MASTER FARMER
TEACHING SMALL FARMERS MANAGEMENT
BRUCE M. LANSDALE
WESTVIEW PRESS 1986
PART IV
Chapter 2: A Society in Transition
- Why is the Greek village significant as a model for development?
- Are there similarities between the attitudes of rural people in Greece and those in Third World countries?
- How do peasant attitudes relate to development?
Hodja story #3
A neighbor borrowed Hodja’s donkey so often that one day he decided to put a stop to it by telling him the donkey was dead. He locked it in the barn and sat on his front steps to await the neighbor. As he approached, Hodja burst into crocodile tears over the death of their beloved animal. When the neighbor heard the news he sat down next to Hodja, lamenting the loss of the donkey and remembering how useful it had been. They were both surprised when at that moment the donkey began to bray. Infuriated, the neighbor turned to Hodja and accused him of being a liar. “What,” said Hodja, “you believe my donkey and you don’t believe me!”
Most expatriates who have lived in rural Greece for years find it difficult to be objective when speaking about their peasant friends because of their personal affection, admiration, and close identification with the people. They particularly appreciate the stamina that the villagers have shown for centuries under adverse circumstances, their simple and genuine hospitality, their delightful sense of humor, and the joy they find in so many basic things. Newcomers are often amused by the apparently biased enthusiasm of “old Greek hands” and, like Hodja’s neighbor, never quite believe what they hear.
The attitudes of the more sympathetic city people and foreigners toward the Greek peasant after World War II expressed the paradox of development. They urged him to progress and at the same time expected him to be changeless. They cherished their leisure with him but encouraged him to be more active and organized. They enjoyed the primitiveness of his village but were forever telling him to build a better house and dairy barn and keep his cows cleaner. They wanted to sing and dance with him, yet insisted that he should make better use of his time.
A chorus of criticism by less understanding urban Greeks and expatriates during the first half of the century is typical of comments heard in the Third World today. “Why are they so lazy?” “I find them pigheaded.” “Their resistance to change is so frustrating.” “What makes them so suspicious?” “They will always be the same.” “They are incapable of managing their own lives.” “The only way to deal with them is with strong authority.”
It is helpful to trace the transition of the Greek village during this century and to try to identify elements in the process that might be useful for understanding problems of development in the Third World. The most obvious changes have been in external manifestations – homes and public buildings, personal appearance and clothing, health and sanitation, mechanization in agriculture, and the impact or rural electrification. But the more subtle differences in the way people think, their attitudes about themselves and others, and their ability to deal with complex problems indicate the fundamental changes that have taken place.
AT THE TURN OF THE CENTURY
It may be difficult to appreciate that parts of Greece – which has a tradition and philosophy that goes back 2,500 years – were occupied within the lifetime of its recent president, Constantine Karamanlis. At the time of his birth just after the turn of the century, his village and all of Northern Greece had been under Turkish occupation for 400 years: four centuries of stagnation and decline. Most major public buildings throughout Greece date from either the classical or Byzantine periods before the Turks overran the country or the 19th or 20th centuries; very few buildings of architectural significance were constructed between these times.
One way to help those unfamiliar with Greece understand what the country was like 75 years ago is to describe the area around Karamanlis’ village of Proti in Northern Greece. At that time the village was known by the Turkish name, Kiupkioi – town of the pots.
In villages a few miles to the west, the Strymon River, source of both hope and fear for the people, overflowed its banks every few years, leaving destruction and poverty in its wake. Malaria, typhoid fever, and tuberculosis were rampant. The life expectancy of the local people was less than 40 years. Most families had six to eight children, hoping that at least half might survive. The birthrate was more that 25 per thousand as compared with 15 today, and the deathrate was more than 15 per thousand as compared to fewer than 9 today. Lice and fleas were commonplace so that most children had their heads shaved. Visitors returning from distant villages were sent to the laundry to bathe before entering any respectable home. The per capita income is estimated to have been less than $100 per year.
Farm power came from donkeys, oxen pulling wooden plows that had changed little in 2000 years, and human labor, especially that of women, who had to wield mattocks to hoe their fields. It required 126 worker hours to produce a hundred kilograms of wheat compared to 1¼ worker hours in Greece today and far less in the United States.
In some villages people lived in simple, whitewashed, two-roomed stone or mud-brick houses with thatched or mud-tiled roofs. Families slept on straw mats on the earthen floor, which they covered with special mud every month to keep down the dust. In tobacco villages like Proti, families lived on the second floor of two-story houses and used the lower floor to house animals and store crops. Their diet was primarily bread, cheese, olives, and vegetables in season, with garlic to ward off disease. Milk was for sick people and babies. Meat was eaten on feast days, and chicken was considered a great luxury. This was not Ethiopia, Tanzania, or one of the poorer countries of Central America, but a Greek village at the beginning of the 20th century.
The middle of the 20th century following World War II and the Greek Civil War was the turning point in Greek village life; it changed from simple rural existence based predominantly on subsistence farming to an agricultural society in transition. Who were the peasants at that time? What were they like? How did they think? Foreigners found them a fascinating, paradoxical people, difficult to understand and even harder to describe. Some impressions written more than 30 years ago based on the author’s observations are helpful in understanding the complexity of peasant character at that time.
Greek villagers in the mid-twentieth century
The peasants are extremely honest and yet they distrust one another. They are truly humble but intensely proud. They are devotedly loyal to their employer but can be devastatingly critical. Most Greeks are convinced that they could do as well as the Prime Minister in running the country if only they had the chance.
The villagers are deeply religious yet they castigate their church. When a priest walks by, peasants can occasionally be seen tying a knot in their handkerchief. They will tell you that the priest carries the evil eye because the devil walks three feet behind him, and how else could they protect themselves but by tying a knot in their handkerchief?
They are the essence of conservatism, yet they do not hesitate to try the radical. The men are devoted to their family, yet they believe freely in a double standard and never seem to miss an opportunity. This privilege has always been accorded to men but never to women, who are expected to be loyal to their husbands. The men play the dominant role, yet the women run them.
Villagers are tremendously hospitable, yet they are often suspicious of a stranger. They are completely united in time of war and just as completely divided in peacetime. They are dedicated to their past yet are pragmatic about their present. They spend hours criticizing their politicians yet they immediately seek help from their member of parliament whenever they have a problem.
CHARACTERISTICS OF GREEK PEASANTS
- Two characteristics of Greek peasants, which baffled foreigners, are described by the words philotimo – an amalgam of pride, ambition, ego, face, honor, and dignity – and philoxenia – love for a stranger.
- Philoxenia, unstinting hospitality to the stranger, is a tradition that dates back to ancient Greece, a time when a person was never certain whether a visitor was a god in disguise.
- Development workers found it difficult to understand some of the subtle personality traits of the villagers that might hinder development.
When a peasant said, “It doesn’t matter” or “Who cares?” he would shrug his shoulders and stick out his hands, palms upward, with an unconcerned look on his face, indicating that he was indifferent to seemingly irrelevant detail. Villagers occasionally took this attitude about changing the oil in their tractors when farm machinery was first introduced in Greece. Their response was often, “It doesn’t matter,” until they discovered a burned-out bearing. At that point they blamed the man who sold the tractor, the manufacturer, or the tractor itself for the damage. Or they used the phrase, “that dishonest thing” – blaming the tractor for having broken down.
- If the peasant nodded his head in a positive manner and used the phrase “I understand” when an agriculturist was trying to explain something new to him, he really meant “Don’t bother to tell me. I understand what you are saying before you open your mouth.”
PATTERNS OF BEHAVIOR AMONG PEASANTS
THE GREEK VILLAGE TODAY
THE IMPACT OF THE PEASANTS
What brought about such a dramatic change in such a brief period? Professor William Hardy McNeil of the University of Chicago, who lived in Greece immediately following World War II and studied changes in six Greek villages in consecutive decades from 1946 to 1976, gives an excellent analysis of the various factors accelerating development. This book, however, deals primarily with the contribution that management training can make in changing peasant attitudes and helping them develop self-confidence and does not allow for a detailed analysis of the economic and historical factors that accelerated development.
The peasants who have moved to the city since World War II speak about the joys of village life, but few would have stayed under the conditions prevailing when they left. It is difficult to condemn them for wanting to leave when they did. Development workers in Third World countries should identify the changes in Greece during the past quarter century that have made life in the villages sufficiently attractive for peasants to prefer to stay. Clearly factors such as better roads, improved communications, more effective marketing systems, rural electrification, and rural industries have played a significant role as have the congestion and stress of city life. Rather than migrate to the pigeon-house apartments of the industrial centers many farm families prefer to remain in the rural areas and are optimistic about their future there.
The background of the Greek peasant, as well as his proximity to more advanced countries, made him uniquely receptive to rapid development in a number of ways. First, a thread of continuity was kept alive by an evolving culture, strong ties to Greek Orthodoxy, and distinctive elements in the Greek language that made him conscious of his heritage – what he refers to as “the glory that was Greece.” McNeil emphasizes a second factor, the market economy in the villages during the 400 years of Turkish occupation, that helped provide a training ground for managers in succeeding generations. Some villagers also acquired an adventurous spirit prompted by dire poverty that led them to leave their mountain villages to seek their fortunes in nearby districts and faraway lands. The more enterprising young people from island and coastal villages often risked their lives on unknown seas, hoping for better prospects. But the fact remains that at the turn of the century and even at the beginning of World War II more than two-thirds of the population lived in the villages that had changed little over several generations.
Training too has played a role in rural development throughout the postwar period. A corps of progressive farmers were given useful advice by extension agents and home economists or attended short-course centers located throughout Greece. Graduates of vocational agricultural schools profited from institutional instruction that accelerated the learning process and inspired confidence and a feeling of optimism. The American Farm School has been one of a number of institutions training master farmers from various parts of the country. Although it is virtually impossible to transfer programs from one country to another, many of the activities outlined in this book should prove helpful to others attempting to organize agricultural development programs in countries of the Third World.
Chapter 3: The Farm School Model