Thursday 31 May 2012

Mazower article in FT

On the same day (25/05/2012), FT published another article that referred to the Greek junta.


This time it is an article by distinguished British historian Mark Mazower who has written extensively on Greece.


Professor Mazower won a Runciman Award in 2005 for his extremely interesting book 'Salonica, City of Ghosts: Christians, Muslims and Jews' at a ceremony where I was given the London Hellenic Society prize for my MA dissertation, which formed the basis of my research on Anglo-Greek relations in the late 1960s and mid 1970s.


In this article Prof Mazower wrote the following:

"Here, the fight against today’s perceived enemy – neoliberalism – evokes the struggle against the military junta 40 years ago, and the resistance to Nazi occupation during the second world war."

FT article mentions Greek fear of being 'thrown back to the time of the Colonels'

In this FT article about the rising numbers of Greek residents in Britain applying for UK citizenship, in light of a possible exit of Greece from the eurozone (see, for example, this Economist article), a reference to the Greek Colonels' regime was made.

It was Vicky Price, a Greek-born City economist and former senior adviser to the government, who, according to the newspaper, said the following:

"Greeks have a great wish to belong to Europe because they are surrounded by what was the former Soviet Union. The idea of being cast adrift is terrible for them because it would imply they would be thrown back to the time of the colonels in the 1970s."


The Times article on Wilson's Britain, 1967-1970

I've come across this interesting article by Fay Weldon, who gives a very vivid picture of life in Britain (ok, mostly London) under Harold Wilson.

She concentrates on the 1967-1970 period, when the Labour government coincided with the Greek Colonels' regime.

The title of the article that appeared in The Times (22/05/2012) is aptly called ‘The white heat of Wilson’s new technology proved too hot to handle’.

Here's a short clip of PM Wilson in 1967:



And here's a clip of London during the so-called 'Swinging Sixties' to give you a part of the atmosphere of the time: