Part 1

“The Greeks – dirty and impoverished descendants of a bunch of la-de-da fruit salads who invented democracy and then forgot how to use it while walking around dressed up like girls.” -P.J. O’Rourke

It is a singular fact that one of the most common generalisations made of the Greek people is that in matters of honesty and veracity, they are particularly lacking. For the observation that the truth does not lie within the Greek, we have the Trojans to thank, for it is they who first had the temerity to warn the world that they should be wary of Greeks bearing gifts, and this after they had spirited away Menelaus’ not so unwilling wife.

Furthermore, Odysseus, one of the main protagonists of Homer’s saga is described as «πολυμήχανος» which can variously be defined as ingenious, crafty, tricky or shifty, proving that there is a fine line between genius and amorality.

Nonetheless, it cannot be denied that traditionally, «πολυμηχανία» is a quality that has generally been prized among the Greeks, who have generally had to rely on their wits rather than their brawn to survive. Even today, the cunning plan, the kombina, involving a Byzantine level of intrigue and dissimulation is well appreciated when it bears results, and widely derided it if fails.

There is even a noun to describe those who would indulge in such activities As an example: misrepresenting one’s financial position in order to obtain a benefit. They are known as kombinadoroi. The self-imposed stereotype is not restricted to males. According to the misogynistic ancient Greeks or at least Hesiod, women are by their very nature deceitful, as Hermes endowed Pandora, the very first woman, with “a shameful mind and deceitful nature,” as well as instilling in her “lies and crafty words.”

It deserves mention in passing, that the Homeric hymn invokes the said Hermes as being of “many shifts, [πολύτροπος], blandly cunning, a robber, and a thief at the gates.” It is also a little known fact that the Greeks counted Apate, is one of their lesser goddesses. The daughter of Nyx, she was the goddess of lies and deceit and was assisted in her tasks by the Pseudologoi, malevolent spirits of lies and falsehood, born to Eris, the goddess of strife.

If the Greek gods are by their nature dishonest, then why would the Greeks not follow suit? Epimenides the Cretan is said to have cast aspersions upon his whole tribe, when in 600BC he reputedly said that: “All Cretans are liars.” So shocking was this statement held to be, and given that he himself was of the race, his statement is an amusing paradox. It turns up some six centuries later, in the most unlikely of places, the Bible, where in the Epistle to Titus, where the Apostle Paul writes of the Cretans, “they are always liars, as one of their own has said.”

Herodotus too is widely held to have been the “Father of Lies,” though this is decidedly unfair. As if to drive the point home further, the hallowed freedom fighters who saw the Greek nation reborn were largely drawn from the ranks of the kleftes, who were, you guessed it, thieves and brigands. Given the above background, it would come as no surprise that our neighbours have come to embrace the stereotype we have created for ourselves with perhaps more fervour than allows for comfort. A well known Albanian proverb warns: “After shaking hands with a Greek, count your fingers.”

The Russians on the other hand, maintain that “Greeks tell the truth but once a year,” with the exact date unspecified, while the Bulgarians, who are in closer proximity admiringly observe that: “One Greek can outwit ten Jews.” The Romanians on the hand, are slightly more apprehensive, warning against “a Gypsy who has become a Turk and a peasant who has become a Greek.”

While the Dutch may state that: “A Greek will survive where an ass will starve”, the Italians gravely opine that: “Whoever trusts a Greek lacks brains.” The last work in the gross generalisation stakes goes to the Greeks themselves who analyse their place and esteem among their neighbours as follows: “A Russian may be cheated only by a Gypsy, a Gypsy by a Jew, a Jew by a Greek and a Greek by the Devil.” Of course Greeks return the compliment, engaging in the coining of similar stereotypes for their neighbours.

This light hearted phenomenon is not so much evidence of hostility, than of a harsh and unstable environment, in which those who cannot think on their feet are soon left behind. Sydney Morning Herald columnist Paul Sheehan is in different company, when he wrote in the infamous article that has the heads of the Greek community shaking in disbelief, that “the national sport of Greece is cheating. Cheating across every tier of society.”

This sentiment of course, is one that has been echoed by countless Greeks since the foundation of the Greek state and anyone who has lived in Greece or had the misfortune to tangle with its bureaucracy would find themselves sympathising with it. However, when it comes from Paul Sheehan or other English-speaking journalists, it is offensive, not because it is a statement of fact but rather, because it appears, to a Greek-Australian audience to reinforce a prejudice against the Greek-speaking people as dishonest, effete and morally questionable that has been around since Roman times.

In short, it reeks of Orientalism. Orientalism, a term coined by the thinker Edward Said, postulates that Western knowledge about the East is not generated from facts or reality, but from preconceived archetypes that envision all Eastern societies as fundamentally similar to one another, and fundamentally dissimilar to Western societies. This discourse establishes the East as antithetical to the West.

The idea of an Orient is a crucial aspect of attempts to define the West. Thus, histories of the Persian Wars would contrast the monarchical government of the Persians with the democratic tradition of Athens, as a way to make a more general comparison between the Greeks and the Persians and between the West and the East but make no mention of the other Greek city states, most of which were not ruled democratically. According to Said, this assumption of the right to define, is merely a western style for dominating, restructuring and having authority over the Orient.

* Dean Kalimniou is a Melbourne solicitor and a freelance writer.