Imprisoned then exiled by the Metaxa dictatorship; possible member of pro-democracy military conspiracy ASPIDA; imprisoned then exiled by the Colonels’ junta; author of Democracy at Gunpoint; founder of the Panhellenic Socialist Movement (PASOK); founder of the National Health System; leader of a government of deficit and debt, patronage and clientelism, and rousfeti (reciprocal favouritism); leader of a government of budgetary control; not guilty of state embezzlement (thanks to his lawyer, his son’s austerity-minded finance minister Evangelos Venizelos); the most popular prime minister since the restoration of democracy…
He was quite a figure in Greek society. And, during the 19th February protests in Thessaloniki, ‘they put a chimpanzee mask on the statue of Andreas Papandreou [Έβαλαν μάσκα χιμπατζή σε άγαλμα του Ανδρέα Παπανδρέου]‘ (via on-news).
It is not clear whether it was a comment on Greek society in general; or a complaint that the Greek elite had ‘made a monkey out of’ Papandreou; or an attempt to ‘make a monkey out of’ him. At least one Anonymous (Ανώνυμος) commentator on the Anti-New World Order (Αντί-Νέα Τάξη Πραγμάτων) website made explicit reference to the ‘fucked-up film!!! The Planet of the Apes [Γαμάτη ταινία!!! ο πλανήτης των πιθήκων].’ Perhaps it was an oblique reference to the revolt in the Conquest of the Planet of the Apes…
But even if it is an Apes reference, its point is not clear because, thanks to the Simpsons, the Planet of the Apes is now associated with the insistence that ‘you’ll never make a monkey out of me!’
