled.
