18411 - Freedom against Barbarity

N. Lygeros
Translated from the Greek by Sianne Tsandidis

It is not necessary for you to see the Charlie Chaplain film, to understand what a dictator is or what resistance to authority actually means, because we have carried it within us for decades, since we have ascertained the meaning of Freedom against Barbarity through such films, before they can touch our flesh through the history of our homeland. For this reason we do not accept any occupational regime since they are all autocratic and trample all over people. We have witnessed such, from one extreme to the other, from the concentration camps to the gulag. We do not wish to be associated with any of these, despite being told that it is for the good of our people and for their happiness. The Greek populace was never able to live with a leash around its neck and is not about to begin doing so now. We are not afraid of our enemies, however strong they may be. We are not afraid of the Ragiades1 no matter how incompetent they may be, because neither of these recorded history for Mankind. And since we belong to Hellenism, we have never accepted tyranny of any sort regardless of how hard it tried to gaze upon us through its bright colours and grand events, because they never impressed us. And we need nothing from any future which desires to extinguish the past since that is history, and whoever has no past, has no future. We were never a part of nihilism because the tabula rasa does not characterise us. To the contrary, one of our values is the diachronic element and that is based upon the concept of continuum for Time. Since we know Time is polycyclic, our work is in fact every revolution through which our people evolve in order to offer furthermore to Mankind. In this way social classes and factions do not influence us given that we are exclusively human. And if some individuals find us romantic or graphic, we remain entirely indifferent because we are not miserable, and we do not accept money, but only a single rose when it is innocent, when the hand recognises the justice of a Tramp, of a Little Prince or even of an Idiot since everyone serves Mankind without expecting anything at all, whilst clutching a cross in hand.

1A slave or second class citizen during the Ottoman rule – subservient to the Sultan.