The Greek consulate interpreted: the binding link.



 During my first week of my ph.d studies in St.Andrews, Scotland,  and while meeting with people who had just had their oral defense of their own ph.d, I became the recipient of a usual-according to anthropological standards-question: can you talk about  Greek culture? Can you see it as a whole?

Of course I can! My reply came in the most enthusiastic tone. My interlocutor was taken aback and the expression on his face showed his utmost shock! How can you do this? There is no culture seen as a coherent whole!

Well, according to my non-anthropological standards, there was! Shortly before flying to Scotland, I had read a newspaper article. It referred to Anthony Queen and his role in Zorba the Greek. The journalist ended by stressing the actor’s posture: open arms stretching to the right and the left in the usual Greek dancing style. He interpreted such a posture as the core essence of Greek culture: it encompassed and most proudly boasted Greeks’ attitude to life: “we are here and ready to deal with all ups and downs of life. We are brave and strong.”  I loved this interpretation and had this in mind when shocking my interlocutor in St. Andrews.

As soon as the course of my study unfolded ,I was to abandon this naïve attitude and view of a culture in its whole. Moreover, I was to adopt another concept in words as : fragments, vignettes, aspects… and to highlight:  pieces of, partial views of…..

This is what circumscribes anthropology in theory and practice. If one needs to see this in action, the Greek consulate of Los Angeles is an ideal place. There is no single sentence which can summarize all aspects of Greekness and attitudes met in this room: there is a variety of them: there is compliance, there is detachment, there is selectivity. The list is endless.

 Occupying a suite on the eleventh floor of a  high rising building on Wilshire Boulevard, with a spacious reception room, clients are “welcomed” by a small number of objects nicely placed all around the room, either standing or hanging on the walls. We need to interpret them as  fragments of embodied Greekness: here are symbols of the State, the Nation, its history. Here is the Greek flag, the European Flag, a shield bearing the stamp of the Greek Nation and the Greek consulate,  a photograph of the current Greek President of Democracy, pictures of ancient Greek sculptures, of  Greek Island “classic activities”(i.e: fishing) and here is an advertisement on a forthcoming exhibition. This is the visible part of the fragments of Greekness. Here is selectivity in the content of pictures and the place they are given on the walls.

Yet, there is another set of fragments: the tangible one: bureaucracy. Clients need to fill forms in, submit other forms or photocopies, show their Greek identities or passports, sign documents, collect new passports or stamped and signed forms and pay the amount due.

Entangled with paperwork is a number of attitudes which Greek migrants spontaneously display when summoned to fill forms in: there is puzzlement, phobias for making mistakes, doubts and wishes.  There is of course blame on bureaucracy for taking so long, impatience for the same reason  and there is anxiety about other processes which will  subsequently be held back.  Here is a detachment from and-at the same time- a struggle to comply with writing in Greek and in Greek ways: I saw people struggling to keep with the Greek way of writing a date- the opposite of the American way-and forcing themselves not to make mistakes.

Most of all, there is the auditory part which gives the best twist as fragment of Greekness in this room and refers to accent and vocabulary: there is Greek spoken clearly and correctly in Greek accent, there is  American accent in spoken Greek and there is a combination of Greek and English words in one sentence spoken either by men or women who have been living in this country for many years. Any anthropologist dealing with sociolinguistics will definitely find himself in a most happy moment: selection of words and phrases in Greek or in English signifies a symbolic attachment to Greekness or the effect of a life lived in the USA hence an inescapable effect of not mixing with Greeks and not speaking Greek every day? Or, is it a sign of forgetting? Is it maybe something else? How is such a selection of words seen by recipients? Is it condemned? Is it food for jokes and sarcasm?  The identity of the referee does set all this clear…

Finally, there is the socially experienced fragment, the “felt” fragment.  Greeks see other Greeks with whom they are familiar and there is a friendly chat while waiting for the documents. They catch up with each other, compare and contrast their experiences and talk about their relatives in Greece, their lives or death. Other times, random people, strangers but still Greeks engage in routine questions and answers concerning paperwork. Here is a strong feeling of attachment to family and friends at home. Here is an emerging attachment to another fragment of Greekness: ways of thinking and facing things. It suddenly feels as if all these people are not in Los Angeles but in Greece. Their commonsensical ways of commenting on life and death does seem out of place.

Employees, the majority of which are women, are admirably strict with details and rules. It is really worth noting the detail with which employees examine all documents, word for word, literally speaking. We were repeatedly told that documents and forms will delay the process, given that some of them have to be posted to Greece and back to Los Angeles. This focus on detail and accuracy is most needed when out of the country. I see it as a fortunate reversal of Greek civil servants’ attitudes to bureaucracy where speed reigns but accuracy is long lost.

While waiting, silently recording these interactions and trying not to stare at people, one has the unique opportunity of observing all such moments and  at the background, there is a busy employee managing phone calls and clients in Greek and in English.

Fragments of Greekness are practiced, imagined, visualized, spoken, felt. Greece becomes a far and a near place , past and future time, cultural practices, social relations, parents, land, buildings, inheritance… Each one of the clients displays several of these fragments to a lesser or greater extent and witnesses other people doing so.

How can we not then turn to and see the role  of bureaucracy in binding these images up? Instead of blaming bureaucracy we owe a small praise to it for giving people opportunities to publicly  unfold fragments of Greekness and, more important, allow for them to  be observed …

Words of wisdom