Greek 'No' May Have Its Roots in Heroic Myths and Real Resistance

Athens: In the early 1800s, Greek fighters rebelled against their Ottoman overlord by blowing themselves up instead of submitting to captivity. In the mountains of Zalongo, by legend, women flung their children off a cliff and then danced off after them rather than be sold as slaves.

In October 1940, Greece boldly defied an Italian ultimatum, prompting Benito Mussolini to invade from the north. While fighting gallantly, beating the Italians back into Albania, the Greeks were eventually undone by the advance of Nazi troops from Bulgaria. By April 1941, the Axis occupation was complete.

Whether Greeks' overwhelming rejection on Sunday of the latest European loan deal proves to be a master stroke or a monumental blunder remains to be seen. What is clear, experts and analysts say, is that it sprang from a deep cultural and historical strain of defiance in apparently hopeless situations, honed over centuries under Ottoman rule and nurtured by the telling of heroic tales from one generation to another.

"It is true that deep in the Greek psyche is the idea of glorious resistance against all odds," said Nick Malkoutzis, the editor of Macropolis.gr, a political analysis website.

Sunday's no vote had to do with the recent past, Malkoutzis said, with people feeling penned in by the policies of the last five years and finally being given a chance to express themselves. But such moments, he said, are "written into the conscience of every Greek."

Sometimes, Malkoutzis said, that resistance had made for great victories in Greek history, like the War of Greek Independence, beginning in 1821 against the Ottoman Empire. And sometimes for colossal defeats, as at the hands of the Nazis and Mussolini in World War II.

When thousands of Greeks descended on Syntagma Square to celebrate the vote, many said they were not at all convinced that it would aid their situation. But it was time to fight back.

Most schoolchildren here are brought up on stories of resistance, some of which were invoked last week in trying to drum up resistance to European demands, whatever the consequences.

Thanos Veremis, historian emeritus at the University of Athens, said the Greeks love these stories because they strike a chord for a small country that has been dominated by a series of outside powers - the latest, in Greek eyes, being the European Union.

They are fighting the War of Independence all over again, he said, "standing up against the European Union."

Even in recent times, Greece has nurtured a culture of protests. The generation governing Greece today was raised on images of angry students barricading themselves inside the Athens Polytechnic in a bloody demonstration against the military junta that ruled Greece from 1967 to 1974.

Greek life is full of everyday strikes that have routinely shut down ferries to the islands, mass transit and taxis, among other things. Experts say that tax evasion developed as resistance to the Ottoman occupiers.

While they might have been resisting when they voted no on Sunday, the vast majority of Greeks want to remain in the union, polls show.

Evi Prousali, a theater critic who was among those celebrating in Syntagma on Sunday night, said Monday that she appreciated the richness of the varied European cultures.

She said she was not rebelling against her fellow Europeans but against the political and business elite who are ignoring the will not just of Greeks but of most other Europeans, as well.

"It's not the people," she said. "It's the international companies, the international banks, the European banking system. Germany and France are going to govern all Europe, as before the Second World War. It's another kind of colonization."

On Monday, in the aftermath of the vote, a kind of collective hangover mentality took over as Greeks waited to see what the future would bring.

The provocative finance minister, Yanis Varoufakis, resigned, opening the way for a more moderate voice. A national unity government was taking shape, but it was unclear whether that would keep Syriza, the governing party, in a more compromising mood or determined still to resist their creditors' demands.

More cautious voices warned that the creditors were not likely to restructure Greece's debt without concessions, and some analysts said the no vote could be costly.

"They don't know what poverty is," Veremis said. "When people tell me it can't get worse, I say of course it can. There's Bangladesh and there's Zambia, and there's Liberia and there's a host of countries that are much worse than Greece was and will be, which is what people don't realize."

Few Greeks were regretting their no choice, however, even after watching a day of television, which provided back-to-back meetings of various eurozone officials, few of them having much encouraging to say for Greece.

Theodoris Sourdis, 38, who was sitting in his electronics repair shop in Athens, said that voting no felt good and offered a sliver of hope for a better deal. Business has been so bad lately that he can barely afford food. On Monday, the phone rang twice.

"It was a mix of being fed up and a slice of hope that something could change," Sourdis said of the vote. "It was a matter of pride, too."

But he added with a slight shrug that he had spent the day listening to the radio, and that the news made it "sound like exactly nothing had changed. Just another day of negotiations."