72
down the façades, questioning the lies and the deception to help people to see
more clearly. Remember me in the near future. A time will come in Greece when
the weak will understand anarchy as their path to freedom, and we will be there to
help them rip at capitalism and consumerism, overcome the subjugating police,
and void any ‘big national ideas’70, ideologies of sovereignty, and aspirations for
imperial power. ”
Greek Anarchy: A Historical Constructivist Examination of the Contemporary
Tenets of Popular Hellenic Political Dissent
I left the meeting half an hour later energized albeit a little paranoid that I was
being followed by undercover police officers (a few days of life-as-usual cured me
eventually). Nikos was intoxicating: a confident, well-spoken man. Heading towards the
Platia I suddenly found myself sympathizing with his opinions and perspectives. This
gave me pause: was I losing my academic perspective, did I always harbor anarchist
tendencies and not realize it, or was something else going on? Reflecting back on our
meeting it became obvious that Nikos’s philosophies regarding the character and
problems of Athens’s citizens were not wholly uncommon, if a bit extreme and
articulated in the rhetoric in which he was steeped. Even his perspectives regarding
controversial social phenomena, such as the alienation of Greek youth, were consistent
with opinions I had heard previously among students and activists. In fact, the more I
reflected on the meeting, the more I began to question the “radicalism” of Nikos’s views.
Despite occasional fiery predictions of the end of the state and the demise of the police,
our conversation was focused on mainstream concerns such as civil liberty, freedom of
on her bowels and are, in turn, reborn (see Abrams 1996:700-701). I am uncertain whether Niko was
familiar with this reference, although he may have read Milton at university.
70 Niko refers here to the “Great Idea” (Mεγαλη Iδεα) a concept originally articulated in 1844 by Ioannis
Kolettis, Prime Minister under King Othon. The “Great Idea” expresses the goal of establishing a Greek
state that would encompass all ethnic Greeks by re-establishing a Greek territory encompassing the borders
of Ancient Greece as described by Strabo (extending west from Sicily, to Asia Minor and the Black Sea to
the east, and from Thrace, Macedonia and Epirus, north, to Crete and Cyprus to the south). The “Great
Idea” was the core of Greek foreign policy until the early 20th century, although some like Niko would
question whether it still is.