Greek shipping tycoons are by nature a conservative bunch. Because oil tankers can sink, the decision to risk all on the treacherous high seas is not one that is taken lightly.
So it comes as some surprise that dozens of super-rich, cigar-wielding Hellenes – men with gold-tapped mansions in London, New York, Athens and St Tropez – recently flew into Turkey, the one country that has taken almost delicious delight in being Greece’s implacable foe. And that, once there, these tycoons rolled up their sleeves, as the latest supporters of the Greek-Turkish love-in, to talk deals that could change the shape of international shipping as we know it today.
If you thought that the Greeks and Turks were still on a war-footing, still sworn enemies and still sending red tremors through Nato’s south-eastern flank, think again.
One of the world’s most unsung peace processes is under way, chipping away at aeons of mutual hatred and making the reconciliation efforts between Israel and Syria pale by comparison.
Let’s start with the Greek flag. This month, a firm that has manufactured the blue-and-white standard since it was bestowed on the Greeks in 1830 (the year they proclaimed independence from the Ottoman Turks) will begin importing Turkey’s famously durable acrylic cottons to manufacture the emblem.
Greeks and Turks, who have almost gone to war three times since the 1974 invasion of Cyprus, are simply too busy giving each other lustful looks to care much. Grabbing the opportunity, Greece has moved like a rampant Zorba to kiss and pet its neighbour. Indeed, with people in both countries learning each other’s lingo (a fad that has especial appeal among the upper classes), many say it is just a matter of time before intermarriages occur.
Increasingly, the budding relationship is being reflected on the ground. The 21st century was ushered in with the two ancient enemies signing a host of low-level, but significant, accords.
This year, thanks to a tourism agreement, ferries will begin taking tourists from Greece’s eastern islands to the Turkish coast. Flight and train connections will be improved as both countries begin promoting each other’s tourist attractions. And, on far-flung resorts such as Samos, the prices of basic commodities, such as bottled water, will take a nose-dive thanks to an economic accord allowing Turkish merchants to export the stuff across the sea.
Collaboration on waste disposal (ordure often being a hazardous bilateral issue), fire-fighting, sea pollution and eco-tourism has also taken off. And Greek and Turkish authorities have begun to revise the way history is taught in schools (many of my Greek friends say that they were reciting, parrot-fashion, the phrase “The good Turk is the dead Turk” by the age of eight).
Greece’s defiantly progressive foreign minister, George Papandreou, has even proposed that the two nations should jointly apply to host the 2008 European soccer championships.
Not since the 1930s, when the two countries patched up relations with a friendship pact (signed by Mustapha Kemal Ataturk, the founder of modern Turkey, and Eleftherios Venizelos, Greece’s foremost statesman), have ties been so good. The nadir they had reached a year ago over Greece’s embarrassing complicity in the refuge and capture of the Kurdish rebel leader, Abdullah Ocalan, now seems curiously unreal.
On both sides of the blustery Aegean, officials say that the penny has finally dropped – that Greece and Turkey have much more to gain than lose by mending fences. Previously the problems dividing the two countries were deemed to be too intractable even to discuss.
Short of being marginalised, mutual co-operation is the only way the rivals will be able to thrive in a competitive global economy, says Papandreou.
“We have more in common with the Turks than is often assumed,” the politician recently told me. “We know and understand the Muslim culture because for 400 years we lived with it. There’s a change in the way of thinking, beyond the level of government, in both societies. We would like to see change perhaps even faster than we are able to deliver it.”
Papandreou, a tall, gracious man who is also a former US citizen, is nothing like his fiery father, Andreas, under whose premiership Greece almost clashed with Turkey. He has made it his personal quest to improve Graeco-Turkish ties by linking the citizen to diplomacy.
“We can work through our businessmen, non-governmental organisations, universities, tourism, the European Union and [joint policies] in the Balkans,” says the minister, “to create the kind of rapport that is needed to address the bigger issues of Cyprus and the Aegean that still divide us.”
Ironically, it was Kosovo that proved a decisive turning-point for the traditional enemies (both of which had formerly vied for influence in the volatile Balkans). Faced with the exodus of refugees on their doorsteps, the neighbours dropped their mutual distrust to collaborate on the humanitarian mission of moving ethnic Albanians to and from the embattled province.
But it was the two countries’ deadly earthquakes, less than a month apart last summer, that sealed the change of heart. By capitalising on the outpouring of mutual sympathy produced by the natural disasters, the two governments were able to pull off what no amount of politicking could ever have achieved.
No one is saying that erasing centuries of mutual animosity will be easy. It’s just a start. But now that their attraction is out in the open, and cigar-wielding shipping tycoons are flying into Turkey, everyone is praying that the love-in will last long enough to develop into a fully fledged affair.
Content from our partners
Related
