cspdf, Job 181 - University of Kent

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changes hands in a system of reciprocal services, is the best possible example of this process. I began the paper by relating the phenomenon of Orientalism to the case of Neohellenic identity-formation. I have explained that the Western (often Western European) narrative, which made ancient Greek civilisation the cradle of European modernity, derided modern Greeks as unworthy of their Hellenic forefathers. However, I have argued that in the context of Athens 2004 Greek state agents use this narrative of European modernity in a completely different fashion as a resistance mechanism. Their belief is that by right of heritage Greece ought to be reciprocated by the West for what the Hellenic forefathers offered to humanity: the ‘gift’ of ‘civilisation’. The argument is based on the presentation of the Hellenes, ancient and modern, as unconditional donors of the West by analogy with Christ’s self-sacrifice for humanity. Within the framework of 2004, the very idea of the Olympics, with its universal appeal and its Hellenic roots, was presented by Greek actors as a more concrete version of the gift of civilisation. At this point I identified a tension in the Greek 2004 discourse that can be likened to Benjamin’s conviction that the angel of progress remains stranded between past and present. On the one hand Greek state agents see in the IOC’s return of the Olympics to their birthplace a recognition of their national(ised) culture by an international community. On the other hand, however, they know that this consent does not necessarily guarantee the recognition of Hellenic symbolic capital in political or economic terms (and therefore modern Greece’s treatment as equal to powerful Western
countries). Consequently, certain Greek actors violate the principle of donation by ‘asking back’ for the Olympics, on the grounds that they comprise the Greeks’ ‘usurped’ culture. Both attitudes (recognition of the Hellenic Olympic ‘gift’ and its re-appropriation/demand for a permanent return) meet the same ends, as they redeem Greek culture from the hell of Oriental backwardness and permit its passage into ‘civilisation’. It is somehow ironic that the very act of Greek self-redemption signals a process of selfrecognition. For what it is worth, official Greek discourse on Athens 2004 articulates a version of identity that keeps the ‘Neohellenic’ imagined community alive. REFERENCES Alpha Bank, http://www.alpha.gr/page.asp?PageID=780&Lang=2. Anderson, B. (1991), Imagined Communities. New York, London: Verso. Appadurai, A. (1981) The Past as a Scarce Resource. Man N.S. 16: 201-219. Appadurai, A. (1986) ‘Towards an Anthropology of Things’ in A. Appadurai (ed), The Social Life of Things: Commodities in Cultural Perspective. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Ardener, E. (1989) The Voice of Prophecy and Other Essays. Oxford: Basil Blackwell. Aristotle (1924) Metaphysics, I. W.D. Ross (trans). Oxford: Clarendon. Athens 2004, http://www.athens2004.gr. Athens News Agency, (22 November 1999) http://www.hri.org/news/greek/apeen/1999/99-11-22.apeen.html. Bataille, G. (1988) The Accursed Share, I. New York: Urzone.
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Page 3 and 4: that is, the impact of Western idea
Page 5 and 6: Greek self-narration with a ‘kern
Page 7 and 8: international community, not to cel
Page 9 and 10: unbearable. In fact, the Falmerayer
Page 11 and 12: for the first Games, Greece, is als
Page 13 and 14: security-related issues: the US, th
Page 15 and 16: discourses of security, but remains
Page 17 and 18: generosity was invoked for a sole p
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Page 21 and 22: esponsibility’ and to work agains
Page 23 and 24: The tautological nature of the Orie
Page 25 and 26: in a protective self-denial of thei
Page 27 and 28: a replica of modern Greece, the sel
Page 29 and 30: together with Ismail Cem, the Forei
Page 31 and 32: attitude, however, is not irrationa
Page 33: Venizelos. Back in November 1997, t
Page 37 and 38: Cultural Olympiad, http://www.cultu
Page 39 and 40: Herzfeld, M. (2002b) The Absent Pre
Page 41: Young, D.C. (1996) The Modern Olymp

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