A very controversial issue, although not very publicised all over
Greece is the issue of
Crete.
Crete is an island, inhabited by people of Greek origin especially after the Cretan State regime and the exchange of population, a practise organised as a solution to every problem by the "saviour" of Greece Eleftherio Venizelo.
Crete in the beginning of the 20th century was a part of the Ottoman empire.
It was given to Greece and it was a long awaited unification. Under the conditions of the times it was by far better for the inhabitants to be united in a country with their brothers the Greeks than to belong in the Ottoman empire which was at the time collapsing.
Cretans were finally united with the Greek state and supported the expansion with battle hardened troops (let's not forget that
Cretans are warriors by birth, they love guns, and have gained distinctions in every battle they took part for centuries). Crete also is a rich territory, with rich agricultural production. Also in our days, as cretans are hard working and clever, they have exploited touristically the island and is one of the major holiday destinations in the mediterranean.
Being an island however and a distant from continental Greece, crete was like England for
Europe, within yet distant...
One hundred years have passed since the unification of
Crete with
Greece, and some modern cretans started discussing that it might be better for crete to become independent again or become something like a federate state in Greece. Discussions, views expressed in a so called democratic nation. Some cretans even have unburied the flag of the Cretan State a pre-unification state during the transitional period and the turmoil of the early 20th century times...
Well, to be honest myself I like discussing this topic, not necessarily believing that it is absolutely good for
Crete to become independent (although with the course I see a good prospect on such a senario), but because I like the idea.
What is really interesting on the whole story, although the greek official state claims that there is no such thing as potential independence of Crete, they have their Intelligence service, using their resources to track these opinions, and either intimidate or prosecute them.
Readers of this blog, they tell me we Greeks are in the EU and we have some freedoms, also protected by the UN in which Greece is a member. Please let me know, if in a free democratic state, ideas that do not like to the government, that the state is afraid, are prosecuted without ANY action taken by those who have these ideas...Only in authoritarian states of the Latin America these things happen.
Another problem is that the intelligence service of Greece (EYP) is so undertrained, so irrelevant, so uneducated that they cannot do a single task right, and their comments to any blogs, sites, forums dealing with this issue are so unified and their aliases so similar that is better to sign with the official seal of the EYP than entering their silly alias.
We will only be a real democracy only when we will have politicians that have not committed treason against Greece, when the politicians will not be a third or fourth generation professional politicians (which means that they have not worked a single day for four generations), when the people of every city, island, town, or neighbourhood in greece will be able to discuss independence freely without the attorney general fear to prosecute them, or prosecute them for just putting a sticker of an old flag in their car (imagine all t-shirts carrying the southerns flag to be illegal in the U.S....).
