Hubris was the word used by the ancient Greeks to describe extreme pride or arrogance, leading to a disastrous fall. In Euripides’s play Medea, hubris might be one of the characters, so deeply is it embedded in the drama: Jason portrays hubris in his arrogant betrayal of his wife, Medea, and she, in her own hubris, kills her children in revenge. Result? Utter tragedy. Today, for modern Greeks, it means much the same: the overconfident display of blind pride, coupled with indifference to the fate of others. It is, basically, an insult to the values and intelligence of the rest of us.
“Hubris” leapt out at me recently, from a press release by an environmental group in Corfu, where I live. Commenting on our neglect of living tradition, and the consequent loss for future generations, the group’s statement read: “Culture is part of the identity of Corfu. It is what we choose to pass on to our descendants. Indifference towards this culture is not simply negligence. It is hubris.”
These words struck me as a succinct summary of the way “progress” is greeted as inevitable and as somehow superior to more old-fashioned ways of doing and thinking. It certainly sums up the way Greece has almost blindly welcomed the phenomenon of tourism, with the consequent sweeping aside – or even sweeping away – of traditional modes of travel and hospitality. I recently astonished a young person by saying that in 1969 I had visited Mykonos “before they had built the airport”, to which she replied: “But how did you get there, then?” – so ubiquitous has air travel become.
Modernisation is difficult for those who enjoy stability and the assurance it affords. It comes very easily to those anxious for change and with new ambitions. In my experience, working on similar topics with the Council of Europe, the necessary balance between old reliables and new opportunities is a public-private matter which very few societies can accommodate. The Greek islands, in their response to tourism, are a sad example of missing that balance.
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Hubris of a different, but comparable, order exists in Greek-Turkish relations, but it, too, involves one of the most central of Greek concepts, the islands – and some of the most popular for holidaymakers, such as Rhodes, which has been part of Greece only since 1947.
We are still in a situation where increasingly blatant hostility could become lethal: a tragedy where hubris supersedes diplomacy. Turkey, having declared a “blue homeland” to extend its claims over the eastern Mediterranean, is now majoring in the creation of two marine parks, one of which will effectively sever contact between two Greek islands near the Turkish coast, Limnos and Samothrace (originally home to the legendary sculpture The Winged Victory, today in Paris’s Louvre museum).
In the Greek experience, it is what ‘slips through the cracks’ in diplomatic talks with Turkey which so easily reveals Turkish hubris: the lack of dialogue, the absence of meaningful understanding and a sublime indifference to the nuances of history
The other marine park would surround the tiny island of Kastellorizo, also part of Greece since 1947, and only a mile off the Turkish coast, with a population of fewer than 600. It is feared that the creation of these marine parks might lead to further aggressive action on Turkey’s part to interrupt Greek island life: ferries, fishing and the vital area of tourism.
As of last week, Greece has diplomatically rejected the legality of Turkey’s marine parks. But should Turkey attempt to escalate the tension by implementing its unilateral claim to Greek waters, the answer from Athens could have military consequences.
Despite its tiny size, Kastellorizo is the home of a documentary film festival, ironically entitled Beyond Borders, which held its 11th annual event last month. The festival viewed 42 films on the theme of “the human experiences that slip through the cracks of dominant narratives, overlooking the subtle nuances of history”. Its aim is to facilitate dialogue, critical thinking and meaningful understanding.
In Greek-Turkish relations, each side has its “dominant narrative” which is diametrically opposed to the other. Greece has emphasised that it will “take any action necessary to protect the national interest”, which of course includes its territorial waters. Turkey appears to lay unilateral claim to these waters, despite the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (to which Turkey is not a party).
As Manos Karagiannis (a Greek professor specialising in international security at King’s College London) observes: “For the Turkish government, the Aegean Sea is not neutral or friendly: it is a space for confrontation.”
In both classical and modern Greek, “sevas” means respect for that which commands loyalty and adherence. Greece, in demanding respect for the rule of law and the facts of history, meets its opposite in Turkish hubris.
In the Greek experience, it is what “slips through the cracks” in diplomatic talks with Turkey which so easily reveals Turkish hubris: the lack of dialogue, the absence of meaningful understanding and a sublime indifference to the nuances of history. Turkish provocation in the matter of the Aegean (and, in effect, the entire eastern Mediterranean) certainly has the air of arrogance – a “blind” pushing aside of political history to assert a point of view without apparent concern for the consequences.
