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Via In fairness to the Greeks, it should be pointed out that this is in large part a case of "Ugly Northwest-Europeanism", of tourists assuming that they can push about the swarthier natives at will. They had been stopped (shooed off, really) at Tanagra and were trespassing in Kalamata. Dodge is correct that all the information they collected is essentially public domain (it might cost a couple thousand USD to track the Greek air force squadrons via satellite photos); however, that a piece of information is public does not justify going into the private domain to get it. We might also think about the security concerns of having soi disant tourists wandering, unchecked, around military facilities. On the other hand, Greece isn't acting in a particularly democratic, First World fashion about this (other than in fearing an assignment of unlimited liability of one of the plane-spotting had slipped on some grease in the hanger). However, modern Greece never has been a democratic, First World nation; since the collapse of the colonels’ regime in 1974, it has acted more like an Arab dictatorship (including the apparent protection of the November 17 terrorists by high-ranking leftists). The UK has some very genuine grievances and concerns WRT Greece. This case, however, is a very poor hook to hang then on. (UPDATE: Andrew Dodge asks:
Greece is not a "first-world nation". So why are they in the EU? If the Greeks, as backward as they are, can be in the EU, why not Turkey? Well, as much as I dislike offering so simplistic a solution, I think in this case the answer is sheer bigotry. Greece has an almost entirely Christian population; Turkey, an almost entirely Muslim one (the governments of both are secular). Therefore, the Greeks are Europeans; the Turks are not and cannot be. There may be some residue of the sentimental Philhellenism that first arose in the early years of the 19th century (and left so many, Lord Byron prominent among them, dead, disabled, or disillusioned). Bigotry, though, is probably a sufficient answer.) John "Akatsukami" Braue Monday, April 29, 2002 |
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