While reading various books these days to prepare speeches for the national anniversaries, since I like to say different things each time, to deal with separate sections, I came across the poems of the great Costas Montis about our Greece.
As a refugee myself, I can somewhat understand what the Syrian refugees trapped in Greece are going through, their despair and misery, even though we seemed lucky in relation to these people. We stayed in our place, many of us had financial comfort, we had our cars, we did not go through such suffering in front of the painless walls of disgrace and analgesia, where the people of Skopje are tearful.
Undoubtedly, the Greece of 2016 is not the Greece of 2004. It is a well-established country. Its citizens have been climbing a Golgotha for so many years, they have drained financially. And yet, the wave of solidarity and humanity is alive. Today, I saw on TV some ladies in Athens who organized through Social Media and knitted hats for children, made cookies, and made the smile bloom on the faces of children, who are not guilty of anything, like their parents. Others are responsible for this massacre.
I think this is our Greece. This is the Greek people. When the whole of Europe succumbed unscathed to the Nazi tyranny, when in a few hours and days they surrendered, when they had their willing Quislings, only Greece raised its stature and saved the dignity of Europe.
This seems to be the case today. The Greek people, not the coordinated state, teach lessons of altruism and magnanimity. It shows the greatness of his soul.
Here is what the poet Costas Montis wrote about our Greece:
Greece
And I have always been of Europe
rocky I forehead
even if one day he utters "ok ida".