mmoa_writes

...of all things.

Personally, the best I can remember for a while. As usual, it was the predictable voting and the supercilious joy in the petty fact that at least we got more points than France that provided most of the laughs. Not to mention Terry Wogan's delightful commentary ( 'This song brings suspenders to an entirely new level', on the Armenian joke - whoops, song. Make way, make way for the sarcasm King..!). There was the hillarious gaffe made by the presenter of the Polish vote and the Ukraine presenter was actually called Igor... Isn't that brilliant? No? Fine... Well, Finland won with Hard Rock Hallelujah which our entire household proceeded to air guitar/drum/synth/snarl along to.

Of course, however, this being me, there was something else that particularly struck me and that was more to do with the host country, Greece.

You see, throughout the event, they made a huge thing of their ancient heritage. During one break, they started showing images of the athletes, quotes from Plato, Aristotle... Pythagoras' theorem (which was, oddly enough, finally proven by an Englishman of all things...), references to their historians of yore, Aristophanes, Thucydides...

During the voting session, for example, they (tied in with the whole theme, I suppose) they celebrated 4000 years (yes, 4000, and be careful with those zeros!) of Greek music and started off with a song dedicated to Dionysus - which was beautiful, humbling and utterly stunning - and then continued down the years (Graeco-Roman to Byzantine, to that odd, folk music that speeds up rather amusingly as it progresses then to a 'My Big Fat Greek Wedding' style reception dance) in a sort of bizarre remix style progression. It actually turned out alright.

But this is what I began to see...



... that as much as they do love their ancient culture and their proud lineage, they really don't seem to like it on the less carnal level. Basically, if it's too deep (and let's face it, how many modern Greeks care that much about Plato's Republic?) then it's out.

Take, for instance, the attitude of today's religious authorities in Greece on the subject of an increasing number of Hellenic/Hellenistic pagans in Greece who are asking for, amongst other things, acknolwedgement of their existence - always a good place to start. Maybe I am being naive, but the response was puerile at best. They dismissed them on the grounds that it was (to quote) merely a case of ' a few mavericks trying to resurrect the old, dark ways.'

Now, hold on.

These are the self same people who you are so proud of, who gave the world philosophy, the first joke with a punchline (which we've conveniently lost, but we do have the set up), the water screw, that damn theorem (spoken like a true Maths student...) who you also claim to have been in thrall to the 'old dark ways'

And what's more (...), this is the same, dark culture immersed in the old, dark ways, who had a lasting and (I feel) hugely positive effect on Christian theology (which, on reading through its history, could have been oh so much worse, if not for that).

The hypocrisy staggers.



In a way, it's a lot like the way the Irish love to celebrate James Joyce, ignoring the fact that he was far less than impressed with Ireland and his people. Or the way a Nigerian Pentecostal will bang on about Wole Soyinka or Chinua Achebe.

Dang.

Cultural memory is a terrible thing.