A Nation in Flux

The results of the recent parliamentary elections held no great surprise for anyone familiar with the Greek scene. Andreas Papandreou is a dynamic personality who knows how to generate enthusiasm; even more than his father, George, he is a born leader. The causes that he and his Panhellenic Socialist Movement represent are popular too. In envy-ridden Europe, anti-Americanism has always been a good card to play, and, with the possibility of the Old World becoming the battlefield between the U.S. and the USSR, these feelings are intensifying.

But if Greece is quite European in that way, in other ways she, like Britain, feels an apartness from the Continent. (“The mail from Europe has not yet arrived” is a common phrase in any Greek post office.) Although Europe’s cultural roots are Hellenic, Greece has always been somehow a part of the Near East, and Greece’s entry into the European Economic Community was not popular, nor was her affiliation with NATO.

EK

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Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn

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The results of the recent parliamentary elections held no great surprise for anyone familiar with the Greek scene. Andreas Papandreou is a dynamic personality who knows how to generate enthusiasm; even more than his father, George, he is a born leader. The causes that he and his Panhellenic Socialist Movement represent are popular too. In envy-ridden Europe, anti-Americanism has always been a good card to play, and, with the possibility of the Old World becoming the battlefield between the U.S. and the USSR, these feelings are intensifying.

But if Greece is quite European in that way, in other ways she, like Britain, feels an apartness from the Continent. (“The mail from Europe has not yet arrived” is a common phrase in any Greek post office.) Although Europe’s cultural roots are Hellenic, Greece has always been somehow a part of the Near East, and Greece’s entry into the European Economic Community was not popular, nor was her affiliation with NATO.