Commonwealth and Foreign FROM PERICLES TO MET A X AS
FROM A SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT "WHEN I have made a decision, and frequently I may make a decision contrary to your views, that decision is final and unalterable. You must understand, then, that no one is able to stop me when I am on my way to carrying it out. . . . In this matter I ask you to be very careful, for by opposition I do not mean only the kind which no one can show, that is to say opposition of a formal nature, but also interior opposi- tion, that is, the lack of respect and of the submission of your ideals. . . . I do not permit to anyone—and I ask you to make this clear to your subordinates—any hidden opposi- tion to be shown to my wishes, in any way whatsoever." The author of this sufficiently challenging injunction is General John Metaxas, the Greek Dictator. He was addressing the higher officials of the Greek Ministry of Education, on November 28th, 1938; he had just added that Ministry to his existing offices of Prime Minister, Minister for Foreign Affairs, for the Army, the Navy, and the Air Force. Some examination of the form the regimentation of Greek intellectual life is taking under his direction (he was himself trained in Imperial Germany, at the Prussian Kriegsakademie) may be not unprofitable.
Four principal methods have been pursued: (t) limitation of opportunities of education ; (2) control of the school and university curriculum ; (3) punishment or expulsion of pupils and teachers suspected of disaffection ; (4) censorship of publications and suppression of all free discussion.
There is no fixed school-leaving age in Greece. On pass- ing through the four classes of the elementary school (" demotic " school) children are free to leave ; they usually do so at 12 or 13. After this very rudimentary education a child will be able to read and write badly, and perhaps add and subtract. Metaxas, as Minister of Education, has raised the secondary school fees. At the same time the cost of living has risen. As a result, only an insignificant number of chil- dren can continue their education beyond the elementary school. All young people's organisations, including, for in- stance, the Scouts and the Y.M.C.A., have been dissolved ; so have all student societies, including those which provided money and other help for poor students. They have all been replaced by a single official organisation, the " Neolaia " ; this is run on familiar Fascist lines, with semi-military drill, salut- ing and so on. It inculcates nationalist and Fascist doctrines and encourages its members to spy on one another, their teachers and their parents, and to inform the authorities of any behaviour suggesting anti-dictatorial views. School children from the age of seven, and university students, are under very strong pressure to join the Neolaia. A student who resists this pressure is likely, at the very least, to be excluded from examinations and to be unable to take up a professional career.
In the headquarters of the large force of " Security " police hang four portraits—of the King, Metaxas, Hitler and Goebbels. The Security police has two branches ; one con- ducts espionage among the working-class and the other among students and intellectuals. The latter branch closely supervises all forms of higher education, and the intellectual life of the country in general. The words and bearing of all university teachers are kept under dose observation. At all lectures notes are taken by police agents : sometimes manu- scripts of lectures are censored beforehand. Certain subjects, especially, perhaps, constitutional law and political history, are intrinsically dangerous. Books of the slightest democratic or liberal tendency are excluded from the schools and univer- sities. Before publication all books must be submitted to a police censor. There is a Security police officer in every newspaper office, by whom the whole contents of the paper must be scrutinised. It has even been found necessary to censor the classical writers of Greece. Passages have been ex- punged, for instance, from Plato's Republic (Plato described the tyrant as the basest and most miserable of men), from Thucydides' Funeral Oration of Pericles (for its democratic tone), and from the Antigone of Sophodes (for being against tyrants).
Teachers of known democratic or constitutionalist views, including some of the most celebrated, have been suspended, and often sent into exile. M. Eleftheropoulos, Rector of Salonika University, is one of the many who have been dis- placed. University teachers used to be elected by the teach- ing staffs themselves : now they are appointed by the Ministry of Education, which, of course, also controls all school appointments. Suspended teachers are naturally replaced by others acceptable to the regime—though the example of Ger- many suggests, and recent developments in Greece demon- strate, that this involves inevitably a serious lowering of academic standards.
Public opinion under an oppressive regime often expresses itself through applause in public places. In Greece all applause in cinemas has for this reason been forbidden. When M. Jean Zay, French Minister of Education, attended the centenary celebrations of the University of Athens, fifteen students were arrested for applauding a reference in his speech to the French Republic. They were released, but only after they had signed "declarations of repentance" for publication in the Press. Declarations from "repentant Communists" are now a regular feature of Greek newspatiers.
The Greek dictatorship is not merely modelled on, but inspired and guided by, Nazi Germany. The heads of the Security police are trained, if not actually directed, by the Gestapo. The Press obtains much of its material from German sources. Many of the leading officials pay frequent visits to their Berlin colleagues. Kanelopoulos, the head of the Neolaia, spent two years studying youth organisations in Germany. Students, especially in such subjects as law, philosophy, and literature, are encouraged to go to German universities, and given all possible facilities. They will return to be the administrators and ideologists of the Metaxas dictatorship. On the other hand, obstacles are put in the way of students or teachers who wish to visit England or France.
Supervision of education and of the Press are, of course, merely particular examples of the measures essential to the maintenance of dictatorial government in such a country as Greece. Since 1821 the Greeks have prided themselves on being a free people. When Metaxas assumed absolute powers there was no national emergency or calamity which he could plead in justification ; nor had he succeeded in capturing the imagination of a large part of the nation, as Hitler had in Germany in 1933. It is only by means of the police and the army—which he has been obliged to purge of many of its most able officers—that he can hold his position. Over ten thousand political opponents are in prison, or living in exile, in wretched conditions, on small islands. There is great and widespread discontent and some organised opposition. But opposition is very difficult and dangerous. Letters are opened by the police, telephones are tapped, any casual conversation may be overheard by a spy. It will not be easy for Metaxas to be overthrown purely by underground opposition.
Great Britain and France have committed themselves to guaranteeing the independence of Greece against external attack by the totalitarian Powers. Meanwhile the youth of Greece is being subjected to all the methods of a totalitarian regime. To that extent at least the influence of the Dictator is being thrown much more on the side of Greece's potential assailants than on the States which have undertaken to defend her. But Greece has a King as well as a Prime Minister. Though George II was chiefly responsible for General Metaxas' rise to power, he is believed to be susceptible to British influence. It was never more urgent that it should be exercised through any channel that offers.
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