Forty years ago this month, a series of monumental events shaped Greece and its people, leaving a legacy that still determines our politics, economy and society. Greece is like a modern parable in its trajectory from the collapse of a military dictatorship, through the restoration of democracy and the euphoria of European Union membership, to the current battle with economic crisis and political uncertainty.
In Greece, 1974 was more important even than 1981, the year we joined what was then the European Economic Community, today the European Union. We hardly noticed 1989, and the collapse of the Soviet bloc, until Europe, our region and the global economy changed. Even 2001, when much of the world changed and when Greece adopted the European common currency, and 2004, when Athens hosted a successful Summer Olympics, were mere stops on the road from freedom to economic ruin.
The year 1974 set Greece on course for the greatest uninterrupted period of stability and prosperity in our history, but it also consolidated many problems that still plague us: deep mistrust of authority, resistance to reform, unbridled populism in politics and the media, a state-dominated economy that favors specific groups, and a political system that values expedience over efficiency and puts self-interest above the common good.
July 1974 was the crucial month. Greece was seven years into an increasingly brutal right-wing military dictatorship. On July 15, Greek Cypriots, with the support of the Greek dictatorship, staged a coup against their government, with the aim of uniting the island republic with Greece. On July 20, Turkey, as guarantor of the Turkish-Cypriot minority, invaded Cyprus. The junta’s culpability, and inept response, prompted its immediate collapse. In the early hours of July 24, Constantine Karamanlis, a former prime minister of Greece exiled in Paris, returned to Athens to form a government of national unity and lead the country to democracy.
By the end of 1974, the conservative New Democracy party and the Socialist party Pasok had been formed. (They alternated in power until 2012 when, weakened by the financial crisis, they joined forces in a coalition.) Mr. Karamanlis legalized the long-banned Communist Party, and won a national election by a landslide; he called for an immediate reopening of accession talks with the European Economic Community, which had been frozen during the dictatorship; most important, he called a referendum that abolished the monarchy and established a republic with a parliament, prime minister and president.
The dictatorship discredited the authoritarian form of government that had been the norm for Greece, putting an end to a long history of military intervention in politics but also setting off a reaction against authority that still determines public debate and incites frequent protests.
Greeks’ faith in NATO was undermined, as the alliance was viewed as tolerant of the invasion of Cyprus by Turkey, also a NATO member, and the occupation of approximately 36 percent of the island’s territory, which continues. The conservative Mr. Karamanlis withdrew Greece from NATO’s military wing for several years, reflecting the fury of Greeks across the political spectrum.
This anger still stokes anti-NATO and anti-American feelings in many Greeks, from the extreme left to the extreme right. Furthermore, Washington’s support for the dictatorship was seen as an extension of its support of a nationalist government that had defeated Communist guerrillas in the 1946-49 civil war and suppressed leftist citizens for decades.
The end of the dictatorship, even with a conservative government leading the country closer to other European countries, resulted in widespread left-wing, anti-Western sentiment and an often obsessive nationalism in politics and the media. Fear of Turkey has kept military spending high, while the suspicion of foreign intervention has continued to inform the debate during the years of crisis — with populist parties of the left and right denouncing the “traitors” and “foreign stooges” in government.
To an extent, this explains the curious persistence of left-wing political violence: Greece’s most wanted militant, Nikos Maziotis, leader of the anarchist Revolutionary Struggle, was arrested on July 16 after a shootout with the police in central Athens. At the same time, reaction against the right wing has been so strong since 1974 that extreme-right parties had no electoral presence until the recent economic collapse discredited the mainstream parties. In May’s elections for the European Parliament, a radical left party won the most votes, and a neo-Nazi party placed third.
The seeds of economic destruction were also evident in 1974. Although government debt back then equaled just 22.5 percent of gross domestic product, Greece was plagued by double-digit inflation and the effects of the oil crisis; imports far exceeded exports; and political cronyism maintained an uncompetitive economy and a very expensive, inefficient state apparatus. Today, Greece’s state debt amounts to 174.1 percent of G.D.P. Recovery is impossible without a major write-off, leaving Greece in limbo, dependent on domestic political considerations among its European partners who are also its creditors.
In December 1974, Xenophon Zolotas, the governor of Greece’s central bank, warned the government: “If we keep trying to cover the deficit by taking on the heavy burden of new loans, we will only make things worse.” Successive Bank of Greece governors kept saying this. Our spendthrift politicians, with few exceptions, did not adapt to the changing times, choosing to keep voters happy with borrowed funds — right up until Greece came to the brink of bankruptcy in 2010, our new defining year.
Nikos Konstandaras is the managing editor and a columnist at the newspaper Kathimerini.