Eamonn Fitzgerald's Rainy Day

Stavros Petrolekas told us yesterday about how the world post- 9/11 is interpreted in Greece. Rage at the US and Britain, conspiracy theories, manichaean ravings and downright nonsense form the core of the national approach, he said, illustrating his argument with the examples of how composer Mikis Theodorakis and the Athens Publishers-Booksellers Association, respectively, expressed their antagonism to the US and Britain. Here he is now on the Greek response to the outbreak of war with Iraq in March:

"Court proceedings of the notorious November 17th terrorist group were recessed on 21 March, upon request filed by the defense attorneys and granted by the court, so the attorneys could take part in the demonstration that day against the 'real terrorists, the Americans and their allies' as per the filed petition.

The Athens Bar Association initiated litigation to bring Tony Blair before the International Criminal Court at the Hague for the crime of 'aggression against Iraq', action which the Greek Society of Jurists pledged to support. The Speaker of the Greek Parliament was (again) extremely vocal in his condemnation of American actions. 'These USA wise guys want to become the new Romans' he stated, 'but they will meet the same fate as that of the old.' The Secretary General of Pasok (the ruling socialist party), notwithstanding the fact that Greece held the (rotating) Presidency seat of the EU, was instrumental not only in co-organizing (along with other left-wing, communist and anti-globalization parties) numerous demonstrations against the 'murderous American terrorists' but encouraged senior ministers, party faithful, trade unionists, even school teachers and primary level pupils, to actively participate in them.

New Democracy, the conservative opposition party, did not officially participate in any anti-war/anti-American demonstrations. But senior party figures left no doubt where their allegiances lay. The party's parliamentary spokesman, a former professor of constitutional law, repeatedly attacked the 'Washington gang', those 'barbaric invaders and menacing murderers'. And Kostas Karamanlis, the party head and leader of the opposition, flew to Paris to meet Jacque Chirac and openly support the new French-inspired common European defense policy designs. Intellectuals, professors, artists and cultural figures had a continuous field day, with massive — and vicious — daily anti-American outpouring in the press and the media."

And so where has all this rage come from? Stavros Petrolekas is willing to enlighten us, but Rainy Day will have to get busy drinking and assessing German wines before that happens. The "research" begins tomorrow!

Diarist of the day: Cynthia Gladwyn, 6 July 1971

"Tonight Gerry [her husband] and I went to Hair. It was ghastly. To begin with, the noise was deafening, as Gerry would sit in the front row, thinking he would not hear otherwise and wanting to see all the nudity. Then it was altogether so squalid and filthy, everybody in the cast looking unwashed and drugged, wearing grubby trendy clothes. The very first thing that happened was when one of the men on the stage made a beeline for me, removed his dirty blue jeans and said, 'Lady, hold these for me." I refused to put out my hand, so he dropped them on my feet, later returning for them, when again I did not move. So Gerry had to pick them up. But the worst was when tiny white paper pellets, supposed to be snow, were showered down on to the stage and the front row of the stalls, so that we were covered with confetti which stuck in our hair and went down our necks. We arrived at the Savoy, to the acute embarrassment of Gerry, looking as though we had just been married."