A Very Public Private Man: 2012

Saturday 3 November 2012

Security Is Development

Diagrammatic representation of the thesis

Security In The Contemporary World

This was Robert S. McNamara's central thesis - that security is development - and; if anyone cares to notice, the world since 1966 (it is now 2012) has unfolded as McNamara predicted.

Robert S. McNamara, Secretary of Defense's Speech to the American Society of Newspaper Editors. Montreal, Canada, May 18th, 1966.

"Security is Development"

Any American would be fortunate to visit this lovely island city, in this hospitable land. But here is a special satisfaction for a Secretary of Defense to cross the longest border in the world and realize that it is also the least armed border in the world. It prompts one to reflect how negative and narrow a notion of defense still clouds our century. There is still among us an almost eradicable tendency to think of our security problem as being exclusively a military problem-and to think of the military problem as being exclusively a weapons-system or hardware problem.

The plain, blunt truth is that contemporary man still conceives of war and peace in much the same stereotyped terms that his ancestors did. The fact that these ancestors, both recent and remote, were conspicuously unsuccessful at avoiding war, and enlarging peace, doesn't seem to dampen our capacity for cliches. We still tend to conceive of national security almost solely as a state of armed readiness: a vast, awesome arsenal of weaponry. We still tend to assume that it is primarily this purely military ingredient that creates security. We are still haunted by this concept of military hardware. But how limited a concept this actually is becomes apparent when one ponders the kind of peace that exists between the United States and Canada.

It is a very cogent example. Here we are, two modern nations, highly developed technologically, each with immense territory, both enriched with great reserves of natural resources, each militarily sophisticated; and yet we sit across from one another, divided by an unguarded frontier of thousands of miles, and there is not a remotest set of circumstances, in any imaginable time frame of the future, in which our two nations would wage war on one another. It is so unthinkable an idea as to be totally absurd. But why is that so?

Is it because we are both ready in an instant to hurl our military hardware at one another? Is it because we are both zeroed in on one another's vital targets? Is it because we are both armed to our technological teeth that we do not go to war? The whole notion, as applied to our two countries, is ludicrous. Canada and the United States are at peace for reasons that have nothing whatever to do with our mutual military readiness. We are at peace-truly at peace- because of the vast fund of compatible beliefs, common principles, and shared ideals. We have our differences and our diversity and let us hope for the sake of a mutually rewarding relationship we never become sterile carbon copies of one another. But the whole point is that our basis of mutual peace has nothing whatever to do with our military hardware.

Now this is not to say, obviously enough, that the concept of military deterrence is no longer relevant in the contemporary world. Unhappily, it still is critically relevant with respect to our potential adversaries. But it has no relevance whatever between the United States and Canada. We are not adversaries. We are not going to become adversaries. And it is not mutual military deterrence that keeps us from becoming adversaries. It is mutual respect for common principles. Now I mention this-as obvious as it all is-simply as a kind of reductio ad absurdum of the concept that military hardware is the exclusive or even the primary ingredient of permanent peace in the mid - 20th century.

In the United States over the past 5 years, we have achieved a considerably improved balance in our total military posture. That was the mandate I received from Presidents Kennedy and Johnson; and with their support, and that of the Congress, we have been able to create a strengthened force structure of land, sea, and air components with a vast increase in mobility and materiel and with a massive superiority in nuclear retaliatory power over any combination of potential adversaries. Our capabilities for nuclear, conventional, and counter – subversive war have all been broadened and improved; and we have accomplished this through military budgets that were in fact lesser percentages of our gross national product than in the past.

From the point of view of combat readiness, the United States has never been militarily stronger. We intend to maintain that readiness. But if we think profoundly about the matter, it is clear that this purely military posture is not the central element in our security. A nation can reach the point at which it does not buy more security for itself simply by buying more military hardware. We are at that point. The decisive factor for a powerful nation already adequately armed is the character of its relationships with the world.

In this respect, there are three broad groups of nations: first, those that are struggling to develop; secondly, those free nations that have reached a level of strength and prosperity that enables them to contribute to the peace of the world; and finally, those nations who might tempted to make themselves our adversaries. For each of these groups, the United States, to preserve its intrinsic security, has to have distinctive sets of relationships. First, we have to help protect those developing countries which genuinely need and request our help and which, as an essential precondition, are willing and able to help themselves.

Second, we have to encourage and achieve a more effective partnership with those nations who can and should share international peacekeeping responsibilities. Third, we must do all we realistically can to reduce the risk of conflict with those who might be tempted to take up arms against us. Let us examine these three sets of relationships in detail.

The Developing Nations:

First, the developing nations. Roughly 100 countries today are caught up in the difficult transition from traditional to modern societies. There is no uniform rate of progress among them, and they range from primitive mosaic societies fractured by tribalism and held feebly together by the slenderest of political sinews to relatively sophisticated countries well on the road to agricultural sufficiency and industrial competence. This sweeping surge of development, particularly across the whole southern half of the globe, has no parallel in history. It has turned traditionally listless areas of the world into seething cauldrons of change.On the whole, it has not been a very peaceful process.

In the last 8 years alone there have been no less than 164 internationally significant outbreaks of violence, each of them specifically designed as a serious challenge to the authority, or the very existence, of the government in question. Eighty two different governments have been directly involved. What is striking is that only 15 of these 164 significant resorts to violence have been military conflicts between two states. And not a single one of the 164 conflicts has been a formally declared war. Indeed, there has not been a formal declaration of war anywhere in the world since World War II.

The planet is becoming a more dangerous place to live on, not merely because of a potential nuclear holocaust but also because of the large number of de facto conflicts and because the trend of such conflicts is growing rather than diminishing. At the beginning of 1958, there were 23 prolonged insurgencies going on about the world. As of February 1, 1966, there were 40. Further, the total number of outbreaks of violence has increased each year: In 1958, there were 34; in 1965, there were 58.

The Relationship of Violence and Economic Status:

But what is most significant of all is that there is a direct and constant relationship between the incidence of violence and the economic status of the countries afflicted. The World Bank divides nations on the basis of per capita income into four categories: rich, middle income, poor, and very poor.

The rich nations are those with a per capita income of $750 per year or more. The current U.S. level is more than $2,700. There are 27 of these rich nations. They possess 75 percent of the world's wealth, though roughly only 25 percent of the world's population. Since 1958, only one of these 27 nations has suffered a major internal upheaval on its own territory.

But observe what happens at the other end of the economic scale. Among the 38 very poor nations those with a per capita income of under $100 a year not less than 32 have suffered significant conflicts. Indeed, they have suffered an average of two major outbreaks of violence per country in the 8 year period. That is a great deal of conflict. What is worse, it has been predominantly conflict of a prolonged nature. The trend holds predictably constant in the case of the two other categories: the poor and the middle income nations. Since 1958, 87 percent of the very poor nations, 69 percent of the poor nations, and 48 percent of the middle income nations have suffered serious violence.

There can, then, be no question but that there is an irrefutable relationship between violence and economic backwardness. And the trend of such violence is up, not down. Now, it would perhaps be somewhat reassuring if the gap between the rich nations and the poor nations were closing and economic backwardness were significantly receding. But it is not. The economic gap is widening.

By the year 1970 over one half of the world's total population will live in the independent nations sweeping across the southern half of the planet. But this hungering half of the human race will by then command only one sixth of the world's total of goods and services. By the year 1975 the dependent children of these nations alone children under 15 years of age will equal the total population of the developed nations to the north.

Even in our own abundant societies, we have reason enough to worry over the tensions that coil and tighten among under-privileged young people and finally flail out in delinquency and crime. What are we to expect from a whole hemisphere of youth where mounting frustrations are likely to fester into eruptions of violence and extremism?

Annual per capita income in roughly half of the 80 underdeveloped nations that are members of the World Bank is rising by a paltry 1 percent a year or less. By the end of the century these nations, at their present rates of growth, will reach a per capita income of barely $170 a year. The United States, by the same criterion, will attain a per capita income of $4,500. The conclusion to all of this is blunt and inescapable: Given the certain connection between economic stagnation and the incidence of violence, the years that lie ahead for the nations in the southern half of the globe are pregnant with violence.

U.S. Security and the Newly Developing World:

This would be true even if no threat of Communist subversion existed is it clearly does. Both Moscow and Peking, however harsh their internal differences, regard the whole modernization process as an ideal environment for the growth of communism. Their experience with subversive internal war is extensive, and they have developed a considerable array of both doctrine and practical measures in the art of political violence. What is often misunderstood is that Communists are capable of subverting, manipulating, and finally directing for their own ends the wholly legitimate grievances of a developing society.

But it would be a gross oversimplification to regard communism as the central factor in every conflict throughout the underdeveloped world. Of the 149 serious internal insurgencies in the past 8 years, Communists have been involved in only 58 of them - 8 percent of the total- and this includes seven instances in which a Communist regime itself was the target of the uprising.

Whether Communists are involved or not, violence anywhere in a taut world transmits sharp signals through the complex gangli of international relations; and the security of the United States is related to the security and stability of nations half a globe away. But neither conscience nor sanity itself suggests that the United States is, should or could be the global gendarme. Quite the contrary. Experience confirms what human nature suggests: that in most instances of internal violence the local people themselves are best able to deal directly with the situation within the framework of their own traditions.

The United States has no mandate from on high to police the world and no inclination to do so. There have been classic case in which our deliberate non-action was the wisest action of all. Where our help is not sought, it is seldom prudent to volunteer. Certainly we have no charter to rescue floundering regimes who have brought violence on themselves by deliberately refusing to meet the legitimate expectations of their citizenry.

Further, throughout the next decade advancing technology will reduce the requirements for bases and staging rights at particular locations abroad, and the whole pattern of forward deployment will gradually change. But, though all these caveats are clear enough, the irreducible fact remains that our security is related directly to the security of the newly developing world. And our role must be precisely this: to help provide security to those developing nations which genuinely need and request our help and which demonstrably are willing and able to help themselves.

Security and Development:

The rub comes in this: We do not always grasp the meaning of the word "security" in this context. In a modernizing society, security means development. Security is not military hardware, though it may include it. Security is not military force, though it may involve it. Security is not traditional military activity, though it may encompass it. Security is development. Without development, there can be no security. A developing nation that does not in fact develop simply cannot remain "secure." It cannot remain secure for the intractable reason that its own citizenry cannot shed its human nature.

If security implies anything, it implies a minimal measure of order and stability. Without internal development of at least a minimal degree, order and stability are simply not possible. They are not possible because human nature cannot be frustrated beyond intrinsic limits. It reacts because it must.

Now, that is what we do not always understand, and that is also what governments of modernizing nations do not always understand. But by emphasizing that security arises from development, I do not say that an underdeveloped nation cannot be subverted from within, or be aggressed upon from without, or be the victim of a combination of the two. It can. And to prevent any or all of these conditions, a nation does require appropriate military capabilities to deal with the specific problem. But the specific military problem is only a narrow facet of the broader security problem.

Military force can help provide law and order but only to the degree that a basis for law and order already exists in the developing society: a basic willingness on the part of the people to cooperate. The law and order is a shield, behind which the central fact of security – development - can be achieved.

Now we are not playing a semantic game with these words. The trouble is that we have been lost in a semantic jungle for too long. We have come to identify "security" with exclusively military phenomena, and most particularly with military hardware. But it just isn't so. And we need to accommodate to the facts of the matter if we want to see security survive and grow in the southern half of the globe.

Development means economic, social, and political progress. It means a reasonable standard of living, and the word "reasonable" in this context requires continual redefinition. What is "reasonable" in an earlier stage of development will become "unreasonable" in a later stage. As development progresses, security progresses. And when the people of a nation have organized their own human and natural resources to provide themselves with what they need and expect out of life and have learned to compromise peacefully among competing demands in the larger national interest then their resistance to disorder and violence will be enormously increased. Conversely, the tragic need of desperate men to resort to force to achieve the inner imperatives of human decency will diminish.

Military and Economic Spheres of U.S. Aid:

Now, I have said that the role of the United States is to help provide security to these modernizing nations, providing they need and request our help and are clearly willing and able to help themselves. But what should our help be? Clearly, it should be help toward development. In the military sphere, that involves two broad categories of assistance.

We should help the developing nation with such training and equipment as is necessary to maintain the protective shield behind which development can go forward. The dimensions of that shield vary from country to country, but what is essential is that it should be a shield and not a capacity for external aggression. The second, and perhaps less understood category of military assistance in a modernizing nation, is training in civic action. Civic action is another one of those semantic puzzles. Too few Americans and too few officials in developing nations really comprehend what military civic action means. Essentially, it means using indigenous military forces for nontraditional military projects, projects that are useful to the local population in fields such as education, public works, health, sanitation, agriculture - indeed, anything connected with economic or social progress.

It has had some impressive results. In the past 4 years the U.S. assisted civic action program, worldwide, has constructed or repaired more than 10,000 miles of roads, built over 1,000 schools, hundreds of hospitals and clinics, and has provided medical and dental care to approximately 4 million people. What is important is that all this was done by indigenous men in uniform. Quite apart from the developmental projects themselves, the program powerfully alters the negative image of the military man as the oppressive preserver of the stagnant status quo.

But assistance in the purely military sphere is not enough. Economic assistance is also essential. The President is determined that our aid should be hard-headed and rigorously realistic, that it should deal directly with the roots of underdevelopment and not merely attempt to alleviate the symptoms. His bedrock principle is that U.S. economic aid - no matter what its magnitude - is futile unless the country in question is resolute in making the primary effort itself. That will be the criterion, and that will be the crucial condition for all our future assistance.

Only the developing nations themselves can take the fundamental measures that make outside assistance meaningful. These measures are often unpalatable and frequently call for political courage and decisiveness. But to fail to undertake painful, but essential, reform inevitably leads to far more painful revolutionary violence. Our economic assistance is designed to offer a reasonable alternative to that violence. It is designed to help substitute peaceful progress for tragic internal conflict.

The United States intends to be compassionate and generous in this effort, but it is not an effort it can carry exclusively by itself. And thus it looks to those nations who have reached the point of self-sustaining prosperity to increase their contribution to the development and, thus, to the security of the modernizing world.

Sharing Peacekeeping Responsibilities:

And that brings me to the second set of relationships that I underscored at the outset; it is the policy of the United States to encourage and achieve a more effective partnership with those nations who can, and should, share international peacekeeping responsibilities.

America has devoted a higher proportion of its gross national product to its military establishment than any other major free-world nation. This was true even before our increased expenditures in Southeast Asia. We have had, over the last few years, as many men in uniform as all the nations of Western Europe combined, even though they have a population half again greater than our own.

Now, the American people are not going to shirk their obligations in any part of the world, but they clearly cannot be expected to bear a disproportionate share of the common burden indefinitely. If, for example, other nations genuinely believe - as they say they do - that it is in the common interest to deter the expansion of Red China's economic and political control beyond its national boundaries, then they must take a more active role in guarding the defense perimeter. Let me be perfectly clear. This is not to question the policy of neutralism or nonalignment of any particular nation. But it is to emphasize that the independence of such nations can, in the end, be fully safeguarded only by collective agreements among themselves and their neighbors.

The plain truth is the day is coming when no single nation, however powerful, can undertake by itself to keep the peace outside its own borders. Regional and international organizations for peacekeeping purposes are as yet rudimentary, but they must grow in experience and be strengthened by deliberate and practical cooperative action.

In this matter, the example of Canada is a model for nations everywhere. As Prime Minister Pearson pointed out eloquently in New York just last week: Canada "is as deeply involved in the world's affairs as any country of its size. We accept this because we have learned over 50 years that isolation from the policies that determine war does not give us immunity from the bloody, sacrificial consequences of their failure. We learned that in 1914 and again in 1939. . . . That is why we have been proud to send our men to take part in every peacekeeping operation of the United Nations in Korea, and Kashmir, and the Suez, and the Congo, and Cyprus."

The Organization of American States in the Dominican Republic, the more than 30 nations contributing troops or supplies to assist the Government of South Viet Nam, indeed even the parallel efforts of the United States and the Soviet Union in the Pakistan-India conflict these efforts, together with those of the U.N., are the first attempts to substitute multinational for unilateral policing of violence. They point to the peacekeeping patterns of the future.

We must not merely applaud the idea. We must dedicate talent, resources, and hard practical thinking to its implementation. In Western Europe, an area whose burgeoning economic vitality stands as a monument to the wisdom of the Marshall Plan, the problems of security are neither static nor wholly new. Fundamental changes are under way, though certain inescapable realities remain. The conventional forces of NATO, for example, still require a nuclear backdrop far beyond the capability of any Western European nation to supply, and the United States is fully committed to provide that major nuclear deterrent.

However, the European members of the alliance have a natural desire to participate more actively in nuclear planning. A central task of the alliance today is, therefore, to work out the relationships and institutions through which shared nuclear planning can be effective. We have made a practical and promising start in the Special Committee of NATO Defense Ministers.

Common planning and consultation are essential aspects of any sensible substitute to the unworkable and dangerous alternative of independent national nuclear forces within the alliance. And even beyond the alliance we must find the means to prevent the proliferation of nuclear weapons. That is a clear imperative. There are, of course, risks in non-proliferation arrangements, but they cannot be compared with the infinitely greater risks that would arise out of the increase in national nuclear stockpiles. In the calculus of risk, to proliferate independent national nuclear forces is not a mere arithmetical addition of danger. We would not be merely adding up risks. We would be insanely multiplying them.

If we seriously intend to pass on a world to our children that is not threatened by nuclear holocaust, we must come to grips with the problem of proliferation. A reasonable non-proliferation agreement is feasible. For there is no adversary with whom we do not share a common interest in avoiding mutual destruction triggered by an irresponsible nth power.

Dealing With Potential Adversaries:

That brings me to the third and last set of relationships the United States must deal with: those with nations who might be tempted to take up arms against us. These relationships call for realism. But realism is not a hardened, inflexible, unimaginative attitude. The realistic mind is a restlessly creative mind, free of naive delusions but full of practical alternatives. There are practical alternatives to our current relationships with both the Soviet Union and Communist China. A vast ideological chasm separates us from them and to a degree separates them from one another. There is nothing to be gained from our seeking an ideological rapproachment; but breaching the isolation of great nations like Red China, even when that isolation is largely of its own making reduces the danger of potentially catastrophic misunderstandings and increase the incentive on both sides to resolve disputes by reason rather than by force.

There are many ways in which we can build bridges toward nations who would cut themselves off from meaningful contact with us. We can do so with properly balanced trade relations, diplomatic contacts and in some cases even by exchanges of military observers. We have to know when it is we want to place this bridge, what sort of traffic we want to travel over it, an on what mutual foundations the whole structure can be designed. There are no one cliff bridges. If you are going to span a chasm, you have to rest the structure on both cliffs. Now cliffs, generally speaking, are rather hazardous places. Some people are afraid even to look over the edge. But in a thermonuclear world, we cannot afford any political acrophobia.

President Johnson has put the matter squarely: By building bridges to those who make themselves our adversaries, "we can help gradually to create a community of interest, a community of trust, and a community of effort." With respect to a "community of effort" let me suggest a concrete proposal for our own present young generation in the United States. It is a committed and dedicated generation. It has proven that in its enormously impressive performance in the Peace Corps overseas and in its willingness to volunteer for a final assault on such poverty and lack of opportunity that still remain in our own country.

As matters stand, our present Selective Service System draws on only a minority of eligible young men. That is an inequity. It seems to me that we could move toward remedying that inequity by asking every young person in the United States to give 2 years of service to his country whether in one of the military services, in the Peace Corps, or in some other volunteer developmental work at home or abroad.

We could encourage other countries to do the same, and we could work out exchange programs much as the Peace Corps is already planning to do. While this is not an altogether new suggestion, it has been criticized as inappropriate while we are engaged in a shooting war. But I believe precisely the opposite is the case. It is more appropriate now than ever. For it would underscore what our whole purpose is in Vietnam and indeed anywhere in the world where coercion, or injustice, or lack of decent opportunity still holds sway. It would make meaningful the central concept of security a world of decency and development where every man can feel that his personal horizon is rimmed with hope.

Mutual interest, mutual trust, mutual effort those are the goals. Can we achieve those goals with the Soviet Union, and with Communist China? Can they achieve them with one another? The answer to these questions lies in the answer to an even more fundamental question. Who is man? Is he a rational animal? If he is, then the goals can ultimately be achieved. If he is not, then there is little point in making the effort.

All the evidence of history suggests that man is indeed a rational animal but with a near infinite capacity for folly. His history seems largely a halting, but persistent, effort to raise his reason above his animality. He draws blueprints for utopia. But never quite gets it built. In the end he plugs away obstinately with the only building material really ever at hand his own part-comic, part-tragic, part-cussed, but part-glorious nature.

I, for one, would not count a global free society out. Coercion, after all, merely captures man. Freedom captivates him.

Saturday 20 October 2012

Stranger In Athens 2012

"All travel has its advantages. If the passenger visits better countries, he may learn to improve his own. And if fortune carries him to worse, he may learn to enjoy it" - Dr Samuel Johnson.

Standing on Areopagus Hill, overlooking Athens.

by Kudakwashe Kanhutu

Where do I begin? What style should I use? I think I will ask myself a few questions and my answers to them should be an expose and, hopefully, an advert for others who enjoy travel as I do, to also travel to mainland Greece. I also put a lot of pictures at the end which form a photo essay of this diary.

Why Athens?

My desire to visit Greece is in some way related to my Christian faith. I will tell you how. The place I have always really wanted to visit is Israel. I want to see all the places where the events in the bible happened; Christ’s tomb (empty of course!), Jerusalem, Galilee, Nazareth and a host of other places mentioned in the bible. But alas, the people who are currently settled in Israel are doing a lot of unchristian things to each other that I hesitate to visit. So, because of security concerns and other misgivings, Israel is not on my cards. Another country with such a long history and rich traditions has to suffice in Israel’s stead.

Greece is an old civilization that dates back to Christ’s time and even before. There is a strong tradition of Christianity in Greece. The Corinthians, a Chapter in the New Testament, testifies to these facts. There was even a chance of visiting the temple in Corinth which St Paul visited just after the ascendancy, but I will get to that later on. My draw to Athens however, was worldly and not at all spiritual. By this I do not mean I went in search of Greek beauties. No Sir. No Madam. I only mean that as a student of the art of war, literature, politics and international relations (worldly stuff), I am intimately conversant with the fact that there is a lot that the modern day world owes to Greek ingenuity. Democracy was invented here. Algebra (although I imagine maths students would curse rather than rejoice this fact), Geometry, Epic Poetry, Theatre, the Olympics and, a whole host of other things I am not aware of, are Greek inventions. Let’s quickly agree that I was under no illusion that I was visiting a perfect society. An amusing anecdote which forewarned me against this kind of illusion suffices at this point:

The Jerusalem Syndrome:

"The best known, although not the most prevalent, manifestation of the Jerusalem syndrome is the phenomenon whereby a person who seems previously balanced and devoid of any signs of psychopathology becomes psychotic after arriving in Jerusalem. The psychosis is characterized by an intense religious theme and typically resolves to full recovery after a few weeks or after being removed from the area.” (Wikipedia).

I read an article by a travel correspondent for Time Magazine a few years ago, who recorded, with examples, the phenomenon described above by Wikipedia. He recorded an American tourist who was picked up by police wandering the hills around Jerusalem in flowing white robes (presumably to deliver his Sermon on the Mount), then there was the burly German who abused staff at a Jerusalem hotel for preventing him from “preparing the last supper.” The correspondent explained this as how disappointment manifests itself among people who visit Jerusalem expecting an epiphany but, instead, find themselves in an earthly city with traffic jams and garbage disposal problems just like any other. They then enact what they expected to find! The point for me is not the accuracy of the diagnosis, the point for me is, thus, I did not expect Greece to be a model for all the ideals.

Getting There?

My Swissair Airbus at Geneve Aeroport.

Squeamish friends questioned the wisdom of travelling to Greece when all we hear on the news is violent targeting of foreigners by nationalist groups in Greece. I was very dismissive of such a concern for three reasons, one; I am a nationalist myself and therefore know, inside out, the etiquette for dealing with other nationalists in their country. There are a few golden rules, such as; Do NOT try to run for president while over there, do NOT monopolize the means of production while paying the locals peanuts, also, do NOT be rude and offensive to their national symbols. I did none of the above. The second reason why I was unconcerned by worries of attacks on myself is that without recourse to state machinery, I feel I am on equal footing with any individual that may wish to cause me harm. If the state is complicity in these attacks on foreigners, my own state should be able to pay them in kind (if not now, then at some point in the future). Thirdly, and this is my main point, whoever expects the conditions of his or her living room to subsist everywhere is not suited to travelling. You travel to experience new things, some good and some bad. So there was no reason not to go.

A first sight of the Swiss Alps en route to Athens.

Sea, Air or Land?

Crossing the Saronic Gulf starting from Piraeus. The wine-dark-sea of Homer's description.

By any means necessary!

Crossing Aegina Island by quad bike.

I love flying and, always have, since my background is in Civil Aviation. I even love the little noise the aerilons and spoilers make as part of the pre-flight checks by the cockpit crew. So you guessed it, a flight would be involved in my trip to Greece! I will repeat here what Sir Thomas More said in Utopia, that the dead can get to heaven from anywhere. You can get to Greece from anywhere, I live in London, actually Canterbury, at the moment so I left from London Heathrow. I hope you sense my disappointment in only being airborne for 3 hours (my journey time from my departure port), for when I travel I don't travel to arrive. The journey too, for me, is a part of the vacation. Having worked for a national airline, I tend to root for national carriers or big airlines as opposed to the budget airlines that have sprung up like mushrooms recently. The service is better and the safety record is quite excellent. I don't know about you but I am weaning myself off the Easyjets and the Ryanairs of this world, so I chose Swissair and, surprise, surprise, it was cheaper than the "budget airlines," they served me food and I didn't have to pay to use the toilet on board. They even gave me a free take home souvenir and some Swiss chocolate, now tell me; who has been perpetuating this false rumour that budget airlines are cheaper than real airlines?!

My Swissair flight was leaving Heathrow at 7am to Geneva and the onward flight would leave for Athens around 3pm. Here, I almost made the classic mistake that is to be avoided like the plague. I made the same mistake in January when I went to Madrid and earlier again in 2011 when I went to South Africa with a stopover in Dubai. The temptation is great if you are not wealthy, to exploit stopovers and take a quick look around the stopover city; so as to tick the destination off your places-to-visit-list. Rookie mistake! Not to be condoned by the serious traveller, in fact it should be condemned by the serious traveller. In January, I saw Madrid on the run; there was just no time. I breezed into Madrid Barajas Airport at 10am and my flight out of Madrid was at 1800hrs, there is no way you can take in a city's attraction in 8hrs. I literally had to run through Prado Museum in Madrid, who does that?! At the Santiago Bernabeu, the other visitors must have thought I was on amphethamines because of my agitation and impatience when they lingered too long in a photo op spot. Then, at the Puerta De Alcala, a man running away from war would have hung around longer to take in this magnificent sight. I have no memories of Madrid at all, I see places that I visited appear on TV, and I don't know even their names, let alone their histories. So it was, that, initially I was thinking to race into Geneva during my stopover, so as to get it out of the way but I, rightly dropped that idea. I will visit Geneva separately, soon!

London Heathrow. 27L?

The Swiss run a smooth operation, I hear their banks, clocks and even cheeses are of a very high standard. My experience with their airline confirmed for me the truth behind Swiss efficiency. Even on the journey, Dr Samuel Johnson's quote I used to open my narrative was being proved to be quite incisive. I would copy some Swiss practices in a heartbeat. We left Heathrow's Runway 27L like a dream at 0700hrs. A smooth flight and a dream like landing at Geneve Aeroport, with its stunning snowcapped mountains watching inescapably, ensured. Impeccable time keeping is one thing I would take from the Swiss experience. I managed to look around the airport briefly when I was there, but soon had to board another Swiss Airbus heading to Athens. The holiday proper had now begun!

What Sensations On Arrival?

Enter, Athens

Travel is a personal as well as a shared experience. My personal reason was, I wanted to take a break from the monotony of my War Studies that I had imposed upon myself during the June to September break from University. It was very important for me, therefore, that any political lessons be minimal for me on this trip. I took off my student-of-War-and-Strategy hat, and put on my indifference-to-issues hat. I was not even going to watch the news. But you also meet new people when you travel, so the personal agenda is not so set in stone. The way my travel was configured anyway, I was going to make new friends who would, no doubt, want to know my position on issues. I deliberately set this up when I decided to take the two day group tour of Delphi and Meteora with strangers, but I will come back to that later on.

On arrival in Athens, my Jerusalem Syndrome moment did not arise because, as I said earlier, forewarned is forearmed. Because I did not have great expectations of Athens, I was pleasantly surprised to find a smooth run operation when I got there. Courteous airport staff, train staff who make announcements in English and Greek, Sign posts with both languages, polite bus drivers and polite people who speak both English and Greek. You see, with French and Spanish, at least I know to say je'taime, au revoir, adios, ola, but I didn't know a single Greek word to save my life. I still don't!

The Greek are a friendly people. I checked into the Hotel Ionis presently and within 10 minutes I was back on the street heading to the Acropolis, Athens' main attraction. Would you believe it, I came back from my holiday without entering the Acropolis parameter because, like a madman, I had thought I can take in all of Greece's sights in 5 days. Rookie mistake! When I got to the Acropolis, it had closed for the day since it was around 1800hrs. I managed to get to Areopagus Hill which is adjacent to the Acropolis and affords the same stunning view of Athens as from the Acropolis. My Christian eagerness was satisfied here, for no other than Saint Paul preached to the Greeks from this very spot. It is said he told the Greeks at this rock that, "Now what you worship as something unknown I am going to proclaim to you. The God who made the world and everything in it is the lord of Heaven and Earth and does not live in temples built by hands." The Greeks had their gods and built temples for them, but they had an inkling of another god they did not know and St Paul opened their eyes to whom it was. Please go there for yourself, you will learn more than I did because I was, unthinkably at the time of the planning of my trip, pressed for time.

On my flight back from Athens the Greek businessman I was sitting next to jokingly asked me if I had had a helicopter in Greece when I told him of all the places I had been to and the ones I missed out on. I will quickly list them here: Aegina Island; Agistri Island; Lamia, Delphi, Mt Parnassus; Thermopilai, Monument of Leonidas, Thessaly Plains, Meteora, Kalambaka; Athens, Vouliagmeni Lake, Asteras Beach, Piraeus. In these major places there will little detours to various sights and places of interest, I missed out on a multitude of the attractions despite being in these places. I will also run down for you the places I wanted to see but could not; Mount Olympus - the home of Olympian Zeus, Cape Sounion and the Temple of Lord Poseidon the earthshaker, Corinth where the New Testatement Book of Corinthians draws its name from, Sparta, Crete, Mykonos, Chios, you name it! There is so much to do in Greece, you need a month to feel you have seen anything at all. But we do what we have to do.

What Did I Get Up To?

On arrival therefore, I had already taken in the Acropolis (albeit from a distance), managed to see all the attractions that surround the Acropolis such as the Temple of Olympian Zeus, Aeropagus Hill, Syntagma Square (Parliament House), Roman Agora, The National Garden, and the Academia. While these seem like quite a haul, the sights I missed are book length, Athens has that much to see e.g the Museums, Hadrian's Library, the Ancient Agora, Theatre of Dionysus, Panatheniac Stadium, name the man or woman who can list all of the sights I missed in one sitting! So it was that I would have to be satisfied with the few places I saw. As it turns out the Greeks are friendly people. I met a glorious girl during my walk around the city and we agreed to have to dinner at a restaraunt near the Acropolis later that evening. It is always a delight to spend time with free spirited people.

I was also aware that I had to take in the nightlife on arrival night, because although my main hotel was in Athens, I was going to spend other nights in hotels outside the city. This was poor planning again on my part, for it means I paid for two hotels on the same nights. Much later in the same night then I went club hopping in the Gazi District of Athens (the "Spanish nights" at Club Socialista was the most outstanding experience!) I have seen things. On the first night I did not go to bed until 6am, breakfast was at 7am if I was to make the early trip I had planned for my second day. Technically therefore on the first night I paid for a hotel room that I did not use except as a storage room for my clothes. At least I made use of the breakfast part of the bed and breakfast designation of my stay...

Cape Sounion, Vougliameni, or Asteras?

With a goddess like Greek beauty at Asteras Beach

The best beaches in all of Athens are in Vouliagmeni district, this is on coastal road towards Cape Sounion. I had planned to go to Cape Sounion and take a look around the Temple of Poseidon, the earthshaker. Homer gave Poseidon such a prominent role in the Odyssey and the Iliad, that I wanted to pay homage. I had to drop this however due to time constraints, instead of going all the way to Cape Sounion then making my way back to Athens seeing the beaches, I resolved to just go as far as Vouliagmeni and leave Sounion for next time. Cape Sounion out, it was a matter of visiting Vouliagmeni Lake which is a lake whose waters are fed by a volcano of some sort thus retains a steady 25 degree temperature throught the year. The waters are also said to have medicinal properties. I never tested this theory for when I arrived at the "lake" the Mcdonalds Syndrome struck! Anyone who has ever gone to Mcdonalds to buy a Big Mac enticed by the pictures on their lorries will tell you that the picture tells a false story. When I got to the "lake" I saw that it was not a lake but a pond and only old people frequent it. In my mind I had visions of watersports, yachts and etc, No chance!

It's only lucky that directly across from the "lake" there is a host of Athens' cleanest beaches, Asteras Beach being the best of the pick. So instead I went across to Asteras, paid my 10 Euro entry. This fee is well worth it because of the facilities you have access to, changing room, loungers, sunbeds, tennis courts, volleyball courts and the like. It was here that I had my best outdoor sleep ever. Asteras Beach is one of those shallow water beaches and the sand is ribbed due to the gentle motion of the seas in this part of the world. The waters are crystal clear as well and it was so calming and peaceful. I met some Greek people who invited me to a party later-on that evening but I declined as I had a dinner date back in Athens with the Greek girl I had met the previous evening. Asteras Beach also has The Temple of Apollo in its perimeter. Oh Joy! I could have stayed all day here but sadly had to return to Athens city. Vougliameni is the most affluent districts of Athens and I plan to stay here on my next visit.

Back in Athens it was dinner and the inevitable ending up in the nightclubs of Gazi District. Returning to the hotel at 6am as usual. It was on my way from Gazi on this night that I experienced discrimination, but not from the usual suspects, I will say something about this at the end under the subheading; politics. My return to the hotel at 6am was necessitated by the fact that my tour group was coming to pick me up for the highlight of the visit. A trip to the centre of Greece. Delphi and Meteora 2 Day Tour.

Was This The Trip That Made My Trip?

I must answer with an emphatic yes. Without this part of the trip Greece would have not been that attractive for me. I took an All Greece Travel guided 2 Day Tour of Delphi and Meteora. I will not preempt what this entails but only to say it has to be done. The best aspect was that our guide was an encyclopedia of Greek history, culture, politics, economics, current affairs, geography and add whatelse! This trip takes you to the ancient monasteries atop the massive boulders of Meteora on the Thessaly Plains via the Temple of the Oracle at Delphi. In ancient times, no statesman made a major decision affecting the state without first consulting the Oracle at Delphi. We left Saturday morning after our bus had picked up all the other tourees (is that a word) and headed out on the E75 highway towards Thessaloniki. I am unable to tell you much about the route as I slept like a baby on the bus owing to not having slept the previous night as I was out in Gazi. The only time I managed to sleep in my hotel room during this trip was in Meteora at Amalia Hotel, but that is only because Meteora in Kalambaka is remote and there was no nightlife near my hotel. I learned a lot here and made good friends with the strangers that made part of my tour group. It was a delight culminating with us having lunch in the shadow of the massive rock boulders of Meteora. All Greece Travel then returned us to our hotels in Athens by Sunday and I proceeded to stay out again in Gazi. So for 4 nights in a row, my main hotel room only served as a storage place.

Agistri or Aegina Island?

Both! Would I go to Greece and not visit the islands? No sir, no madam, not likely. Agistri and Aegina are easily reachable by boats from Piraeus in Athens. I took the Hellenic Seaways Flying Dolphin service to Aegina then onwards to Agistri. My plan was to to go around Agistri on horseback. It's quite a small island but when I got there I was already cutting it too fine and the horses were only available from 5pm. I still had to go Aegina, so was forced to take the bus and walk to the beauty spots of Agristri. I will not say what I saw at Halkiada Beach, #stillshakingmyhead! Go and see for yourself.

By the time I got back to Aegina, I was now in a headlong rush, there was no time. I wanted to see the Temple of Aphaia. Swimming in the sea there was no longer a priority for I had swam my fill at Halkiada Beach in Agistri. The best way to cross Aegina is by quad bike. I found this out quite accidentally after the bus ticket-agent had been very dismissive of me. Granted, I was speaking in English and he in Greek (my usual way of communicating whenever I travel) , but I am also very fluent in body language so I know if someone is being rude to me. I refuse to pay any money to rude people despite any inconvenience this may pose to me. This is my usual rule. So as I was walking away in disgust at the agent, I saw a good spirited New Zealand family who were hiring quad bikes to go in the direction I was going, I paid my share of the cost and we were off like a dream across Aegina Island returning by nightfall to hand back the quad bikes and re-cross the Saronic Gulf back to Piraeus. Oh Joy!

Incidentally?

Schalke 04, the German Football Club were in town for a Champions League match against Olympiacos Piraeus. When I got to the Olympiacos Piraeus stadium, I called on a favour from my Greek friends in high places and got a pitchside guest pass to watch Schalke 04 train for their game. Friends in the right places! This also became a sight seeing tour as I managed to take in the stadium. I love football so this was a good extra.

Pitch-side with Schalke 04

I will be the first to admit that the things I did in Athens are dwarfed by what I didn't do, so I am going back!! Definitely. After the Olympiacos Piraeus experience, I returned to my hotel to change and head back for dinner in Gazi district and the usual night on the town. At 5am I returned to the hotel to briefly sleep in anticipation of my being kicked out at 12pm, I think the polite people at the hotels call it, euphimisticallty, checking out.

End Of The Trip?

You would think, but how wrong you would be! My return flight was not on Swissair, I had instead booked Lufthansa German Airlines. I have always had great respect for the Lufthansa's operation from my days at Air Zimbabwe. My flight from Athens was therefore via Frankfurt on Lufthansa with a 1 hour stopver there to change aircraft. All my life I have always secretly hoped for a delayed flight so as to enjoy a complementary holiday. To quote the brilliant Greek girl I had been in conversation with the previous days in Athens; "if you want it badly, the universe will give it to you!" How else do you explain that our flight that was running 20 minutes ahead of scheduled landing in Frankfurt suddenly was diverted to Nurnberg owing to freak bad weather over Frankfurt? How else do you explain that while we were in Nurnberg, the refuelling overshot the required fuel by 2 tonnes? All this time there had been an outside chance we may still make our connection with the London flight. Our Flight Commander on the Lufthansa Airbus A321 - 200 aircraft initially considered defuelling but overruled himself instead and chose to fly out then hold over Frankfurt until all the excess fuel had burned out. You see, planes cannot land with excess fuel. So a trip that should be about 15 minutes became a 1 hour 15 minutes flight, making it just in the nick of time as I am told Frankfurt airport closes at 11pm every night due to its proximate location to residential areas. Thank you universe! I got what I have always wanted.

SHERATON FRANKFURT!

The Sheraton at Frankfurt Airport

I missed my connection flight and needless to say I was now in Lufthansa's care to wait on me hand and foot! This is exactly how I got my extra day of holiday in Frankfurt. I made sure I was booked on the latest available flight to London, so went into the city and looked around. I was struck by Germany's beauty close up and will still make a trip to take an even closer look. The highlight was certainly my stay at the shockingly expensive Sheraton Hotel. It is out of my league and even if I could afford it, I don't know if this would not put a serious dent in my practical-guy-credentials. All the same it was the most beautiful night's sleep I have ever had.

Rooms at the Sheraton Frankfurt Hotel and Towers Conference Centre, courtesy of Lufthansa after having delayed me!

The Politics

In Greece? I was completely switched off from politics but I could not help notice that the good people of Greece have been made to suffer by the foolish decision to join the Euro currency. I hated that aspect about whoever made this decision on behalf of the good people of Greece. Secondly I also found it odd to see a lot of stray dogs on Athens' streets. Where was the GSPCA? A third point and this relates to the discrimination I experienced that I mentioned earlier. On my way from Gazi district at 5am one night I saw some black sex workers (one of my papers last year investigated the plight of people crossing the Mediterranean illegally from North Africa), here was a chance to talk to them and find out how it was for them. I asked how much the cost was (the cynic may think I was soliciting here but I wasn't, honestly), to which these women told me they don't deal with black men, they only deal with white men. If I wanted it, it would be 100 Euros upfront. Now you tell, rejected by my own people!

Would I Do It Again?

Yes Of Course!!

See you in Athens next year...

Photo Essay:

Below are some of the things I got up to. I would do it again. I apologise that the photos may be out of sequence as this is my first foray, but in my next article, there will be some semblance of order, so that the title photo essay will be apt.

The briefest of stopovers in Geneve on the way to Athens.

My destination (Aegina Island) viewed from the air, at this point I was thinking I will save some money by walking from one end to the other, no chance!