Courtney McGrailGreece Through Irish Eyes
by Richard Pine
(Liffey Press, €22.95)
Peter Hegarty
After reading Richard Pine’s engaging, elegiac book I visited my local supermarket to look for Greek produce, but found nothing except feta cheese, while countries much further away than Greece – Argentina, Chile, South Africa – were well represented on the shelves.
Greece is struggling to expand and diversify its economy, and export its way back to prosperity, if my tour of Tesco is anything to go by.
Pine explains that bureaucracy has stifled the innovative spirit of the Greek people. The ‘chair-centaurs’ make it difficult for growers and entrepreneurs to expand their businesses, and market their produce and products abroad. Incompetent, clientelist politicians have allowed corruption to flourish.
Bribery is part of everyday life. Pine tells of going to see his bank manager after an ATM refused to dispense money to him. The man indicated that a small donation – the writer handed over €50 – would lead to the unfreezing of his account. Pine concluded that pay-cuts had probably driven the banker to take illegal measures to gather money which he was probably setting aside for his children’s education.
The Greek state is an enemy of progress and innovation, while the Irish State, for all that we criticise it, has helped realise national potential. This is the most important difference between two countries which otherwise have much in common.
Pine, a classically-educated Englishman, who spent decades in Ireland before retiring to Corfu, is well-placed to identify the similarities. Some, such as size, a peripheral location, resistance to foreign occupation, are obvious. In each the Church was for centuries the touchstone of national identity.
The contempt for authority Pine has detected in both countries owes much to the traditional practice of ‘putting one over’ the foreign ruler, and his local representatives. Pine praises the richness of Irish culture; he finds the culture of his second adopted land equally stimulating and writes with infectious enthusiasm about Greek drama, music, literature, museums and cuisine.
Ordeal
Greece’s ordeal continues, and Pine’s vivid despatches from Corfu will keep us informed about the travails of everyday life there. When an authoritative writer such as he calls for Greece – and Ireland – to leave the EU, and abandon the euro, one listens with respect.
Since the book was published Greece has had to process tens of thousands of migrants and refugees from Syria, with the prospect of many thousands more arriving next spring. Greece is in dispute with neighbouring Albania, Macedonia and Turkey, where a low-intensity civil war has broken out.
Living as they do in an increasingly unstable region Greeks may be disinclined to take risks: they will probably and understandably stick with the devils – the single currency, the bullying ‘friends’ – they know.
