8200 - The dignity of a nation

N. Lygeros
Translated from the Greek by Athena Kehagias

Dignity is not an economic factor, and furtermore it’s not measured by indices. Our faskeloma during the occupation was formed by using all five fingers of the hand and not just the index.
Many times things were difficult for our nation, but we’ve never lost our dignity.
Even when we lost.
Even at the firing squad we’ve never kneeled.
There was no reason to do so, as our land would be our grave.
Even when they’ve uprooted the foundations of our homes when we resisted, we’ve endured and we built new ones, on the same land, whereas our conquerors spat blood and fled away.
We are extreme, exaggerative and loud, because we are frontiersman, we despise mediocrity and we love aloud.
Yes, we do play in theater, but from the beginning, in order to withstand the tragedies and die through comedies.
We stare at the sky, and gaze into the sea, it is true.
As a result of it, we’ve created astronomy and built up the navy.
We like to recreate the world, so we’ve created mathematics.
And as we’ve always feld weak, we’ve devised strategy.
We are not different, but we make a difference.
We live for centuries on with a piece of land, because we have the sky and the sea.
And if we are nothing than shadows for others, it’s because we have the sun.
Our nation eats stones, but carves marble.
They’ve burned us down many a time, but they didn’t destroy us, because you can’t burn the light.
They took our space many a time, but we always had the Time. We have a resemblance to our sea.
Who was ever able to grab hold of the sea?
And if they whipped her, she came through unharmed.
That sea constitutes our blood, because they gave us no other blue. It is our gift, the precious one.
This is our only wealth.
Otherwise they would have ripped us off.
We are the children Antigone never had, that’s why we never die.
Who would kill a symbol?
And when one of our own dies, who has left works behind, it is no coincidence that we cry out the word: worthy!
And we live, so that we may remember him, we have no other choice as it’s a matter of necessity.
We are few in the beginning, and we become rare in the end.
This is our solitary path.
That’s how Hellenism was born, and it remains a substance of value for all mankind, whereas many ideologies that we thought immortal were just grounded.
Whereas we are aware that there is no immortality as such.
We have it within us, through the Iliad and the Odyssey, even though we’ve lost our Mycenaean signs.
We’ve forgotten nothing, because we’ve never lost our values.
And if we give so much importance to freedom, it’s because is combined with our thought.
Without free thinking, you’re not human.
Whereas we’ve remained humane even when enslaved.
That’s how we did not become serviles.
Besieged yes we were, but always free, because we did not know how to live otherwise.
That’s what even our flag says, with its blue and white syllables: Freedom or Death.
So why should we kneel now?
After so many eons to surrender now?
For what reason?
Because they believe that they’ve convinced us with their rhetoric of crisis?
We count on our own discretion thanks to Socrates through his obstetrics method.
We are not about to lose our dignity therefore, for just so little!