Kapsalis: Papaconstantinou (ex-Foreign Minister) You know, for a long time we have neglected the cultural dimension of the Byzantine Empire. Now we have got back to that.

Uechtritz: Michelis Papaconstantinou is quite an expert on Byzantine art, but his real art is politics. Until last year he was Greece’s Foreign Minister. Now that he’s out of office, he’s on of the few who’ll admit to political opportunism.

Papaconstantinou: There are a few things that you cannot avoid when you are the government. You know there are the feelings of the Greek people. Sometimes the politicians are to blame because they raise those feelings and then they cannot control them. For instance, we cannot say that Macedonia must be Greek because it was Greek 2,000 years ago. That’s out of the question.

Uechtritz: The former Foreign Minister may talk of compromise now, but when in office he had to push the hard line on the Macedonia issue. A hard line that has encouraged the radical elements in Greek society.

Papaconstantinou: There are some extremist elements in Greece as well as in any other country. Of course, it is up to the government to control them. Of course this is a democracy in this country, you cannot stop anyone from saying anything he likes.

Uechtritz: You can say what you like in Greece, but it’s at your own peril. There’s an ultra right-wing newspaper in Athens called ‘Stohos’. Its editor talks openly of creating a greater Hellenic empire.

Kapsalis: The paper supports the Greek positions — it believes that Hellenism is a strong force and is trying to unite all Greeks regardless of their political ideologies in a bid to hold back the pressures of the Slavs and the Turks who are very close to us — and to regain the territories taken by Slavs, Turks and other neighbouring countries.

Uechtritz: At first it would seem easy to dismiss George Kapsalis as a crank trying to live out past glories. But he’s dangerous. He politically outs people. Two weeks earlier he’d printed the names and addresses of Turkish Embassy staff in Athens. While we were filming here one of those diplomats was ambushed and assassinated.
And then there’s Anastasia Karakasidou — a Greek academic outed by ‘Stohos’.
Karakasidou is waging an anti-Greek propaganda. Someone who speaks out against Greeks cannot remain anonymous.

Karakasidou: It has been devastating. I don’t want to describe home incidents where I cannot sleep at night or I go paranoid when I see a car outside my house.

Uechtritz: While pregnant with this child, Anastasia Karakasidou was terrorised, after ‘Stohos’ published her address and car licence plate.
The result was a graphic promise of execution, penned in the name of nationalism.

Karakasidou: Well it’s a type of rape which leads to death because it’s such a violent rape that blood starts flowing from your ears and your eyes.

Uechtritz: Her crime? A private thesis for an American university on the existence of a Slavic speaking community in Greek Macedonia.
It was leaked, and in February this year, a Greek-American newspaper published a scenario for the slaying of the ‘traitor’ Anastasia.

Karakasidou: They make her kiss the Greek flag or drink the holy water or, and drink the holy water, and swallow her papers, the papers she’s writing. And then finally with a stick that’s painted blue and white, the colours of the Greek flag, they give her the final blow into her heart, and they’re done with the traitor. That’s how they describe it.

Dimou: It’s a problem of language. We speak different languages. We speak a language that is, in a way, charged with all the traumas of our history. It’s very emotional. There’s fear underneath. There’s a suspicion that people want to do something evil to Greece.

Uechtritz: Nicos Dimou is one of Greece’s most prominent authors and commentators, best know perhaps for his book ‘The Misfortune of Being Greek’.

Dimou: And the west speaks a very cool and rational language and they say “What’s the matter?” For example, “Why are you threatened by Macedonia, they’re just two million people.” And so on. Logically, the west is right.

Uechtritz: There’s no such rationale in Salonika. The capital of the Greek province, also called Macedonia, wears its heart and history on its sleeve.
Everywhere, the star of Vergina, symbol of ancient Macedonia, found on Greek soil. This, say Greeks, gives them exclusive use of the name.

Macedonian Kings, Philip and Alexander, they say, are a part of the history and heritage their new neighbour is now trying to steal.

No one is more central to this ancestor obsession than Alexander the Great. In his short life he wielded extraordinary power. But perhaps even he would be surprised at his extraordinary legacy. Even the very mention of his name can invoke pride and passion, rage and bitter rhetoric. But by placing so much emphasis on their glorious past, modern Greeks have created for themselves an immense psychological burden.

Takis Michas is on holidays, but for two years he’s been carrying around his own personal burden. It’s still with him. He too was branded a traitor in national parliament.

Michas: From the very beginning, people who had opposing or dissenting views were branded as traitors, they were branded as being stooges of foreign powers and, in many cases, they were taken to court.

Uechtritz: A mainstream newspaper columnist and former minister’s press secretary, Takis’ mistake was to criticise the unquestioning homage and hysteria of nationalism. Alexander the Great, he pointed out, was a merciless slayer of people. Greece’s foreign policy was needlessly antagonistic.

Michas: It could have played the role of the Switzerland of the Balkans. It could have provided the reference point for all the other Balkan countries as a country to imitate. Instead of that, Greece started immediately to antagonise its Balkan neighbours, and it started behaving, in many cases, with the same lack of maturity as the one exhibited by its neighbours.

Uechtritz: Another borderland, another conflict, one at which the Church is at play.
Epirus is a province of Greece, bordering Albania.
The frontier runs raggedly through these mountains, but many Greeks, especially those in the church, don’t recognise it. They call southern Albania Northern Epirus.

Radio broadcast: Radio Drinoupolis, 89FM a voice of orthodoxy and Hellenism…

Uechtritz: The radio is religious propaganda, aimed at ethnic Greeks in Albania. And in the Albanian village of Derbijan, it’s being heard.

Father Michelis: It makes us happy to hear these broadcasts. We were Greeks — our fathers and grandfathers…

Uechtritz: Stalinist Albania banned Father Michelis from practising his faith for 24 years. His church was turned into a fertiliser shed. Communism may have collapsed, but the hardship and oppression linger on, he claims.

Father Michelis: We are a minority here, the only thing we want are our rights — schools, language and our religion —we don’t care about anything else.

Uechtritz: Life is hard in Europe’s poorest country. Yinnoula Xiga is 53 and spends her days in the field.
Her six children all have left for Greece. She yearns for them and for unification with Greece.

Xiga: We want this — our children are from here, North Epirus.

Uechtritz: Her faith provides what her lifestyle can’t.

Xiga: We’ve always wanted the Church. It gives us our health. We want the Church very much — more than the politicians.

Father Michelis: Greece is our mother. That’s why we boast of being Greek. She should look after us. They must show more interest in us!

Uechtritz: And from across the border, the cry is heard.

Father Apostolis: We feel this region is ours — and it is ours — it is Northern Epirus. Before the boarders were made this valley was ours.

Uechtritz: Father Apostolis’ church is only a few metres from the Greek-Albanian border. He speaks openly of Greece ‘liberating’ the orthodox minority in Albania.

Father Apostolis: We have relatives in those villages. My mother comes from that village — and my grandmother. And soon the time will come for us to meet again and embrace and to break the borders as they did — and for Greeks to unite with Greeks.


Michas: One does wonder what is the difference between fundamentalism you find in the Muslim countries and orthodox fundamentalism which we find in Greece. Especially when you see priests, leading members of the orthodox church making statements concerning our diplomatic problems with a neighbouring country.

Uechtritz: And while the church increases its public profile over Albania, the Greek government is boosting its frontier military presence. 30 kilometres from the border, tanks and other armoured vehicles in a church compound.

Papaconstantinou: It is not a fact from the part of Albania against Greece. They’re afraid, they are suspicious, they suspect that we would overthrow their regime, subordinate their states to expand our borders, which is not the truth.

Uechtritz: Greek-Albanian sensitivities were further heightened last year, when a senior Greek Orthodox priest was expelled from Albania, allegedly for sedition. The Greek government was only too willing to take up the church’s cause. They launched ‘Operation Broomsweep’, a massive campaign to hunt down illegal immigrants in Greece. Thirty thousand Albanians were rounded up and thrown back over the border.

And it’s still going on. Each week, Greek patrols pick up hundreds of Albanian illegals sneaking across the mountains.
But for every one caught, many more slip through. Looking at the pathetic belongings of this bunch, you can see the motivation for the exodus.

It all adds to the tensions. Two Albanian soldiers shot dead in a mysterious raid. Albanian and Greek border guards involved in shoot outs.

Already blockading the Macedonian border, Greece now threatens to close this one.
Albania in turn has accused Greek politicians of war mongering.

So with a stand off on both borders, how does Greece resolve the quandary?

Dimou: It’s an impasse. I don’t see any way out of it because we have talked ourselves into a situation where we are absolutely dogmatic. We don’t allow any kind of compromise because any compromise is treason.

Uechtritz: To the north of Greece is the civil war of former Yugoslavia. Greece does have real concerns on its borders, but in resolving these dilemmas the state, the church and ultimately the people should consider that it was the triumph of historical passion over logic that brought such turmoil to its northern neighbours.

Dimou: Our problem is not a logical problem. I would say that Greece something like the collective psychotherapy just to get rid of its insecurity. So I think that we should start understanding that through our insecurity we create more problems than we solve.