Yet Another Green Page
Political Ecology
A Brief History of
Political Ecology in Greece
The first green/ecological groups started their action in Greece, in late 70's
- early 80's. They were affected by the green/ecological movement of Europe and
North America and their main references were Murray Booktchin, Ivan Illitch and
Andre Gorz. This movement reached a peak after 1986 and the Chernobyl accident.
Their critique which seemed to exaggerate before, now seemed more persuasive. A
multitude of little green (with political aspects) or simply environmental
groups were formed. In late 80's an initiative of the Ecological Movement of
Thessaloniki resulted in the creation of the "Federation of Ecological and
Alternative Groups" which grew very rapidly in numbers and within only some
months time decided to become a political party, too. In the national elections
of 1989, one MP was elected with less than 1% of the total votes, who was to be
replaces every year. The vast heterogeneity of the newly formed federation and
the exhaustive weight of political pressure which could not be handled by the
inexperienced activists, resulted in the decline of the whole effort in an
atmosphere of negative feelings. Political ambitions of leftish groups which
were turned to be green and included to the Federation, did contribute to this
unpleasant situation. The failure of this political initiative brought a
decline to the actions and memberships of almost evry ecological group in
Greece. However, some of them continued their activities, while the support of
envirenmentally sensitive citizens is turned to large environmental
organizations like Greenpeace. A short sketch of political tendencies in the
Greek ecological movement (many say that it's too small now to call it a
movement) follows below:
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