RE Greek protests - I find it hard to sympathise with them because the situation they're in is largely their own doing. I'm surprised the Germans aren't more vocally dissatisfied with they whole thing given that they actually bother to pay their taxes and work to a respectable age.

In the present crisis over Greece there is a furious argument about whether the Greek people should be allowed to vote on the proposed solution. Many of the voices against this come from the world of finance and economics. They say that the crisis is too dangerous to leave to the will of the people.

I just wanted to show why some Greek politicians - and especially George Papandreou, even though he may have retreated from a referendum - might think it important to allow the people a voice.

I have discovered a film in the archives that dramatically tells you why. It was made in 1974 and is an engrossing history of the Colonels' coup in Greece in 1967 - and what life was then like for the Greek people under the military dictatorship that held power for seven years.

As you watch it you realise, given what the Greeks have been through, it is no wonder that politicians, especially Papandreou, think the mandate of the people is important.

The present language of the finance technocrats, and their supporters in the media, portray the Greek people as just another group of lazy southern Europeans who have fed too long at the trough of state money. A bit like us - but more crap.

What is forgotten is that from 1967 to 1974 the Greek people lived under a harsh and violent dictatorship that tortured and murdered thousands of ordinary people. The Colonels also corrupted the society by handing out vast loans to individuals in towns and villages across the country - to buy their loyalty. At the same time the repression and torture bred a powerful resistance that finally burst out in incredible bravery in 1973.

This is the strange and twisted society that the present Prime Minister's father, Andreas Papandreou, inherited when he became the newly elected leader in 1981. He was faced by the task of rebuilding the peoples' trust in democracy and the state. Partly he did it through state spending - and in that policy lie many of the roots of today's crisis.

The discussion of Greece today in the press and the political offices of Europe is almost completely ahistorical - everything is couched in utilitarian terms of economic management. I just think it is important to put the present crisis in a wider historical context. Above all the extraordinary history of the military dictatorship and the savage effects it had on the whole of Greek society.[...]