Yeah I’m sure it was people’s desire for unity, and not the drastic drop in the quality of life experienced by the average Russian during the 90s.
It’s really funny because I know someone who left Greece to study in an ivy league uni in the US at 18 and he does the whole “I am from x country so I know y even though I don’t live in there” and, like, he doesn’t know shit. His understanding is almost as bad as any random tourist, because he was a suburbian upper crust (no poor or even middle class person in Greece could ever hope to afford to study in a US university, only very rich people and people with massive scholarships can do it) nerd who didn’t engage much with anything, but he still goes around offering his unique perspective and people take him seriously because he is in an ivy league uni and also Greek, even though his takes are baby brain shit that normal people here would laugh at. Same with some of his friends who also study abroad.
A couple of years ago they came back for summer and there was a whole reunion etc. One of my best friends was also there because she was in the same class with them. There was a solidarity protest for Grup Yorum and some people gave them flyers. That sent the Princeton idiot and his idiot friend into panic mode for some reason. They wanted to get rid of them as fast as possible as if it’s gonna taint them or whatever. My friend was like “calm down, just wait a while until we find a recycling bin, jesus”, so Princeton idiot says “right, but we should be careful because they may see us throwing them away and then we may be in trouble”. Motherfucker thinks Athens is overrun with communist guerillas who will chase you around and beat you up if you throw away their flyers. Just ridiculous cartoon shit.
Now imagine that person, but leaving the country at 7 instead of 18.
The greek expat community in america has some of the most cartoonish beliefs I’ve experienced. For many of them only the history they seem familiar with basically ends with “greek independence day” and any mention of civil war, junta or coup gets met with blank stares or hostility.
Tell me more, it’s always very funny to hear about that stuff lol.
Also do you mean expats as in first generation migrants or older communities? They’re much different groups. In the US Greek communities have been getting much more conservative, however in many places in Europe they’re often pretty cool (especially Germany) since lots of working class people went there to find work, and there’s actually lots and lots of old guard communists there, to the point where overall the KKE (old guard communist party, pretty shit today for various reasons but still important) typically ends up being the 2nd most popular party with diaspora voters, and in some countries it is actually first. The thing with the US is that these communities are growing increasingly nationalistic as well as bougie. Maybe assimilating with American brainworms is part of the issue, but also the junta was supported by the US so various people who left the country after the fall of the junta went there. In general for some reason Greek migrants are more nationalistic than the people who actually live here.
First generation migrants are a different case, the ones who go to the US are frequently bougie college kids. I can’t stress enough how impossible it is for an average person here to study in the US. Average monthly wage is around 1k here. Imagine a family of 2 parents having to send one of their children to study in the US while they have to live in Greece, living costs alone are more than an average family can manage if the parents don’t want to literally starve. Even upper middle class families won’t let their children study there because of how expensive everything is. So as you can deduce the people winding up there are almost always bougie as fuck, and they have the beliefs that go with that.
I was referring to older communities in the US, but funny enough I actually also know someone who went to princeton on merit scholarship (old enough to have memories of the coup and not be a chud).
I’d say the assimilation is definitely a big part of it, you can see it in the US with similar groups like irish and italians where as soon as they stopped getting treated as non-white they became eager to join the ranks of the oppressors. The greek chuds have a real obsession with hating islam/turkey in particular.
Part of the reason I try to communicate to other americans the economic situation in greece is that it’s starting to look more and more like the fate that awaits people in the US now that austerity and empire is really returning home.
Also if you need a laugh allow me to summarize the typical understanding of greek history as taught via US education:
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Zeus and polytheism- but mostly through disney movies and the Hercules TV show
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Brad pitt invaded Troy for some reason
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300 spartans fought off the evil persians
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greek democracy as romanticized by the br*tish (what slaves?)
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the byzantine empire survived the fall of the roman empire because they converted to christianity
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the evil muslims overthrew the Byzantines because of trickery and reasons
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war of independence
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“Glücksburg is just the family name, what are you a communist?”
lmao, I’m very sure I would have pissed myself laughing at someone freaking out over a flyer. On the other hand, few things are worse than having to listen to monologues of someone with a stick up their ass because they went to an expensive university.
Wait until you hear Princeton idiot’s friend’s (who studies in some other expensive uni but in the UK instead) ideas about the monarchy and particularly about the British royal family lol
I can hear them already, I’ve met royalists in Australia on more occasions than I would ever wish on my worst enemy.
