September 3 will mark 50 years since the founding of socialist PASOK. Much will be written and said about this party – or movement – which dominated Greek politics during the Metapolitefsi period, as well as its founder.
METAPOLITEFSI: 50 YEARS
The 50th anniversary of the Metapolitefsi – the transition from dictatorship to democracy in 1974 and the period since – necessitates a rethinking of our relationship with historical time. In fact, the polysemous Metapolitefsi itself challenges our calculation of historical time, in each and every version of it: the Metapolitefsi as an event and a state, a transition and a time period.
Greece has progressed in the past 50 years since the restoration of democracy on July 23, 1974, but it has also missed opportunities, Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said in an article published in Parliament’s magazine.
I was seven years old on July 24, 1974, as Thessaloniki celebrated, and the chant “he’s coming!” sounded from cars, the streets and balconies. The optimism of those days was vindicated.
The Cyprus issue and the aftermath of the 50th anniversary of the Turkish invasion of Cyprus are expected to top the political agenda this week.
Archbishop Ieronymos, the leader of the Orthodox Church of Greece, released a statement on Monday on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the restoration of democracy.
As a university professor, a practicing lawyer and a human rights activist, what do I keep from the Metapolitefsi?
It took 50 years for the Greek state to develop more effective systems to contain tax evasion. This is not said to mock or denigrate the state; quite the opposite.
Earlier this year Kathimerini organized a three-day conference looking back at the 50 years since the restoration of democracy in Greece in 1974, or the Metapolitefsi.
The condemnation of populism was one of the main conclusions of the recent conference on the 50-year anniversary of the “Metapolistefsi” (the period since the restoration of democracy) co-organized by Kathimerini.
A central issue in Greek politics for decades has been that politicians view everything as a zero-sum game. In colloquial terms, they believe that the political death of their opponent equates to their own survival.
Social policy and the welfare state comprise the greatest social – and political – accomplishment of the Metapolitefsi and of this democracy. Every government from 1974 onward strengthened the country’s social policy – some to a greater, others to a lesser degree.
The quality of the democracy achieved during the Metapolitefsi era, its institutional and financial performance, is held in much lower esteem by younger generations than older Greeks, a new poll has found.
The remarkable (if not yawning) chasm between the generation that experienced the entire cycle of Greece’s return to democracy and younger age groups born into the cycle of the so-called Metapolitefsi has been vividly illustrated by a poll commissioned by Kathimerini.
Is Greece’s transition to democracy, a historical process known as the “Metapolitefsi,” complete? What are the legacies and hangups left behind, 50 years after the collapse of the military dictatorship?
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