From: gd8f@kelvin.seas.Virginia.EDU (Gregory  Dandulakis)
Subject: Re: Stating relegion on IDs
Organization: University of Virginia
Date: Thu, 31 Dec 1992 04:59:10 GMT

In article <1992Dec30.140239@imhfhp16.epfl.ch> gavrila@imhfhp16.epfl.ch (Spyros Gavrilakis) writes:
>
>I would not try to prop up my pride with this old-wife's story : the
>supposedly ulterior motives of the donor countries. Judging by the
>newspaper reports over the past few years I am willing to bet that
>most EC countries would be willing to be permenantly excluded from
>the Greek market in return for stopping the financial aid to Greece.
>Greece has no significant natural resources - exept (un)civil servants-
>and produces little by the way of added-value goods. It is not
>a market averybody is dying to get into.


The newspapers (actually the foreign ministries) were blackmailing
Greece to follow their desires by threatening expulsion of Greece
from EEC. I still choose to beleive that Greece is not a net financial
deficit for the EC but a plus. An audit on the dramatic change
on the trade balance between Greece and rest EC immediately after 
our entrence in the EC will prove the point. And Greece is not
rich in minerals but important in geoeconomics. The long history
of trade over Greece indicates that. "If the small didn't count,
then the big wouldn't exist" :-). For example Denmark and Belgium
are small countries but still count as markets because they have
done very well into preserving the very good start which a colonial
past has endowed them (in terms of accumulated capital).


>You Gregory, like all Greeks would say that  Greece's claim as
>a single nation is based on history rather than relegion.
>Have I got u wrong?


I claim that what raises the concept of Greekness is the unbroken
historical continuity. The core of this continuity has been preserved
in different times by different means. Some times language, other times
religion, yet in others just a myth and a pride. (I always visualize
this process by paralleling it with a living cell: Within a cell there
is always a steady in-outflow of matter and energy; thus the actual
material is not the constant in continuity. Is it then the structure?
(the mathematical topology) A first answer would be yes! This is always
preserved. But it's not! Mutations constantly change the structure
(today we have the a gene, but tomorrow we have an other b gene).
Is it always all the cellular parts in harmony? Certainly not; in the
making of a new change the old and the new coincide and compete (within
the limits not to kill the cell). So finally we come in the conclusion
that the living today's cell is related to the very old ancestral cell
only because one has come from the other through an *unbroken* time-hi-
storical continuity, not because they are the same). I beleive that
this kind of continuity for Greece exists, while for many other
"old" nations this is just a modern political invention from the
big powers; they use the name-label in a new political entity "ad
nuovo" just to induce a sense of continuity (eg Skopjians, Egyptians).


>As far as Greece is concerned Turkey is militarily strong - the
>strongest in the region. I do not care how many tvs/1000 of the
>population they have if the shooting starts. Also, many members
>of NATO think of Turkey as a more valuable and constant ally than
>Greece.


That's true. Yet the Shah military mighty was ruined overnight
when the american spare sparts stopped for a second. Military
by itself is just an eternal slavery (we belong to that too).
As far as considering Turkey as more valuable than Greece, I
doubt heavily. This philology came in surface after there was
greek governments who were unwilling to cooperate fully with
NATO. This has never happened in Turkey and thus never this
blackmailing has been used yet against them. Both Greece and
Turkey are the two consecutive waves against a possible Russian
expansion in warm waters. If one of them is permanently lost, then
the future for this NATO crucial goal will depend *unstably*
on one country's good will (Turkey or Greece). Today if one 
threatens to defect then the other will be used a terror balance...!


>Happy new year,
>sg


Happy new year!


Gr

PS: Sorry for the more than usual philosophy; I promise with the new
    year's resolution to stop it :-)