Last week, Kyriakos Mitsokakis, the Greek Prime Minister met Boris Johnson, the British Prime Minister. One assumes that there were many issues that Mitsokakis had come to discuss besides the return of the Elgin marbles. Greece’s economy is in a parlous state and will likely remain so for many years to come, strangled by its debt assumed by unscrupulous Greek politicians but also extended by lenders who at best were careless as to whether the Greek government would have the means to repay it, or at worst well knew that the loans would reduce the state to penury.
The human tragedy of the Greek debt crisis
There is much human tragedy associated with the Greek debt crisis. There has been no mention in the British Press of what has happened to Greek society since 2005. The large number of super-rich Greeks, like the rich of other nations, have parked their assets offshore and in European property and stock markets, out of reach of the Greek inland revenue authorities. The Greeks who are paying for the debt crisis are the bulk of ordinary Greeks who, like the bulk of ordinary people living in England, have depended on regular pay cheques reflective of the cost of living to survive. When I visited Athens in 2009, I read in Greek newspapers of the many suicides of hardworking citizens, both in the public and private sectors, who had lost their jobs and saw no realistic prospect of finding another. I also learned of the high rate of child abandonment, parents who sent their children to school with a note saying that they would not be picking them up at the end of the school day because they had no means of feeding them. Greeks are very family minded and in ordinary circumstances would never countenance letting go of their children. The charities who receive abandoned children were overwhelmed. One such is Smile of a Child which continues to take care of abandoned children. The situate was desperate.
The impact of a paralysed economy
I have just returned from a visit to Athens. I asked how things had progressed since 2009. I was told things had got worse. The Greek government has already implemented severe austerity measures but cannot impose further measures demanded by its creditors because society will be paralysed. Public sector workers can no longer live on their drastically cut salaries. Many hospital doctors, nurses and care-workers have given up because pay is so poor and hospitals so grossly underfunded that even basic necessities are lacking. Patients admitted to hospital for surgery are given a list of things to bring with them for their stay which includes medical supplies. In the absence of adequate funding, administrative systems are collapsing under the weight of demands. Several generations of a family live together, often supported by only one meagre salary, their finances stretched to the limit. 67% of people between the ages of 18 to 28 are unemployed, and most of those in work are poorly paid. Economically paralysed, the young cannot afford to marry or start families, family resources are so limited that few want to countenance feeding another mouth, making romantic relationships hard to sustain.
The reproduction rate is currently running at 0.07%, with huge economic implications for the long term.
The economic outlook for Greece and the rest of Europe
In order to meet targets set by the EU and the IMF, the Greek government has had to sell off major income producing parts of the economy such as toll roads, motorways and ports to foreign owners – typically German and Chinese, so it now has very few significant revenue streams. COVID 19 has hit Greece, dependent upon tourism revenue, particularly hard. The Greek government has entered into agreements with the EU and IMF to receive income for refugees who pour over Greece’s porous borders. By 2038, Greece’s small population of 10 million will be dwarfed by refugees, predominantly from the Middle East and from Africa. A further influx is feared from Afghanistan. Already the indigenous population of several islands is exceeded by the number of refugees. This will completely change the demographic of a country which only two hundred years ago freed itself from Ottoman domination. This change will have serious implications for the rest of Western Europe.
What does the average Greek think about the Elgin marbles?
I asked Greek people how they felt about the Elgin or Parthenon marbles as we tactfully call them now. Many raised their eyebrows, as if to say, do you really think we spend time worrying about the marbles? Others said it was painful to think of the inheritance which had been stripped from the country’s ancient wonders over the centuries, that Greece was bitter that the Ottomans had allowed Elgin to take treasures from the Acropolis only twenty years before the country gained its independence. Others said they were glad that Elgin had taken them – some even went so far as to say that they should never be returned - if Elgin hadn’t taken them, who knows what would have survived the Greek revolutionary wars, even the war between the Ottoman Empire and Russia from 1807 to 1809.
Did Lord Elgin intend to steal the marbles?
Mitsokakis says the marbles were stolen in the 19th century, they belong in the Acropolis Museum. Whether or not the firman, the Ottoman authorisation, did or did not specifically grant Elgin’s agents the power to remove sculptures and building parts which then remained in situ, there were subsequent authorisations to export and ship what had been taken. No objection was ever raised on behalf of the Greek community to the Ottoman authorities at the time. Elgin stole nothing. Elgin did not go to Athens and had not seen the monuments until his visit in the spring of 1802. He fully intended and engaged a team specifically to measure and take plaster casts of the monuments on the Acropolis and surrounding area. Only when he was told by his Chaplain, the Reverend Hunt, whom he had assigned as project manager, and by his watercolourist, Giovanni Battista Lusieri, of the daily injuries inflicted upon the buildings, did he attempt to persuade the Grand Vizir to issue firm instructions to the local Ottoman authorities to stop the desecration. When this failed, he baulked at the suggestion that he should direct removal, but was finally persuaded that this was the best way to preserve what remained.
Who was the legal owner of the Parthenon Marbles in Athens in 1801?
The Greek government has acknowledged, following its recent claim when it was represented by Amal Clooney, that it would not necessarily prevail in a legal argument over whether Lord Elgin was authorised to take the Pathenon marbles. If Elgin acted to preserve the marbles, from whom was he supposed to seek authorisation? There was no Greek authority. Since at least the 13th century AD, Athenian Greeks ceased to have any political power and few had any knowledge of or affection for their ancient past. The Athenians like to look to Lord Byron as their supporter, but they should read his early letters and the record of his companion, John Cam Hobhouse, to understand the Greeks of the early 19th century.
A rainbow on the horizon? The path to a solution lies in a win-win situation for
both England and Greece
The Greek government acknowledges that the way forward is by political negotiation. I will be glad to see Graeco-British cooperation to extend learning and knowledge of Ancient Greece and its monuments. I also want to see the adoption by Greece of a narrative which reflects the documented reality of Elgin’s intentions and the fact that he saved the antiquities which his agents removed from probable destruction.
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