Q&A: Aristides Baltas, Greek Minister of Culture and Athletics

Greek Minister of Culture and Athletics and former Minister of Culture, Education and Religious Affairs Aristides Baltas visited Wilson College on Monday to host a discussion of Greece's political turmoil over the past months. Before the lunchtime talk, Baltas sat down with The Daily Princetonian to speak on the arts, national identity from the classical era to the present and Greece's economic reforms.

The Daily Princetonian: As Greek Minister of Culture and Athletics, what projects do you hope to implement in the coming months?

Aristides Baltas: The Ministry of Culture and Sports is a kind of ministry whose function is, so to speak, assure that culture in Greece develops, and is supposed to care for the infrastructures of possibilities of artists to express themselves —of connecting, as it were, big productions as far as they are possible regarding financing, and connect them in ways that might be helpful for Greece with a more spontaneous initiative for younger people in all the various arts. Its function is not to, let's say, direct the tastes of the country or anything like that. It's not at all the kind of ministry which tries to impose this or that aesthetic ideal or school of artistic expression.

The projects, therefore, are related to the infrastructures that already exist. There is no money to build more. But on the other hand, there are enough of them already, in a way. And at the same time to ensure that the cultural heritage of Greece, which is again quite big and quite varied, because all ages have passed through Greece, leaving their marks, and … different aspects of this heritage [are] known to Greece and to tourists. And also, to create conditions under which modern art expression finds a way to open dialogue with the cultural heritage — tragedy, comedy, art, drama — because it's our view that much of Western civilization in the different arts is in constant dialogue with this heritage. In Greece, you have a possibility of, as it were, living the atmosphere of this past. But in order to do it, you have to be aware of this past. So it's a complicated set of tensions. On the one hand, you have the big and the small regarding infrastructures and the possibilities of artistic production, a kind of tension between, let's say, the old and the new, what happens in Greece, what happens outside Greece, and how to open the issue both ways: on the one hand having Greek artistic and cultural production go abroad and confront what's happening outside Greece, and on the other hand equally, or more importantly, have the borders open, so to speak, for what's outside Greece to enter Greece and enter into dialogue with what's happening in Greece. It's all this vague at this stage.

DP: In light of the financial crisis and the lack of funding that you pointed out, how will your administration promote the arts and heritage of Greek culture?

AB: There are three ways. One is let's say, for whatever it's worth, public support. On the other hand, there's these rich people who support the arts in Greece as well, and as long as we have a good relation with them —in both ways, I mean not let them impose their views on what's happening in Greece but at the same time recognize the generosity in what they have to offer. And the third possibility is we're in the process of enhancing relations between the Greek state and other states in order to do common, as it were, productions at various levels in various forms. And through all these three channels, to create conditions where artistic and cultural production reproduces its own costs. If you have, let's say, a successful performance, the success can pay back the cost of the production, and perhaps even give some surplus to invest in these kinds of ways to develop it more. And if the production is big and revenues comparable, what we gain will enhance younger artists, younger initiatives … the big productions invested in places where it's less possible for initiatives to develop the kind of productions that would pay back exactly what they have paid for opening the thing.

DP: Comparing the past to the present in terms of art and culture, ancient Greece was at the height of Western civilization. In your opinion, what are the major causes of the country's fall from glory?

AB: This is a strange country from this point of view because on the one hand, everybody refers to ancient Greece, to ancient Greek drama, tragedy, comedy, et cetera. On the other hand, Greeks themselves feel that they inherit all this culture. But at the same time, they're a little bit distant from it. And because over the last decades or even last hundreds of years or so, the dominant ideology was to make modern Greece bow to the older tradition without having the possibility to express itself independently, so to speak, of this heritage. But despite that, the more important Greek artists always show up by themselves, so to speak, open a dialogue in respect to this heritage. There's a tension going. We have to take account of this heritage, but on the other hand, we are modern, I mean, we live in this modern world. We have to express ourselves in this modern world. There's a kind of continuous tension between where we come from and what we're doing today. In all countries in the West, something like that happens … A second, bad aspect is that many of the previous governments have taken, so to speak, culture as something that can be sold to tourists. There's a common phrase in Greek politics saying that 'culture is the big industry of Greece.' I don't like this phrase. I just want to have culture and civilization as the bases of everyday life, the bases of what you do, how you understand yourself, how you understand your history. And once this is clearly understood, then the benefits from tourism come as a bonus, not the other way around, not to have instrumentalized the ancient Greek heritage and the ancient Greek culture, not to talk like tourists, but to develop this kind of tension between our heritage and what's happening today. And there's a bonus: tourists will come and understand better the country as it stands today.

DP: How has the government's approach toward the Greek euro exit crisis evolved since the summer, and what do you see as the most promising developments for the future?

AB: Seven months ago, most of the effort of the government was spent in relation to the new deal with the European Union. … And the present situation is that we got a deal which is better than the one offered to us before the referendum, so it's a big issue of how to on the one hand implement what we agreed upon, and on the other hand open up possibilities which on the one hand exist in this agreement, but also develop things in areas not touched by the agreement, to create possibilities of the country's development despite the agreement and while implementing the agreement. So it's a more complicated issue than in most countries under such an agreement. And we hope that in all aspects of Greek life, social, economic and cultural, we'll be able, in the last three years during which the agreement exists, to try to overcome the bad aspects of the agreement by developing things which are not, I mean, prone to what the agreement tells us what we should be doing.

DP: How does your administration plan to increase public support for the reforms?

AB: The government got support right now. The elections prove it. And the big issue is to keep the support going by being on the one hand very sincere on what we have to do which is unpopular, and what we plan to do which solves those parts of the agreement. … The key issue is sincerity and not telling lies, not lying to make things look better. On the other hand, offer ideas which people identify with and develop on their own.