My Big Fat Greek Life

Dimitri Halkidis investigates why the Greeks and the Turks eschew the time-honoured value of 'love thy neighbour' in favour of hate driven by years of violence and bloodshed and how this hatred somehow transcends borders and continents.

I'm watching 'My Big Fat Greek Wedding' again. My parents sit beside me and laugh, as do I. “It's true!” My father exclaims. “All of it!” He's a stocky fellow, much like the dad in the movie. A bit unlearned in the customs of his adopted country but by no means naïve. My mum agrees for the most part, except for when the spitting starts. “We don't spit that much,” she says. There's no mention of the crazy grandmother wielding the knife and raving about the Turks, because there's nothing to dispute.

“Your papou (grandfather) was a baby when the Turks forced the Pontians from their homes and back to Greece.” My dad says. I've asked him the Golden Question: Why do you hate the Turks? And to be fair he's given me a few solid answers. This is the main point of contention, I realize. We're not simply blowing hot air when we trumpet the hatred between our two peoples to anyone who will listen. There is a real bone to pick but hopefully by uncovering the root of the problem, the healing process can begin. “He told me many years ago that he was nearly killed by Turkish soldiers because he would not stop crying. His mother had to hide him in sheets from the guns.” He says in slightly fractured English. I've heard this story before but I let him continue. “We don't hate the Turks; they hate us because they are jealous of us.” He continues. I ask him why he thinks that way. “Because no matter what they do, they attack us and kill us and try and stop us, but no matter what Greeks are always better in everything than them.” He replies.

In 1914, Over 500,000 Greek citizens occupying the territory of Pontus, which neighbours the Black Sea on the Turkish coast, were displaced and forced to march to Greece, some 1200 kilometres away. Just over half the Greeks survived the march, and to this day Turkey refuses to acknowledge those dead, claiming that its actions weren't genocidal. My great-grandparents were part of that exodus; leaving behind most of their belongings, their friends and their lives they were made to march the same distance as Melbourne to Brisbane. This, along with the culmination of over two thousand years of near-continual bloodshed has created a very bitter relationship between the two nations.

It hasn't been a pretty history for Greece. I look at my auntie's phone number written down in my father's phone book before me and remember what she was like when I was a child: loving, caring (she taught me to play to cards, bless her) and she hates the Turks. I look at my uncle's number below hers. He's hilarious with a heart of gold and an undying hatred of Turks. Moving on to the oldest auntie in the family. She... she just hates the Turks. My oldest uncle. Mellow to the point of being furniture. Hates the Turks. And so it continues like this and to be fair, I can't blame them.

But try and get a balanced viewpoint from them and you might as well be writing for Fox News.

This is the dilemma I'm faced with at the moment. I know what they're going to say, and I can write it here without fear of misquoting them. “I hate the Turks.” So should I even bother interviewing them? The answer is yes. After all, I'm not hunting the 'what' of this issue, but instead the 'why', and although even that seems pretty straightforward, it can do no harm to ask.

I'm talking to my card-counting auntie. She's living in Greece now, soaking in the Mediterranean sunlight and carrying her seventy-year-old bones to and from the beach every Summer day. She's tiny, less than half my size but a peculiar oddity of hers is to always fuss about how much food I'm eating and whether I'm a 'healthy weight'. When the small-talk and the dozen reassurances that I'm eating well are out of the way I strike with the Golden Question. I felt the world drop in temperature as she hears that word. “Tourki (Turks)” She says with more venom than the Black Mamba snake of South Africa. This is a woman who is considered by the whole family as the only person to be able to start World War Three and get away with it. She can be a valuable ally or a deadly nemesis and my heart ached for the Turkish populace. “They kill us and rape us and for four hundred years they took over Greece! They kill our people the Pontians, and they don't even care!” It sounded like a rant, but I knew better. A rant is a speech fueled by anger and spoken like there is no filter between the brain and the mouth, something that can be regretted later. My auntie spoke with conviction and with certainty. I know that once this telephone call is over, she wouldn't regret telling me these things because that is what she truly felt. She continues for a good few minutes, telling me why the Turks deserve to be hated and when I finally hang up I feel a bit out of breath, even though I wasn't the one doing the talking.

We've been fed on the glory of the Greece of yore. Where three hundred Spartans stood against two million Persians at Thermopylae; where Alexander the Great conquered the entire known world without a single battle lost; where the Olympics and Democracy were born. Then the more we grew, the more of the unpleasant truth we discovered. There were ten thousand Greek soldiers, and two hundred thousand Persians, and we lost. Alexander the Great was a womanizer, a wife beater and probably had an Oedipus complex. The Olympics were highly misogynistic, with married women executed if they managed to sneak in and watch. And finally, women weren't even allowed to vote; they called it Democracy, I call it Iran. Despite this, Greek nationalistic pride burns brightly in just about every Greek Australian, and with this pride comes a sense of responsibility - I've discovered -  to inherit the hatreds of our forefathers simply because they were Greek. We hate because we were told to hate, because it's our duty as Greeks to hate. Likewise for the Turkish. Since when does hating someone make you more Greek than Con at the Souvlaki shop who is indifferent to matters involving political figures half the world away? Sadly, this is the mentality of a lot of Greek Australians that I've spoken to and befriended when I went to Greek school.

It's four years ago and I'm sitting in class at Saturday school, learning Greek thanks to the prods and pushes of my parents. My friends – all Greek – talk loudly. I listen and occasionally chip in with remarks of my own. “Gamo tin Tourkia!” They exclaim. I'd translate the phrase but it's both highly offensive and crude. “Zito H Ellas!” (Viva Greece!) As they talk I find myself agreeing with them. They get louder and more passionate and start throwing things at each other. They're talking about football – soccer to the uneducated masses of the Americanized world – and how Greece recently lost to Turkey in a 'friendly' match. It has them riled up, upset yet energetic and they'll soon let out their frustrations in a likewise 'friendly' game of football during recess. They love Greece, and so do I. They hate the Turks, and so do I.

I like to think we've grown up a bit since then. I'm sitting at the cafeteria at Deakin university and I wonder what changed my mindset. Was it simple age? No, it was something more than that. Was it University? I pause at that one and think. It could be. A friend from my Greek school is also attending classes at Deakin, and I see him hanging out with his group of friends, including one of Macedonian descent, another country that Greece cannot see eye-to-eye with. That could be part of the reason, yes. But what really enlightened me was the realization of the futility in hating something. Hating never helps; only hinders. Relationships are soured and friendships are destroyed, something I've dealt with first-hand. Perhaps that's it? I'm determined to not make the same mistake twice? I shrug. I'm not used to all this thinking. I think I'm getting a headache. I need to go watch 'My Big Fat Greek Wedding' again. Maybe it's got some answers.




Then again, maybe not.