Ιs Greece really part of Europe? Are the Greek people themselves really “European”?
Although Greece is considered the “cradle of Western Civilization,” the nation has had a vastly different history and trajectory from the dominant countries of Western Europe.
Indeed, unlike most Western European nations, Greece was under foreign rule for centuries under the Ottoman Turks, who, at one time, commanded an empire that stretched from Northwest Africa to Persia to Hungary (with large tracts of Southeastern Europe and the Near East in between).
The Modern Greek state was only one small part of this vast Turkish Empire.
Greece did not emerge free of Turkish domination until 1829 -- by which time; the Industrial Revolution had already taken hold and created powerful, wealthy states in the U.S. and Western Europe, who were building their own global empires.
Meanwhile, Greece remained poor and largely agricultural.
For the next 150 years, the country embarked on an erratic course, marked by foreign intervention, political strife, a civil war, waves and waves of emigration, and even more foreign occupation (by Nazi Germany during World War II -- a period of such hardship and mass starvation that Greece lost 10 percent of its population and was also deprived of much-needed infrastructure -- as well as Britain’s lengthy presence in Cyprus).
Dr. Artemis Leontis, associate professor of Modern Greek at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, told International Business Times: “Greece was not a colonial or occupying power during the modern period. It also never really shared in the Industrial Revolution.”
Greek is indeed a ‘European’ country, but she added some qualifications.
“Greeks feel they are ‘European,’ in the sense that ‘Europe’ is an ancient Greek word for the continent, and the Greek peninsula is part of this European continent,” she said..gif "Laughing")
“Greece has been part of the European Union (EU) since 1981, though not always part of the European ‘club,’ which tends to be dominated by countries that are traditionally Catholic or Protestant; and [dominated] by the west and north over the east and south.”
Moreover, Greece’s contemporary culture was largely shaped by the trends and conventions of Southeastern Europe and the Near East – which are wildly different from Western European norms.
“Greece shares common cultural and ethnic traits with other southern European countries and also with other Eastern European countries, especially the Balkans that were part of the Byzantine Empire, which were traditionally Eastern Orthodox and then part of the Ottoman Empire, where Muslims and Christians lived side by side,” Leontis noted.
“[Greece] also shares cultural and ethnic traits with countries in the Middle East and with countries all around the Mediterranean. These are dimensions of Greece’s political and economic culture separating it from Britain and Germany, which are closer to the centers of power and wealth in the world.”
Religion also distinguishes Greece from Western Europe.
The Greek Orthodox Church (as part of the broader Eastern Orthodox Church) split ten centuries ago from Roman Catholicism, when Pope Leo IX and Eastern Patriarch Michael I excommunicated each other.
There were many factors behind this historic rupture – including differences in the ecclesiastical languages (Greek in the East, Latin in the West); and disputes over Papal authority.
It was not until the late 20th century when Pope John Paul II and Archbishop Christodoulos Paraskevaides of Greece met to commence reconciliation.
http://www.ibtimes.com/are-greeks-reall ... ean-212891
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