Humans would do well to study the character of dogs
Diogenes (and movie epigraph)
I made my film Dogs of Democracy almost by accident. I took my first ever trip to Athens in October, 2014. I had gone for a holiday and in search of my cultural roots. But I had arrived in the middle of the Greek economic crisis. I could feel the tension on the streets, but walking around the city, I also noticed something else, something expected and unique. All round the city there were stray dogs, they seemed to occupy the city like ‘citizens’ – they crossed the traffic lights, they socialized, they were part of the urban life and feel of the city. Immediately I fell in love with them, and I became curious about their ‘lives’. In a very short time, I realized that the dogs were looked after by volunteers in Athens, who cared for and fed the stray dogs. I became fascinated by how in the middle of Greece’s worst economic crisis people were willing to take such care of the animals. I began to consider what this might say about our ideas of love, community and care. That’s how the story began: a love of the animals, and the love of the city and its people.
Mary Zournazi, film maker
Inspired by her Greek ancestor, Diogenes, Zournazi took to the streets of Athens and studied the character of the local dogs and their relationships with the people of Athens, many of whom were also on the streets as a result of the austerity measures imposed by the EU. She discovered that the street dogs had become symbols for the courage, protest, and suffering of ordinary people caught in the financial crisis. One particular dog, Loukanikos, had attended every protest in the street, had been gassed along with the protestors, and finally died a short while later from complications arising from the poisoning. As one Athenian said, Loukanikos was known by everybody as a symbol of protest and hope for lives devastated by economic collapse.
Zournazi came to realize the symbolic value of the dogs for the Athenians by following them and by interviewing various individuals that she met along the way. She allowed the interviewees to speak freely and did not interrupt them with questions. Most importantly for me, when they had finished speaking, she kept the camera on during the silence that followed and there we could begin to see a darker picture looming up, in their eyes, just briefly—a picture that belied their bids for hope, their efforts at “love, community and care”, as moving as these aspirations were.
Zournazi focussed on the dogs, yes, and also on what the people of Athens were saying about the dogs in terms of what they, the citizens, needed—courage, hope, and some way to go on. We thus heard a lot about the people of Athens, directly, and through the symbolic value of the street dogs—their very real concerns for the immediate present and the future.
To me, it is equally important to hear also what the dogs themselves have to “say”. We may hear what they have to say to us, if we get down to their level, as the director in fact did—giving us close-ups at dog level, walking with them wherever they went. We saw friendly dogs lying down, friendly people patting them, feeding them. Indeed, the dogs looked well fed. But I also saw something else, looming up from “behind”, just as I did with the citizens of Athens. The dogs, and the Athenian people, were on the whole, lethargic—dogs lying around all day, not even bothering to stand up when food was given them; people, young people and old, also sitting around, at most hoping perhaps for another protest rally, one that works this time. As I gazed into the eyes of these dogs, and Athenians too, I “saw” a light going out, dwindling to nothing.
Here in the birthplace and cradle of Western democracy, the light is going out, even as people spoke brave words such as “somehow”. The dog’s span of life there is very short, even with the kindness being shown them. The light is going out. No one has a way through or out of this, and they know it. The dogs express it in their friendly lethargy. One particularly poignant scene brought it all home to me. Spiros, a friendly man who has nowhere to live except the streets of Athens told us that, at first, when he was ejected into the streets, he was scared and sought out he dogs’ company for protection. Now he says, it doesn’t matter. Each day is the same as any other, and he is no longer afraid. He spends his days wandering around feeding and tending the dogs. They like him but none attach themselves to him. It’s all friendly lethargy. He then turned to one canine friend, a black dog lying on her side next to him, fast asleep. “She doesn’t need us any more,” he said, “she is looking for the light in her dream.”
Diogenes, the austere Cynic, (a Greek word meaning “dog-like”), lived in accord with his convictions.[1] He lived as a dog lives, in all respects. This was the virtuous life for Diogenes. Zournazi claims that stray dogs of Athens are the soul of the street. We also know from Greek mythology that the dog is a psychopomp, soul guide to the Underworld, where dreams reside, as Spiros indicates. We also know that “a phôleos is a lair where animals hide, a den. Often it’s a cave . . . It’s a place where animals go into retreat: where they lie motionless, absolutely still, hardly breathing.” [2]
Phôlarchos are healers. They would lie down in an enclosed space, a lair, like a dog. “Often it was a cave. And either they’d fall asleep and have a dream or they’d enter a state described as neither sleep nor waking—and eventually they’d have a vision.”[3] Just as black dogs do, so Spiros says.
Small wonder that Zournazi, a Greek expatriate living in Australia, and returning to her homeland, would be so tuned in to the dogs of Athens when she first arrived there. I think she perceived the Greeks’ archetypal being and her Greek soul responded in loud resonance to what she saw.
Yes, the light is going out, bringing to a close an era of democracy that may never repeat itself. Instead of vainly hoping for another light to rescue us (and I AM talking about all of us, in the Western world of modern democracies), we could follow the wisdom and guidance that Zournazi, a modern Greek woman, so fittingly draws us towards: the wisdom of Diogenes and the dogs. We can follow the dogs of Diogenes into the Underworld by becoming dogs ourselves, each entering a lair, lying down, without hope, without fear, simply letting go, surrendering. From that surrendered place we each may become a phôlarchos, healing the community by bringing a dream back from the Underworld and simply saying it to others, just as it presented itself to us, forming a new kind of community, of dream-sharers—a community whose patron may well be Diogenes, the “dog”.
Lastly, I was drawn to use the word, “lethargic” several times in relation to the dogs and the people of Athens. It seemed to have a Greek feel to it (e.g. Lethe, the river of forgetfulness). So I looked it up. It arises as Late Latin lethargia, from Greek lethargos “forgetful,” originally “inactive through forgetfulness,” from lethe “forgetfulness” + argos “idle.” It seems to me, therefore, that the lethargic dogs of Athens are offering a further piece of wisdom for us as the light goes out of the heart of democracy, world-wide. Dog-like lethargy, idleness, can certainly lead to the “black dog” of depression and oblivion, yes. But it can also lead us across the river Lethe, loosening the hold that the past has on our hopes for a better future. From there, we enter the place of initiation, where the light of a new future may be born in a vision or dream. From there we can cross back into waking life via the river Mnemosyne, the river of remembering, this time remembering the unborn future, and share the healing vision with others— phôlarchos!
[1] The Cynic conception of ethics is that virtue is a life lived in accord with nature. Nature offers the clearest indication of how to live the good life, which is characterized by reason, self-sufficiency, and freedom. Social conventions, however, can hinder the good life by compromising freedom and setting up a code of conduct that is opposed to nature and reason. (Internet Encyclopaedia of Philosophy)
[2] Peter Kingsley: In the Dark Places of Wisdom, 2001.
[3] Ibid
