What makes us Greek (part 4 and final)

Well, for those who don't speak Greek the other 3 parts are insignificant. I was mainly focusing on the bad aspects of the so-called Greek mentality. You know... we like to complain a lot, to claim that we are the descedants of all the important ancient heroes, we have a unique oriental culture in Europe etc.

Some may even think of the movie character of Zorba the Greek as a visualization of all the Greeks. This of course is far from the truth. Zorba the Greek himself, I believe, is completely based on the extravagant figure of Karagiozis, the popular character of the traditional Greek shadow puppet theater. Zorba the Greek resembles Karagiozis in many ways. He is ugly, poor, oportunist and clever. He takes advantage of various situations causing discomfort to other people to benefit materially, but he also shows great sensitivity when it comes to peoples' personal problems, contradicting that way his opportunistic nature. Both figures become a representation of the whole Greek nation in one person. Even better they have become a male idol of the country called Greece. Although these two characters unify the Greek mentality do not allow exceptions. Not all Greeks are careless and crooks. Not all of them are sensitive towards the human suffering and not all of them of course are poor, a detail which may change all the other aspects too. On the other hand, if you take extreme behaviours of the vast majority of Greeks and blend them that would be the amalgam that you will produce. The pure soul of the Greek.

And that is something we are proud of. That no matter what when Greeks are supressed they will unite and they will care more. Historically is proven. From the ancient times, Athenians and Spartans united under a common threat. The same happened with all the clans of the Greek revolution back in the 19th century. Again we saw the same during WWII. According to me that is the secret for our survival. It is not our brains or our size. It is not the population or the technology. It is just the will to stay together in difficult times. We do not feel patriots, we are humanitarians. A nation of good Samaritans but only when threatened. Amazing huh? It worked though. By no means, don't think that we didn't have civil wars and internal clashes. We had everything and we survived. The will for power of some Greeks caused the problems and the will for survival solved them.

We are far from perfect and we enjoy that. Moreover, we make fun of the more soshisticated nations and those to appear to be close to perfection. We work hard and more than almost everyone (fact) and we discard this by saying we are lazy and sloppy. We complain that we don't have enough money to survive and we are partying every single day. We are corrupted but somehow chaos does not prevail. We face minor and major problems with a distinctive apathy. We keep postponing for tomorrow what we have to do today but in the end we produce a decent result. We laugh when the "Westerners" face tiny setbacks and they don't know what to do.

We live well in general. We complain a lot about everything because in reality we do not have any important issues to complain about. We make ourselves perfect through our imperfection. Can you imagine a world with 1.4 billion Greeks instead of Chinese? That would have been fun! Think about it...