Αγγλικά: «Anti-Semitism flares in Greece»

 


Yes dear Ανθή Καρασσάβα (L.A. Times)! It is conceivable that anti-semitism might flare up in Hellas, along perhaps with the anti-jewish and
anti-zionism feelings that you imply or write about. 

Conceivable, yes! Probable? No, it is highly unlikely that it does.

Only because there are many wonderfully civilized, cultured people in the midst of all those bad Jews that we bad Hellenes allegedly dislike. We only hope that there are also a few almost-human Hellenes among us, with whom decent jewish people do not mind fraternizing and doing business.

Indeed, ο πρόεδρος του Κεντρικού Εβραϊκού Συμβουλίου της Ελλάδας, Mr. David Saltiel, said: «…με την οικονομική κρίση, φοβόμαστε πως ο αντισημιτισμός θα θεριέψει». Mr. Saltiel did not exactly say: «πως ο αντισημιτισμός θέριεψε»; did he now?

It is fascinating Ms. Carassava that you use Mr. Μίκης Θεοδωράκης and Mr. Κωνσταντίνος Πλεύρης to make your case. Why? As if these two 70-year old men constitute a perfectly representative and statistically significant sample of our hellenic youth; do they?

Besides, we Hellenes the world over, both young and old, have much-much bigger fish to fry than flaring up on being anti-jewish, anti-semitic or anti-zionist. We do have, for example, to do something about the anti-hellenism that we experience, both covertly and openly, not only internationally, but primarily inside our two very own homelands: Hellas and Cyprus.

Why? Because we have so far failed to put in place a political system that fits our needs as an ethnos.

Since 1821, both Hellas and Cyprus have had political systems imposed on them by others. Others, who might have done so with the best of intentions, but without ever truly understanding the Hellenes’ insatiable eros with and pathos for freedom and catholic liberty: personal liberty, societal liberty and political liberty. And the Hellenes have accepted these unfit political systems many a time, largely because of ignorance and haste to get their
life back after the Romans and the Ottomans left.

There is very little knowledge an ethnos could have retained via its ancestors’ political eros, after having been occupied by the Romans first, after the fall of Corinth in 146 B.C.,  and then, subsequently, by the Ottoman empire, in 1453. So, instead of blaming our vast ignorance about our very own past, it seems conceivable that some Hellenes might allegedly be looking for a scapegoat to blame.

Even if Ms. Ζανέτ Μπατίνου, διευθύντρια του εβραϊκού μουσείου της Αθήνας, clearly states: «Μας έχουν τελειώσει οι αποδιοπομπαίοι τράγοι». But to say that: «Η Ελλάδα σώθηκε εξαιτίας δανείου της ΕΕ και του ΔΝΤ» is purely nasty political propaganda Ms. Anthee Carassava.

Shame on you Ms. Carassava for failing to stay politically correct and impartial as a reporter. Could you not ask some French and German authorities within the EU on the matter first?

Thousands of years under foreign occupation might have left a rather deep mark of ignorance on an ethnos, no matter how open-minded our pre-socratic ancestors might have been. Open-minded enough to manipulate politically the prophesies given to them by Pythia (Oracle of Delphi) and Circe, the daughter of Helios, most famous for her part in the adventures of Odysseus in Homer’s ‘Odyssey’.

In time, Pythia has managed to become the hellenic Archdiocese of America and Circe the Mt. Athos Elder Paissios. And no matter how much our new oracles or prophets talk against or for the jewish ethnos or semitism or zionism, we Hellenes are still trying to keep an open mind about these perhaps fascinating things, even though at least some among us, might find the topic to be utterly boring if not an outright dogmatism

A few of USA’s Founding Fathers looked into hellenism, but understood very little about it and its preoccupation with the very nature of human nature. So, they end up perplexed, much like Augustine of Hippo, Machiavelli, Thomas Hobbs of Malmsbury and John Locke.

They missed the fact, for example, that we Hellenes do not dabble in the politics of any other ethnos but our own. And based on our ethos, it is not admissible for any other ethnos to dabble in our own politics.

Only Jean-Jacques Rousseau among the moderns had come close to understanding the very meaning of politeia (πολιτεία), a classical hellenic
word with no single translation in English. Derived from the word polis (city-state), it is an important term in hellenic political thought, especially that of Plato and Aristotle.

But let us limit ourselves Ms. Carassava, only to a few special transformations of ελληνισμός as hellenism, beyond the roman type. Since there are so many of them, I will mention only the hellenism of the Italian Renaissance, the French one of the neo-classicists, the German hellenism of the romantics Goethe and Nietzsche, and then the not so charming hellenism of the English from Lord Elgin to Lord Byron to Winston Churchill.

Shall we also delve into the half-hearted hellenism of the Spaniards from Cervantes to Unamuno, which finally put on a more proper dress when George Santayana wrote his ‘Life of Reason’ as an American Philosophy Professor at Harvard University? Perhaps you could add here the peculiar version of hellenism of James Joyce although, being Irish, he hardly needed it.

All of these types are so diverse in quality and scope. Yet, they still differ from the american type of hellenism, which USA’s Founding Fathers found so useful to their political designs, even if Rousseau might have had narrowly escaped their collective fancy.

So, do you really believe Ms. Carassava that us Hellenes have the time now to be anti-semitic, anti-jewish or anti-zionist? Do you really feel that the current political regimes in Hellas and in Cyprus might afford us the luxury of time for such petty endeavors?

Please! Not even if some Jews come to visit and forget to pay their hotel bill.

In closing, you might find most helpful the argument of Δρ. Παναγιώτης Ήφαιστος: Κάποιοι βλέπουν φαντάσματα: εθνικιστές και … νεοεθνικιστές. Που είναι; Εμείς παντού βλέπουμε μόνο Έλληνες και τους εκφράζει ο Ρήγας Βελεστινλής: «Άμα φύγει ο τύραννος, ο ελληνικός λαός θα είναι φίλος και σύμμαχος με όλα τα ελεύθερα έθνη. Οι Έλληνες δεν ανακατεύονται εις την διοίκηση των άλλων εθνών, αλλά ούτε είναι εις αυτούς αποδεκτό να ανακατωθούν άλλα έθνη εις την δική τους. Δεν κάμνουν ποτέ ειρήνη με ένα εχθρό ο οποίος κατακρατεί ελληνικό τόπο».

Most cordially,

Νίκος