It's an Orthodox thing (or is it an Ottoman thing?)

With the Carolina hoops team on exam break, but mainly for the issues themselves I've been focused on the riots in Greece and the Blagojevich story in Illinois. The stories are linked, and not just by Orthodoxy; Blagojevich is Serbian Orthodox. [I've also spend lots of time thinking, and making calls, about who will be the next Secretary of the Interior. Here's hoping my man Raul Grijalva gets named to that post this week, but that's for another blog.]

Back to Greece, which is a strong democracy but a troubled one. The riots demonstrate that the motherland lacks some of the democratic institutions we take for granted. A healthy democracy has healthy institutions: courts, bureaucracies, press, organized and active civic and charity groups (everything from the Salvation Army to Sierra Club), elected bodies on a local, state and national level. Greece has most of those, but you need all of them to be more than a country that has regular elections and peaceful transitions of power - no small feat that, and I don't mean to down play those two accomplishments - and one that has a flourishing democratic culture and a free, mobile and open society.

These riots have shown that when it comes to the democratic and modern state bureaucracy Greeks have NO faith that government policies and hiring will be done equitably and fairly. It's not just government; the same is true in academia where bureaucracies care more about their jobs then they do about educating young people. That is why so many successful Greeks - in Greece, not the diaspora - are products of American, British and German universities.  There is a good commentary on this in The Economist (shout out to Bill Wood for the link).

The problem is not new, and seems to be a stubbornly persistent relic of the Ottoman era. Over the summer I read Thanos Vlekas, considered the first modern Greek novel.  Published in the 1850s, the book chronicles the trials and troubles of a hard working Greek farmer who consistently gets screwed and imprisoned at various points in his life by the bureaucracy, army and land owners in the newly independent Greek state of the 1830s.  Bribes, connections and nepotism were de rigeur in Ottoman-ruled Greece, and bribes and nepotism are still very common in Greece, even after almost 30 years in the EU. It appears the Greek public is finally fed up. 

That Greek culture of inertia is one reason Greeks in America are so different from Greeks in Greece. Nothing is more Greek-American than being an entrepreneur, so much so that the Greek diner or pizza place is a prominent part of the American tapestry.  The opposite is true in Greece where it is harder to have your own place and make you own way.

  
But before we get too smug here in America we have to talk about fellow Orthodox Christian Rod Blagojevich. That kind of stuff still happens in Chicago and elsewhere. Here in Washington, newly appointed school board chair Michelle Rhee is having the same problems with the District's entrenched education bureaucracy that students in Greece do.  A chart in today's The New York Times implies that Rhode Island is the most corrupt state in the U.S.  And by no means are Greek-Americans immune; over the years I imagine many Greek-American businessmen and women have paid bribes, etc. for building permits, etc.

Corruption is everywhere, but the reason residents of Illinois aren't in the streets is that unlike Greeks, Americans generally have faith in their elections, elected officials, and institutions. After all, Blajojevich got caught and we just elected Barack Obama. Things change here.

More importantly, the corruption in American is usually episodic, not systematic like it appears to be in Greece. And those episodes have NOT hindered the mobility and liberty of most Americans.  That it one reason why Greeks have been in the streets this week and folks in Illinois have not.