After the Greek fires
June Samaras
By E.G. Vallianatos
http://www.hellenicnews.com/readnews.html?newsid=7786&lang=US
The August 2007 photographs of the National Aeronautics and Space
Administration of burning Greece brought to light not merely the
monstrous size of the destruction, but the equally monstrous planning
of those striving to convert the country into a playground for rich
Greeks and foreigners.
Filling the dots between the hundreds of fires in Peloponnese puts
many of them within reasonable distance and direction of the Ionian
Road, a multibillion-dollar highway scheduled to open within four
years and connecting the cities Corinth, Patras, Pyrgos and Kalamata.
The arsonists did the dirty job for private and corporate criminals
who plan to invest in the now burned land. The Ionian Road meanders
along unspoiled coastline and Olympia, easily the most beautiful
region of the heartland of Hellas. The highway then moves from Olympia
in the west to the southern region of Peloponnese.
When in the early fifteenth century the Turks were threatening Greece
and the remnants of the Eastern Roman Empire, the Platonic philosopher
George Gemistos Plethon pleaded with the emperor in Constantinople to
make his stand against the Turks in Peloponnese. To make a difference,
Plethon said, Peloponnese would have to have a Greek army, not
mercenaries, and the ancient gods would have to replace Christianity.
In addition, Plethon argued, Peloponnese was the most Greek place in
Greece and the empire, its population always having being Greek. The
emperor did not listen to Plethon and the Turks conquered Greece in
1453.
Now the new conquerors of Peloponnese are likely to be those who
burned it: coming to Greece with pockets full of money and heads full
of expensive hotels, golf courses, exclusive gated summer homes, and
all the rest of tourist infrastructure. The Germans, for example, want
to convert Mountain Taygetos into a ski resort. American and British
tourist moguls are after hotels and golf courses and Greek businessmen
dream of hotels and restaurants.
Compounding the tragedy of the fires that burned something like
half-a-million acres of forest and farmland, there�s a tradition of
political corruption that prepared the ground for the inferno. Both
the governing and opposition parties tried to emasculate or eliminate
article 24 of the Greek constitution that provides some protection to
forests. Second, Greek governments have misused earmarked European
Union money for land registry, Greece being the only EU country that
has no idea who owns what. The same is true of forests. No one knows
the forests' exact measurements and precise borders. Third, Greece has
been so cavalier about environmental protection that its ministry of
the environment is a subsidiary of the ministry of public works. And
fourth, the country is ecologically illiterate. Immediately after the
fires, there were people who wanted to hunt any surviving wildlife in
what was now burned land.
The Greek people do not trust the politicians because their primary
purpose has been self-enrichment, including the ruthless exploitation
of nature. For example, arsonists burned more than 2,500 acres of the
forest of Mount Penteli, some 10 miles northeast of Athens and famous
for its marble used in the building of the Parthenon. The largest
"owner" of Penteli is a monastery that, immediately after the fires,
"sold" hundreds of acres of the burned forest to developers, a
tradition the monastery maintains with ruthless vigilance. The
government, fully aware of the corruption of the monks, did nothing.
In fact, it has failed to declare that the burned mountain will be
reforested. The government also gave the archbishop of Athens,
probably one of the wealthiest Greeks, a 30 million euro grant for a
"conference center" to be built right in the burned forest.
Prime Minister Kostas Karamanlis would do well to bring the unseemly
behavior of the Penteli monks to an end. He should also appoint an
international commission to go to the roots of the fires and the
aftermath. Greek and foreign scientists with sustained funding from
the Greek government and EU could carry out the fundamental land and
forest registries while the government can create a powerful ministry
of the environment.
Such a ministry ought to lead Greece to green and healthy and Greek
development: making certain the country has clean water and air;
restoring the damaged ecosystems; promoting public transport and small
green cars; assisting Greek family farmers in growing enough food for
all Greeks, their food grown without poisons.
In other words, Greece after the fires does not have the dangerous
luxury of business as usual because such a prospect promises more
fires. Greece will have a secure future by becoming a green country.
Such a decision would be in accord with its ancient traditions of
venerating nature as well as would guarantee a gentle footprint on its
devastated landscape. Abolishing hunting, giving a chance to wildlife
to recoup, is a top priority.
Forests are essential in a green Greece. They produce oxygen and use
the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide; they are also nurseries of life. It
is responsible policy to pay citizens living near forests to become
forest guardians, protecting them from fires, loggers and developers
or, as the Greeks call them, "real estate eaters." This also means
Greece has to fund a fire prevention infrastructure that would
complement citizen initiatives.
Karamanlis has also to negate all the profits of those who burned
Mount Penteli, Peloponnese and Euboea. Don't approve any construction
in burned land, especially in devastated forests and lands, which have
been protected for the biological diversity of their plants and
animals. Use all the support from EU to keep rural people in their
villages, helping them to replant their olive trees and restore their
flocks of goats and sheep.
However, nothing will ultimately matter if the Greeks fail to assume
responsibility for nature, which was divine among their ancient
ancestors. This fountain of ecological consciousness is part of Greek
culture, the gods, the myths, the writings of the ancient Greeks.
Hesiod, the epic poet of eighth century BCE, hymns the deathless gods
while pleading with the Greeks to work the land. He tells the farmers
to be just in order to enjoy good harvests; their sheep weighed down
with wool; the top of their oak trees teaming with acorns and the
middle with honeybees. Goddess Artemis protected nature; Demeter was
the goddess of wheat, Dionysos introduced the grapevine and Pan
protected flocks. Athena gave the olive tree to the Athenians who
named their city after her, virgin daughter of Zeus, the supreme god
among the Hellenes. Zeus was also a weather god, the cloud-gatherer,
the master of thunder and thunderbolts. But Zeus preserved nature and
life by sending rains to the earth. These gods were at the heart of
Greek agrarian culture, which was at the heart of Hellenic culture.
The Eleusinian mysteries, the Greeks� most sacred celebration, honored
Demeter and Dionysos and blessed the sowing of crops.
In addition, Greece is beautiful; attraction to nature being one of
the country�s great assets. The Greek government should bring this
nature and wisdom into the schools. Such an immersion in ecological
wisdom and Greek studies would be certain to bear fruits of Hellenic
solidarity, responsibility for each other, and love for wilderness and
reverence for the natural world.
E.G. Vallianatos is the author of "This Land is Their Land" and "The
Passion of the Greeks."
--
June Samaras
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