This is a good translation by Diana Gilliland Wright of Nikos Gatsos’s The Knight and Death (Ο ιππότης κι ο θάνατος).
Wisdom in the era of Donald Trump
Above is a talk by Victor Davis Hanson on the reasons behind Donald Trump’s unexpected US presidential election triumph in 2016. Hanson, a classicist and not so much a Trump supporter as a critic of leftist-liberal visions and versions of American history and destiny, employs Demosthenes, Aristotle and Euripides to explain why he thinks Trump – a repugnant figure to Hanson in many ways – was able to win the White House.
In the case of Euripides, Hanson uses the quote from the Bacchae, in which the playwright states, via the chorus, τὸ σοφὸν δ᾽ οὐ σοφία, to demonstrate that while Trump and his supporters were often castigated for being stupid – a basket of deplorables, in Hillary Clinton’s infamous phrase – and those who opposed Trumpism were regarded – or regarded themselves – as possessors of superior knowledge or education, wisdom, in fact, comes in many forms and does not always equate to intellect. Sometimes, according to Hanson, it can come in the form of ‘animal cunning’ – which Hanson attributes to Trump; what is most useful to a society – such as workmanship, physical expertise and manual skills; and, ultimately, the recognition by society of the boundaries that cannot be crossed and by humans of their limitations.
Τὸ σοφὸν δ᾽ οὐ σοφία has been translated into English as ‘that which is wise is not wisdom’ or here as ‘wisdom is not cleverness’. In his talk above, Hanson suggests Euripides is making a distinction between ‘who is wise and who is a wise-ass’ and, in this article, he translates the playwright as saying, ‘cleverness is not wisdom’. The latter – ‘cleverness is not wisdom’ – is the translation I prefer.
Hanson begins his piece:
‘At the height of the sophistic age in classical Athens, the playwright Euripides asked an eternal question in his masterpiece, the Bacchae: “What is wisdom?”
‘Was wisdom defined as clever wordplay, or as the urban sophistication of the robed philosophers in the agora and rhetoricians in the assembly?
‘Or instead was true wisdom a deeper and more modest appreciation of unchanging human nature throughout the ages, which reminds us to avoid hubris, tread carefully, always expect the unlikely, and distrust the self-acclaimed wise who eventually prove clever fools? At the end of the play, a savage, merciless nemesis is unleashed on the hubristic wise of the establishment.
‘Euripides would have appreciated the ironies of the 2016 election.’
When Yanis met Jeremy
Above is a conversation between economist cum politician Yanis Varoufakis, Greece’s finance minister from January to July 2015, and Labour party leader Jeremy Corbyn, at the Edinburgh Book festival on 20 August this year.
They talk about the usual – democracy, socialism, post-capitalism, etc, etc, before going on to discuss Brexit.
Here, Varoufakis, comes out against a second referendum since, he says, referenda require a binary choice whereas the UK has, in fact, four choices in front of it. These are the Canada plus deal favoured by the hard Brexiteers; Norway plus, the deal Varoufakis advocates and which the Labour party is broadly putting forward – staying in the single market and the customs union; the Chequers proposal supported by the British government; and Remain.
Corbyn argues the case for a General Election rather than a second referendum, before going on to state the customary issues Labour intends to fight the Tories on: health, education, poverty, homelessness, inequality, low and stagnant wages, etc.
Moral outrage shapes Corbyn’s politics and, for him, socialism is simply the triumph of justice over iniquity, of fairness over inequality, and, when all is said and done, of right over wrong. Varoufakis has a more highfalutin understanding of what a socialist society would look like, referring us to Star Trek – in which, Varoufakis says, technology is harnessed in the service of the common good or, as Varoufakis puts it, machines do all the work while citizens discuss philosophy and explore the universe.
The conversation continues with Varoufakis repeating his rather hysterical warning that Europe is currently staring into the abyss and risks a return to the politics of the 1920s and 1930s, i.e. risks the rise of fascism, and he points to the emergence of Victor Orban in Hungary, Sebastian Kurz in Austria and Matteo Salvini in Italy to prove his (facile) theory.
In fact, while it’s not unreasonable to describe Sparta as a totalitarian regime, it was not a dictatorship, tyrannical or despotic (unless you were a helot). Rather, Sparta’s constitution, with its senate, ephors, kings and assembly, was designed to ensure accountability, transparency and checks and balances.
Aristotle asserts Sparta was a mixed regime, in which its two kings represented monarchy; the senate (gerousia) represented oligarchy; while the assembly – to which all Spartan citizens (Spartiates) were entitled to attend – and the institution of the ephors reflected the democratic aspect of Spartan politics.
Indeed, ephors (or magistrates) – perhaps the most powerful element in the Spartan politeia – were selected in the most democratic method possible, via lottery, and had their terms in office limited to only one year, after which they were put on trial to judge whether they carried out their duties legally and effectively.
Greeks under the rule of barbarian Rome
Above is the final episode in Michael Scott’s BBC series Ancient Greece: the Greatest Show on Earth. (Watch part one here and part two here). Episode three looks at how Greek theatre fared as Rome emerged as a dominant military and political power and Greece and Greek cities and kingdoms lost their independence. It’s not a bad programme, but I find the Romans to be insufferable barbarians, on about the same level as the Seljuks and Ottomans.
Regarding what happened to Greek literature under the Romans, I was reading an essay by Peter Bien from The Greek World: Classic, Byzantine and Modern, in which Bien says the following:
‘It would be a mistake to think that Greek literature died with Greek liberty. Menander’s marvellous comedies of manners, the plays that, by way of Plautus and Terence, set the first theatrical example for the Renaissance, for Shakespeare and for Moliere, were… the growth of an age politically hopeless. Polybius, through whose history we know that Scipio wept over Carthage destroyed, was a Greek hostage. The historical analysis of Tacitus and of Livy depend on history written by losers, by generations of sarcastic Greeks. Machiavelli rediscovered and transfigured their style, mostly through Tacitus and Livy, and Marx read Machiavelli. Clarendon in his History of the Great Rebellion goes back for this style to the same ancient historians. Shakespeare transcribes Plutuarch’s Lives at times almost word for word.’I’m curious as to which ‘sarcastic Greeks’ Bien is referring to.
Regarding Plutarch, Bien adds:
‘Plutarch’s drawing of Romans is much more effective than his gallery of Greeks. The Greeks lived longer ago, and he knows less about them. The death of Cicero, the suicide of Cato, and the story of Antony and Cleopatra are written in brilliant dryness. It was Plutarch’s sense of tragedy, not that of the tragic poets, that Shakespeare drank in.’Bien also has this to say:
‘The greatest hero of late Greek literature is Jesus Christ. The gospels are in Greek because the entire eastern Mediterranean world in their time had been Hellenized since before Christ, and one of the thrills and shocks of the gospels is that mixture of cultures. In spite of their linguistic awkwardness, or because of it, they are powerful pieces of simple writing such as Greek had never encompassed before.’
Greek drama and the decline of Athens
Above is the second part of Michael Scott’s series Ancient Greece: the Greatest Show on Earth, which traces the central role of comic and tragic theatre in the culture and politics of ancient Greece. In the first part of the series – Democracy – (see it here) Scott established the links between tragedy and democracy in Athens, while in part two – Kings – he examines how theatre spread throughout the Greek world and changed in content and purpose with the decline of Athens in the aftermath of its defeat in the Peloponnesian war and the emergence of Greek kingdoms, such as Macedon. It’s a good narrative and there’s some interesting detail and points but, again, the British talking-head classicists are a dull lot, with the exception of Oliver Taplin. In fact, what is most exciting in the series is the travelogue element. Greece always looks stunning and Scott visits some evocative sites, such as the Syracuse stone quarries where 7,000 Athenian prisoners were held after the disastrous Sicilian expedition in 413 BC and Chaeronea, where the Macedonians led by King Philip the Great defeated an Athenian-led force to claim control over Greece in 338 BC.
* See part three of the series here.
Britain in the Mediterranean: On Robert Holland’s Blue Water Empire
The narrative is compelling and heavily features the fortunes of Greece and Greeks – whether it’s Britain seeking to limit the Greek Revolution of 1821; occupying the Ionian islands and Cyprus; protecting the Ottoman empire in decline; promoting Greece as the rising power in the Eastern Mediterranean after World War One; affecting to shape Greek politics after World War Two; or contributing, wittingly and unwittingly, to the re-emergence of Turkey as a regional force and the diminution of Hellenism in Constantinople and Cyprus.
Holland’s book is, however, marred by the absence of a critical paradigm or depth and Holland’s somewhat patronising tone, manifesting itself in a lack of empathy and even a belittling of those enthral to the British empire, the impact of which Holland portrays as being mostly benign, if not beneficial. Thus, he attributes, for example, the rapid socio-economic advancement Cyprus experienced post-independence not to the Cypriots themselves but to the British legacy and its supposed predisposition to the rule of law and good governance. (In fact, the legacy of British rule in Cyprus was poverty, under-development, mass emigration and, ultimately, devastating partition).
Another striking point that emerges from Holland’s book relates to the abject failure of the British imperial project and colonial culture to win over Greeks in the Ionian islands (which endured British rule from 1815-1864) and Cyprus, where Britain governed from 1878-1960. By contrast, the Maltese and Gibraltarians were much more receptive to British colonialism and, indeed, Malta and Gibraltar provide ominous examples of what Cyprus and the Ionian islands could have become if the Greeks there hadn’t steadfastly and from the outset resisted British rule and attempts to de-Hellenise or Anglicise them.
Finally, Holland’s book allows us to note how – especially in comparison to, say, the Byzantine or Ottoman imperiums – Britain’s empire spectacularly and precipitately declined, disintegrating by the early 1960s, barely 40 years after having reached its apogee.
Insult, wrath and retribution in the Peloponnesian war: yet more thoughts on JE Lendon’s Song of Wrath
The mechanism of revenge, Lendon says, starts with an insult (ὕβρις/hybris) – amounting to a calculated attempt to demean and cause an affront to honour (τιμή, timē) – which induces an ‘overpowering wrath’ and necessitates vengeance.
Only when revenge is accomplished is wrath ameliorated and honour restored. But, as Lendon points out, and demonstrates with examples from Homer and tragedy, this pattern – from humiliating insult to wrath to revenge to restoration of honour – is not a redemptive process. Rather, it is a process (directed by the Furies) involving chaos, frenzy and self-destruction. Such a process – of chaos, frenzy and self-destruction – is what ultimately characterises the Peloponnesian war.
Shaming is the weapon of choice to undermine, reinforce or elevate rank in the classical Greek world and, as such, the Peloponnesian war begins with punitive Spartan raids into Attica, looting, ravaging and wasting of land, which are reciprocated not by full-scale hostilities but by similarly pernicious Athenian raids into Laconia and against Sparta’s Peloponnesian allies.
Attacking your enemy’s allies is a crucial tactic in this war of reputation, retribution and shaming because it aims to prove that you are incapable of defending your subordinate confederates and are unworthy of your hegemonic position.
Thus, in the first years of the war, Athens moves on from raids against Elis and Messinea in the Peloponnese and expands its theatre of operations to Halkidiki in northeastern Greece where, in an attempt to prove the limitations of Sparta’s reach and power, Athens attacks and seizes pro-Spartan Potidaea.
Sparta responds to this humiliation by attacking an Athenian protectorate, Plataea, in Boeotia; but when Plataea holds out, Sparta seeks to undermine Athenian prestige and restore its own by encouraging the Mytelineans to break free from the Athenian sphere of influence (and fulfill Myteline’s long-term ambition to exert authority over the whole of Lesvos). Athens crushes the Mytelinean revolt, prompting the Peloponnesians to try a similar shaming maneuver in Corcyra. Here, they sponsor a pro-Spartan oligarchic coup, triggering years of strife and carnage on the island, which comes to epitomise the loathing and vindictiveness of this Greek civil war.
For all posts discussing issues emanating from JE Lendon’s Song of Wrath: the Peloponnesian begins, see here.
History, myth and self-destruction among the Greeks: more thoughts on JE Lendon’s Song of Wrath
Lendon makes clear that for the classical Greeks, imbued with Homeric culture, identity and rank were shaped not only by the historical but also the mythical past. Thus, we note that at the conclusion of the Peloponnesian war and the defeat of Athens (404 BC) – and despite the urgings of its allies – Sparta declined to destroy Athens because of the city’s role decades earlier in the service of Hellas during the Persian wars.
More illustrative, perhaps, of the way the past informed Greek self-perception, we note that Sparta’s perennial Peloponnesian rival Argos, after being defeated in the Battle of Champions (546 BC) and the Battle of Sepeia (494 BC), never reconciled itself to its diminished status and Sparta's hegemony in the peninsular and in Hellas; the Argives justifying their obsessive enmity towards Sparta on the grounds that in the legendary war that, essentially, established the Greeks as a nation, i.e. the Trojan war (1250 BC), it was Argos (under King Agamemnon) that led the pan-Hellenic expedition in Asia, while Sparta (and its cuckolded king, Menelaus) was a bit-part player.
As Lendon puts it:
‘On the basis of Argos’ standing in myth, Argos could claim the highest rank of any Greek state. And the Argives were anxious to vindicate their rank in every succeeding generation.’This vicious irreconcilable rivalry meant that from the fifth century onwards, Argos’ main foreign policy objective was to undermine Sparta and this it did by allying itself with whichever state happened to be fighting the Lacedaemonians – with Athens during the Peloponnesian war; with Thebes, Athens and Corinth in the Corinthian war; with Thebes, under Epaminondas, who took on and dealt a shattering blow to Spartan leadership and power, most notably at the Battle of Leuctra (371 BC); with Macedonia, as it sought to establish and maintain hegemony in Greece; and, finally, with Greece’s Roman overlords.
Indeed, Argos’ interminable feud with Sparta is typical of inter-Greek state relations – in fact, such abiding antipathies could be found as much within Greek states as between them – in which destroying yourself seemed a price worth paying so long as you took your rival down with you. No surprise, therefore, that Greeks inspired the concepts of the Cadmean as well as the Pyrrhic victory.
For more discussion emanating from Song of Wrath, go here.
The Fall of Constantinople, 1453
‘Then a great horde of mounted infidels charged down the street leading to the Great Church… In the early dawn, as the Turks poured into the City and the citizens took flight, some of the fleeing Romans managed to reach their homes and rescue their children and wives. As they moved, bloodstained, across the Forum of the Bull and passed the Column of the Cross [in the Forum of Constantine], their wives asked, “What is to become of us?” When they heard the fearful cry, “The Turks are slaughtering Romans within the City’s walls,” they did not believe it at first. They cursed and reviled the ill-omened messenger instead. But behind him came a second, and then a third, and all were covered with blood, and they knew that the cup of the Lord’s wrath had touched their lips. Monks and nuns, therefore, and men and women, carrying their infants in their arms and abandoning their homes… ran to the Great Church…‘Why were they all seeking refuge in the Great Church? Many years before they had heard from some false prophets that the City was fated to be surrendered to the Turks who would enter with great force, and the Romans would be cut down by them as far as the Column of Constantine the Great. Afterwards, however, an angel, descending and holding a sword, would deliver the empire and the sword to an unknown man, extremely plain and poor, standing at the Column. “Take the sword,” the angel would say, “and avenge the people of the Lord.” Then the Turks would take flight and the Romans would follow hard upon them, cutting them down. They would drive them from the City and from the West, and from the East as far as the borders of Persia, to a place called Monodendrion.
‘Because they fully expected these prophecies to be realised, some ran and advised others to run also. This was the conviction of the Romans who long ago had contemplated what their present action would be, contending, “If we leave the Column of the Cross behind us, we will avoid future wrath.” This was the cause, then, of the flight into the Great Church. In one hour’s time, that enormous temple was filled with men and women. There was a throng too many to count, above and below, in the courtyards and everywhere. They bolted the doors and waited, hoping to be rescued by the anonymous saviour…
‘Pillaging, slaughtering, and taking captives on the way, the Turks reached the temple… The gates were barred, but they broke them with axes. They entered with swords flashing and, beholding the myriad populace, each Turk caught and bound his own captive…
‘Who can recount the calamity of that time and place? Who can describe the wailing and the cries of the babes, the mothers’ screams and the father’s lamentations? The commonest Turk sought the tenderest maiden. The lovely nun, who heretofore belonged only to the one God, was now seized and bound by another master. The rapine caused the tugging and pulling of braids of hair, the exposure of breasts, and outstretched arms. The female slave was bound with her mistress, the master with his slave, the archimandrite with the doorkeeper, tender youths with virgins, who had never been exposed to the sun and hardly ever seen by their own fathers, were dragged about, forcibly pushed together and flogged. The despoiler led them to a certain spot, and placing them in safekeeping, returned to take a second and even a third prize. The abductors, the avengers of God, were in a great hurry. Within one hour, they had bound everyone, the male captives with cords and the women with their own veils. The infinite chains of captives who like flocks of sheep poured out of the temple and the temple sanctuary made an extraordinary spectacle. They wept and wailed and there was none to show them mercy.
‘What became of the temple treasures? What shall I say and how shall I say it? My tongue is stuck fast in my larynx. I am unable to draw breath through my sealed mouth. In that same hour, the dogs hacked the holy icons to pieces, removing the ornaments. As for the chains, candelabra, holy alter coverings and lamps, some they destroyed and the rest they seized. All the precious and sacred vessels of the holy sacristy, fashioned from gold and silver and other valuable materials, they collected in an instant, leaving the temple desolate and naked; absolutely nothing was left behind…’
(Doukas)
Death and Resurrection of Constantine Paleologos
I
As he stood there – erect before the Gate and impregnable in his sorrow
Far from the world – where his spirit sought to bring Paradise to his measure – And harder even than stone – for no one had ever looked on him tenderly – at times his crooked teeth whitened strangely
And as he passed by with his gaze a little beyond mankind – and from them all extracted One who smiled on him – the Real One – whom death could never seize
He took care to pronounce the word sea clearly that all the dolphins within it might shine – And the desolation so great it might contain all of God – and every water drop ascending steadfastly toward the sun
As a young man he had seen gold glittering and gleaming on the shoulders of the great – And one night – he remembers – during a great storm the neck of the sea roared so it turned murky – but he would not submit to it
The world's an oppressive place to live through – yet with a little pride it's worth it.
II
From whom they had taken everything his – And his sandals with their criss-crossed straps and his pointed trident – and the wall he mounted every afternoon like an unruly and pitching boat – to hold the reigns against the weather
And a handful of vervain – which he had rubbed on a girl's cheek – at midnight – to kiss her – (how the waters of the moon gurled on the stone steps three cliff-lengths above the sea...)
Noon out of night – And not one person by his side – Only his faithful words that mingled all their colors to leave in his hand a lance of white light
And opposite – along the whole wall's length – a host of heads poured in plaster as far as his eyes could see
“Noon out of night – all life a radiance!" – he shouted and rushed into the horde – dragging behind him an endless golden line
And at once he felt – the final pallor overmastering him – as it hastened from afar.
III
And the small cool domes – like blue medusae – reached each time higher to the silverwork the wind so delicately worked as a painting – for other times more distant
Virgin maidens – their breasts glowing a summer dawn – brought him branches of fresh palm leaves – and those of the myrtle uprooted from the depths of the sea
Dripping iodine – While under his feet he heard – the prows of black ships sucked into the great whirlpool – the ancient and smoked seacraft from which still erect with riveted gaze – the Mothers of God stood rebuking
Horses overturned on dumpheaps – a rabble of buildings large and small – debris and dust flaming in the air
And there lying prone – always with an unbroken word between his teeth
Himself
the last of the Hellenes!
(Odysseas Elytis)
The limits of Pericles’ living with beauty and living with wisdom
A final word, for the time being, on Pericles, his funeral oration and Athenian democracy.
Having taken into account Robin Lane Fox’s lecture on Why Pericles Matters, which wants to rescue Athenian democracy from modern critics – determined to subject it to their anti-colonial, anti-imperialist fixations – and assert the radical and unique nature of Periclean Athens; and Cornelius Castoriadis’ insistence that we transform Pericles’ famous dictum, of loving beauty and loving wisdom, into loving and living with beauty and loving and living with wisdom; it is important to note that when Pericles speaks of Athens and the Athenians in the funeral oration, he is speaking of a vision for Athens and Athenians. Not that Pericles is conjuring up a utopia, because Pericles with his democratic reforms, his revival of the city’s monuments and subsidisation of the arts, put flesh and bones on his vision, but a vision is what his exhortations in the funeral oration amounts to.
Thus, we shouldn’t fall into the trap of believing that Athens was a pristine society that lived up to Pericles’ hopes for it. Indeed, although there is a chronological justification for including Pericles’ funeral oration so early in Thucydides’ account of the conflict between Athens and Sparta, its early mention also allows us to see how, through the next 27 years of the Peloponnesian war, Athens and the Athenians fell catastrophically short of Pericles’ advice to love and live with wisdom and love and live with beauty.
We also note that Pericles’ vision of an entwined city and citizenry was hotly contested and deeply resented by significant sections of the Athenian body politic.
In particular, Athens’ aristocratic class – to which the blue-blooded Pericles belonged – loathed Pericles and his innovations, and this hostility to Periclean democracy was shared by Plato, Thucydides, Aristotle, Aristophanes and so on, who all regarded it as inclined to demagoguery, mob rule and recklessness. (Indeed, Plato was not only antipathetic to Pericles’ democratic ideals but also his promotion of the arts, with the philosopher notoriously proposing the banning of poets from his Republic).
Thus, Athens’ surrender to Sparta after the Battle of Aegospotami (404 BC) was put down to a succession of disastrous decisions taken by the Athenian assembly, while other decisions in the course of the conflict – such as the slaughter of the Melians and the execution of the six generals (one of whom was Pericles’ son) following the Battle of Arginusae (406 BC, for failing, after victory, to rescue stranded sailors) – reveal the limits of loving and living with wisdom and loving and living with beauty. (And, of course, loving and living with wisdom didn’t stop the Athenians condemning Socrates to death in 399 BC).
Castoriadis would also have us believe two things about Athens’ defeat in the Peloponnesian war. First, that it signified the end of Athenian democracy and the extraordinary flourishing of culture that accompanied it; and, second, that the gravediggers of that democracy were Alcibiades and Cleon.
On whether Alcibiades was a gravedigger of Athenian democracy: you could, in fact, make a stronger case that it was the vagaries of Athenian democracy that destroyed the life and career of the brilliant general – by bringing trumped up charges of sacrilege against him, prompting him to abandon his command in the Sicilian expedition (perhaps, the defining episode in the Peloponnesian war) and go into exile and, worse still, seek sanctuary in Sparta – and that, therefore, it was the fickle, myopic Athenians, who dug their own graves, not Alcibiades.
Nor is it clear that the Peloponnesian war did end, as Castoriadis says it did, Athenian democracy or terminate that remarkable period of creativity in the arts that characterised Periclean Athens.
Ultimately, then, we note that living with wisdom and living with beauty does not preclude – and did not preclude in the Athenian case, as Thucydides demonstrates – living with sickening violence, injustice and rank stupidity.
*The video above is a reading of Plutarch’s life of Pericles. It’s an old-fashioned rendering – and it even refers to the goddess Athena as Minerva, which is unacceptable – but Plutarch is an essential source for our knowledge of Pericles.
The Akritas Plan
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| Greek Cypriot fighters in Limassol, 1963 |
The Akritas Plan: Regarding the objectives of the Greek Cypriot side and the prospects as they appeared towards the end of 1963
Since the purpose remains unalterable, what remains is to examine the subject of tactics. It is necessary to divide the subject of tactics under two headings, that is: internal tactics and external, since in each case both the presentation and the handling of our cause will be different.
A. External tactics (international).
During the recent stages of our national struggle the Cyprus problem has been presented to diplomatic circles as a demand for the exercise of the right of self-determination by the people of Cyprus. In securing the right of self-determination obstacles have been created by the well-known conditions, the existence of a Turkish minority, by the inter-communal conflict and the attempts to show that co-existence of both communities under one government was impossible. Finally, for many international circles the problem was solved by the London and Zurich Agreements, a solution which was presented as the result of negotiations and agreement between the two sides.
During the recent stages of our national struggle the Cyprus problem has been presented to diplomatic circles as a demand for the exercise of the right of self-determination by the people of Cyprus. In securing the right of self-determination obstacles have been created by the well-known conditions, the existence of a Turkish minority, by the inter-communal conflict and the attempts to show that co-existence of both communities under one government was impossible. Finally, for many international circles the problem was solved by the London and Zurich Agreements, a solution which was presented as the result of negotiations and agreement between the two sides.
a) Consequently, our first target has been to cultivate internationally the impression that the Cyprus problem has not really been solved an the solution requires revision.
b) Our first objective was our endeavour to be vindicated as the Greek majority and to create the impression that:
(i) The solution given is neither satisfactory not fair;
(ii) The agreement reached was not the result of a free and voluntary acceptance of a compromise of the conflicting views;
(iii) That the revision of the agreements constitutes a compelling necessity for survival, and not an effort of the Greeks to repudiate their signature;
(iv) That the co-existence of the two communities is possible, and
(v) That the strong element on which foreign states ought to rely is the Greek majority and not the Turkish Cypriots.
c) All the above has required very difficult effort, and has been achieved to a satisfactory degree. Most of the foreign representatives have been convinced that the solution given was neither fair nor satisfactory, that it was signed under pressure and without real negotiations and that it was imposed under various threats. It is significant argument that the solution achieved has not been ratified by the people, because our leadership, acting wisely, avoided calling the people to ratify it by a plebiscite, which the people, in the 1959 spirit, would have done if called upon.
Generally, it has been established that the administration of Cyprus up to now has been carried out by the Greeks and that the Turks have confined themselves to a negative role.
d) Second objective. The first stage having been completed, we must programme the second stage of our activities and objectives on the international level. These objectives in general can be outlined as follows:
(i) The Greek efforts are directed towards removing unreasonable and unfair provisions of administration and not to oppress the Turkish Cypriots;
(ii) The removal of these oppressive provisions must take place now because tomorrow it will be too late;
(iii) The removal of these provisions, despite the fact that this is reasonable and necessary, because of the unreasonable attitude of the Turks is not possible by agreement, and therefore unilateral action is justified;
(iv) The issue of revision is an internal affair of the Cypriots and does not give the right of military or other intervention;
(v) The proposed amendments are reasonable, just, and safeguard the reasonable rights of the minority.
e) Today it has been generally demonstrated that the international climate is against every type of oppression and, more specifically, against the oppression of minorities. The Turks have already succeeded in persuading international opinion that union of Cyprus with Greece amounts to an attempt to enslave them. Further, it is estimated that we have better chances of succeeding in our efforts to influence international public opinion in our favour if we present our demand, as we did during the struggle, as a demand to exercise the right of self-determination, rather than as a demand for union with Greece (Enosis). In order, however, to secure the exercise of complete and free self-determination, we must get free of all those provisions of the constitution and of the agreements (Treaty of Guarantee, Treaty of Alliance) which prevent the free and unfettered expression and implementation of the wishes of our people and which create dangers of external intervention. It is for this reason that the first target of attack has been the Treaty of Guarantee, which was the first that was stated to be no longer recognised by the Greek Cypriots.
When this is achieved no legal or moral power can prevent us from deciding our future alone and freely and exercising the right of self-determination by a plebiscite.
From the above, the conclusion can be drawn that for the success of our plan a chain of actions is needed, each of which is necessary, otherwise, future actions will remain legally unjustified and politically unachieved, while at the same time we will expose our people and the country to serious consequences. The actions to be taken can be summed up as follows:
a) Amendment of the negative elements of the agreements and parallel abandonment of the Treaties of Guarantee and Alliance. This step is necessary because the need for amendments of the negative aspects of the treaties is generally accepted internationally and is considered justified (we can even justify unilateral action), while at the same time intervention from outside to prevent us amending them is unjustified and inapplicable;
b) As a result of our above actions, the Treaty of Guarantee (right of unilateral intervention) becomes legally and substantively inapplicable;
c) The people, once Cyprus is not bound by the restrictions of the Treaties of Guarantee and Alliance regarding the exercise of the right of self-determination, will be able to give expression to and implement their desire.
d) Legal confrontation by the forces of the State of every internal or external intervention.
It is therefore obvious that if we hope to have any chance of success internationally in our above actions, we cannot and must not reveal or declare the various stages of the struggle before the previous one is completed. For instance, if it is accepted that the above four stages are necessary, then it is unthinkable to speak of amendments in stage (a) if stage (d) is revealed. How can it be possible to aim at the amendment of the negative aspects of the constitution by arguing that this is necessary for the functioning of the State if stage (d) is revealed?
The above relate to targets, aims and tactics in the international field. And now on the internal front:
B. Internal Front
1. The only danger which could be described as insurmountable is the possibility of external intervention, by force, not so much because of the material damage, nor because of the danger itself (which, in the last analysis, it is possible for us to deal with partly or totally by force), but mainly because of the possible political consequences. Intervention is threatened or implemented before stage (c), then such intervention would be legally debatable, if not justified. This fact has a lot of weight both internationally and in the United Nations.
From the history of many recent instances we have learnt that in not a single case of intervention, whether legally justified or not, has either the United Nations or any other power succeeded in evicting the invader without serious concessions detrimental to the victim. Even in the case of the Israeli attack against Suez, which was condemned by almost all nations, and on which Soviet intervention was threatened, Israel withdrew, but received as a concession the port of Eilat on the Red Sea. Naturally, more serious dangers exist for Cyprus.
If, on the other hand, we consider and justify our action under (a) above well, on the one hand, intervention is not justified and, on the other, it cannot be carried out before consultations between the guarantors Greece, Turkey and the UK. It is at this stage of consultations (before intervention) that we need international support. We shall have it if the proposed amendments by us appear reasonable and justifiable.
Hence, the first objective is to avoid intervention by the choice of the amendments we would request in the first stage.
Tactics: We shall attempt to justify unilateral action for constitutional amendments once the efforts for a common agreement are excluded. As this stage the provisions in (ii) and (in) are applicable in parallel.
2. It is obvious that in order to justify intervention, a more serious reason must exist and a more immediate danger than a simple constitutional amendment.
Such a reason could be an immediate declaration of Enosis before stages (a) - (c) or serious inter-communal violence which would be presented as massacres of the Turks.
Reason (a) has already been dealt with in the first part and, consequently, it remains only to consider the danger of inter-communal violence. Since we do not intend, without provocation, to attack or kill Turks, the possibility remains that the Turkish Cypriots, as soon as we proceed to the unilateral amendment of any article of the constitution, will react instinctively, creating incidents and clashes or stage, under orders, killings, atrocities or bomb attacks on Turks, in order to create the impression that the Greeks have indeed attacked the Turks, in which case intervention would be justified, for their protection.
Tactics. Our actions for constitutional amendments will be in the open and we will always appear ready for peaceful negotiations. Our actions will not be of a provocative or violent nature.
Should clashes occur, they will be dealt with in the initial stages legally by the legally established security forces, in accordance with a plan. All actions will be clothed in legal form.
3. Before the right of unilateral amendments of the constitution is established, decisions and actions which require positive violent acts, such as, for example, the use of force to unify the separate municipalities, must be avoided. Such a decision compels the Government to intervene by force to bring about the unification of municipal properties, which will probably compel the Turks to react violently. On the contrary, it is easier for us, using legal methods, to amend, for instance, the provision of the 70 to 30 ratio in the public service, when it is the Turks who will have to take positive violent action, while for us this procedure will not amount to action, but to refusal to act (to implement).
The same applies to the issue of the separate majorities with regard to taxation legislation.
These measures have already been considered and a series of similar measures have been chosen for implementation. Once our right of unilateral amendments to the constitution is established de facto by such actions, then we shall be able to advance using our judgment and our strength more decidedly.
4. It is, however, naive to believe that it is possible to proceed to substantive acts of amendment of the constitution, as a first step of our general plan, as has been described above, without the Turks at tempting to create or to stage violent clashes. For this reason, the existence of our organisation is an imperative necessity because:
a) In the event of instinctive violent Turkish reactions, if our counter-attacks are not immediate, we run the risk of creating panic among the Greeks in the towns and thus losing substantial vital areas, while, on the other hand, an immediate show of our strength may bring the Turks to their senses and confine their actions to sporadic insignificant acts, and
b) In the event of a planned or staged Turkish attack, it is imperative to overcome it by force in the shortest possible time, because if we succeed in gaining command of the situation (in one or two days), no outside intervention would be either justified or possible.
c) In either of the above cases, effective use of force in dealing with the Turks will facilitate to a great extent our subsequent actions for further amendments. It would then be possible for unilateral amendments to be made, without any Turkish reaction, because they will know that their reaction will be weak or seriously harmful for their community, and
d) In the event of the clashes becoming more general or general we must be ready to proceed with the actions described in (a) to (b), including the immediate declaration of Enosis, because then there would be no reason to wait nor room for diplomatic action.
5. At no stage should we neglect the need to enlighten, and to face the propaganda and the reactions of those who cannot or should not know our plans. It has been shown that our struggle must pass through four stages and that we must not reveal publicly and at improper times our plans and intentions. Complete secrecy is more than a national duty.
IT IS A VITAL NECESSITY FOR SURVIVAL AND SUCCESS.
This will not prevent the reactionaries and the irresponsible demagogues from indulging in an orgy of exploitation of patriotism and provocations. The plan provides them with fertile ground, because it gives them the opportunity to allege that the efforts of the leadership are confined to the objective of constitutional amendments and not to pure national objectives. Our task becomes more difficult because by necessity, and depending on the prevailing circumstances, even the constitutional amendments must be made in stages. However, all this must not draw us into irresponsible demagogy nor to bidding higher in the stakes of nationalism. Our acts will be our most truthful defenders. In any event, because the above task must make substantial progress and yield results long before the next elections, for obvious reasons, in the relatively short time in between we must show self-restraint and remain cool.
At the same time, however, we must not only maintain the present unity and discipline of the patriotic forces, but increase it. This can only be done by the necessary briefing of our members and through them of our people.
In the first instance, we must uncover what the reactionaries stand for. Some of them are opportunist and irresponsible, as their recent past has shown. They are negative and aimless reactionaries who fanatically oppose our leadership, but without at the same time offering a substantive and practical solution. We need a steady and strong government in order to promote our plans up to the last moment. These opponents are verbalists and sloganists, but unwilling to proceed to concrete acts or to suffer sacrifices. For example, even at the present stage they offer nothing more concrete than recourse to the United Nations, that is, words again without cost to themselves. They must, therefore, be isolated.
In parallel, we shall brief our members only ORALLY about our intentions. Our sub-headquarters must, in gatherings of our members, analyse and explain fully and continuously the above, until each one of our members understands fully and is in a position to brief others.
NO WRITTEN REPORT IS PERMITTED. THE LOSS OF ANY DOCUMENT ON THE ABOVE AMOUNTS TO TREASON AGAINST THE NATION.
No act can damage our struggle as vitally and decisively as the revealing of the present document or its publication by our opponents. With the exception of word-of-mouth briefing, all our other actions, i.e., publications in the Press, resolutions, etc., must be very restrained and no mention of the above should be made. Similarly, in public speeches and gatherings, only responsible persons may make, under the personal responsibility of the Leader or Deputy Leaders, references in general terms to the plan. They must also have the authorisation of either the Leader or the Deputy Leader who must approve the text. ON NO ACCOUNT ARE REFERENCES IN THE PRESS OR ANY OTHER PUBLICATION PERMITTED.
Tactics. Complete briefing of our people and of the public by word of mouth. Publicly we shall endeavour to appear as moderates. Projection of or reference to our plans in the Press or in writing is strictly prohibited. Officials and other responsible persons will continue to brief and to raise the morale and the desire for the struggle of our people, but such briefing excludes making our plans public knowledge by the Press or otherwise.
NOTES: This document will be destroyed by fire on the personal responsibility of the Leader and the Deputy Leader in the presence of all the members of the General Staff within 10 days from its receipt. Copies or part copies are prohibited: members of the staff of the Office of the Deputy Leader may have copies on the personal responsibility of the Leader, but may not remove them from the Office of the Deputy Leader.
(i) The solution given is neither satisfactory not fair;
(ii) The agreement reached was not the result of a free and voluntary acceptance of a compromise of the conflicting views;
(iii) That the revision of the agreements constitutes a compelling necessity for survival, and not an effort of the Greeks to repudiate their signature;
(iv) That the co-existence of the two communities is possible, and
(v) That the strong element on which foreign states ought to rely is the Greek majority and not the Turkish Cypriots.
c) All the above has required very difficult effort, and has been achieved to a satisfactory degree. Most of the foreign representatives have been convinced that the solution given was neither fair nor satisfactory, that it was signed under pressure and without real negotiations and that it was imposed under various threats. It is significant argument that the solution achieved has not been ratified by the people, because our leadership, acting wisely, avoided calling the people to ratify it by a plebiscite, which the people, in the 1959 spirit, would have done if called upon.
Generally, it has been established that the administration of Cyprus up to now has been carried out by the Greeks and that the Turks have confined themselves to a negative role.
d) Second objective. The first stage having been completed, we must programme the second stage of our activities and objectives on the international level. These objectives in general can be outlined as follows:
(i) The Greek efforts are directed towards removing unreasonable and unfair provisions of administration and not to oppress the Turkish Cypriots;
(ii) The removal of these oppressive provisions must take place now because tomorrow it will be too late;
(iii) The removal of these provisions, despite the fact that this is reasonable and necessary, because of the unreasonable attitude of the Turks is not possible by agreement, and therefore unilateral action is justified;
(iv) The issue of revision is an internal affair of the Cypriots and does not give the right of military or other intervention;
(v) The proposed amendments are reasonable, just, and safeguard the reasonable rights of the minority.
e) Today it has been generally demonstrated that the international climate is against every type of oppression and, more specifically, against the oppression of minorities. The Turks have already succeeded in persuading international opinion that union of Cyprus with Greece amounts to an attempt to enslave them. Further, it is estimated that we have better chances of succeeding in our efforts to influence international public opinion in our favour if we present our demand, as we did during the struggle, as a demand to exercise the right of self-determination, rather than as a demand for union with Greece (Enosis). In order, however, to secure the exercise of complete and free self-determination, we must get free of all those provisions of the constitution and of the agreements (Treaty of Guarantee, Treaty of Alliance) which prevent the free and unfettered expression and implementation of the wishes of our people and which create dangers of external intervention. It is for this reason that the first target of attack has been the Treaty of Guarantee, which was the first that was stated to be no longer recognised by the Greek Cypriots.
When this is achieved no legal or moral power can prevent us from deciding our future alone and freely and exercising the right of self-determination by a plebiscite.
From the above, the conclusion can be drawn that for the success of our plan a chain of actions is needed, each of which is necessary, otherwise, future actions will remain legally unjustified and politically unachieved, while at the same time we will expose our people and the country to serious consequences. The actions to be taken can be summed up as follows:
a) Amendment of the negative elements of the agreements and parallel abandonment of the Treaties of Guarantee and Alliance. This step is necessary because the need for amendments of the negative aspects of the treaties is generally accepted internationally and is considered justified (we can even justify unilateral action), while at the same time intervention from outside to prevent us amending them is unjustified and inapplicable;
b) As a result of our above actions, the Treaty of Guarantee (right of unilateral intervention) becomes legally and substantively inapplicable;
c) The people, once Cyprus is not bound by the restrictions of the Treaties of Guarantee and Alliance regarding the exercise of the right of self-determination, will be able to give expression to and implement their desire.
d) Legal confrontation by the forces of the State of every internal or external intervention.
It is therefore obvious that if we hope to have any chance of success internationally in our above actions, we cannot and must not reveal or declare the various stages of the struggle before the previous one is completed. For instance, if it is accepted that the above four stages are necessary, then it is unthinkable to speak of amendments in stage (a) if stage (d) is revealed. How can it be possible to aim at the amendment of the negative aspects of the constitution by arguing that this is necessary for the functioning of the State if stage (d) is revealed?
The above relate to targets, aims and tactics in the international field. And now on the internal front:
B. Internal Front
1. The only danger which could be described as insurmountable is the possibility of external intervention, by force, not so much because of the material damage, nor because of the danger itself (which, in the last analysis, it is possible for us to deal with partly or totally by force), but mainly because of the possible political consequences. Intervention is threatened or implemented before stage (c), then such intervention would be legally debatable, if not justified. This fact has a lot of weight both internationally and in the United Nations.
From the history of many recent instances we have learnt that in not a single case of intervention, whether legally justified or not, has either the United Nations or any other power succeeded in evicting the invader without serious concessions detrimental to the victim. Even in the case of the Israeli attack against Suez, which was condemned by almost all nations, and on which Soviet intervention was threatened, Israel withdrew, but received as a concession the port of Eilat on the Red Sea. Naturally, more serious dangers exist for Cyprus.
If, on the other hand, we consider and justify our action under (a) above well, on the one hand, intervention is not justified and, on the other, it cannot be carried out before consultations between the guarantors Greece, Turkey and the UK. It is at this stage of consultations (before intervention) that we need international support. We shall have it if the proposed amendments by us appear reasonable and justifiable.
Hence, the first objective is to avoid intervention by the choice of the amendments we would request in the first stage.
Tactics: We shall attempt to justify unilateral action for constitutional amendments once the efforts for a common agreement are excluded. As this stage the provisions in (ii) and (in) are applicable in parallel.
2. It is obvious that in order to justify intervention, a more serious reason must exist and a more immediate danger than a simple constitutional amendment.
Such a reason could be an immediate declaration of Enosis before stages (a) - (c) or serious inter-communal violence which would be presented as massacres of the Turks.
Reason (a) has already been dealt with in the first part and, consequently, it remains only to consider the danger of inter-communal violence. Since we do not intend, without provocation, to attack or kill Turks, the possibility remains that the Turkish Cypriots, as soon as we proceed to the unilateral amendment of any article of the constitution, will react instinctively, creating incidents and clashes or stage, under orders, killings, atrocities or bomb attacks on Turks, in order to create the impression that the Greeks have indeed attacked the Turks, in which case intervention would be justified, for their protection.
Tactics. Our actions for constitutional amendments will be in the open and we will always appear ready for peaceful negotiations. Our actions will not be of a provocative or violent nature.
Should clashes occur, they will be dealt with in the initial stages legally by the legally established security forces, in accordance with a plan. All actions will be clothed in legal form.
3. Before the right of unilateral amendments of the constitution is established, decisions and actions which require positive violent acts, such as, for example, the use of force to unify the separate municipalities, must be avoided. Such a decision compels the Government to intervene by force to bring about the unification of municipal properties, which will probably compel the Turks to react violently. On the contrary, it is easier for us, using legal methods, to amend, for instance, the provision of the 70 to 30 ratio in the public service, when it is the Turks who will have to take positive violent action, while for us this procedure will not amount to action, but to refusal to act (to implement).
The same applies to the issue of the separate majorities with regard to taxation legislation.
These measures have already been considered and a series of similar measures have been chosen for implementation. Once our right of unilateral amendments to the constitution is established de facto by such actions, then we shall be able to advance using our judgment and our strength more decidedly.
4. It is, however, naive to believe that it is possible to proceed to substantive acts of amendment of the constitution, as a first step of our general plan, as has been described above, without the Turks at tempting to create or to stage violent clashes. For this reason, the existence of our organisation is an imperative necessity because:
a) In the event of instinctive violent Turkish reactions, if our counter-attacks are not immediate, we run the risk of creating panic among the Greeks in the towns and thus losing substantial vital areas, while, on the other hand, an immediate show of our strength may bring the Turks to their senses and confine their actions to sporadic insignificant acts, and
b) In the event of a planned or staged Turkish attack, it is imperative to overcome it by force in the shortest possible time, because if we succeed in gaining command of the situation (in one or two days), no outside intervention would be either justified or possible.
c) In either of the above cases, effective use of force in dealing with the Turks will facilitate to a great extent our subsequent actions for further amendments. It would then be possible for unilateral amendments to be made, without any Turkish reaction, because they will know that their reaction will be weak or seriously harmful for their community, and
d) In the event of the clashes becoming more general or general we must be ready to proceed with the actions described in (a) to (b), including the immediate declaration of Enosis, because then there would be no reason to wait nor room for diplomatic action.
5. At no stage should we neglect the need to enlighten, and to face the propaganda and the reactions of those who cannot or should not know our plans. It has been shown that our struggle must pass through four stages and that we must not reveal publicly and at improper times our plans and intentions. Complete secrecy is more than a national duty.
IT IS A VITAL NECESSITY FOR SURVIVAL AND SUCCESS.
This will not prevent the reactionaries and the irresponsible demagogues from indulging in an orgy of exploitation of patriotism and provocations. The plan provides them with fertile ground, because it gives them the opportunity to allege that the efforts of the leadership are confined to the objective of constitutional amendments and not to pure national objectives. Our task becomes more difficult because by necessity, and depending on the prevailing circumstances, even the constitutional amendments must be made in stages. However, all this must not draw us into irresponsible demagogy nor to bidding higher in the stakes of nationalism. Our acts will be our most truthful defenders. In any event, because the above task must make substantial progress and yield results long before the next elections, for obvious reasons, in the relatively short time in between we must show self-restraint and remain cool.
At the same time, however, we must not only maintain the present unity and discipline of the patriotic forces, but increase it. This can only be done by the necessary briefing of our members and through them of our people.
In the first instance, we must uncover what the reactionaries stand for. Some of them are opportunist and irresponsible, as their recent past has shown. They are negative and aimless reactionaries who fanatically oppose our leadership, but without at the same time offering a substantive and practical solution. We need a steady and strong government in order to promote our plans up to the last moment. These opponents are verbalists and sloganists, but unwilling to proceed to concrete acts or to suffer sacrifices. For example, even at the present stage they offer nothing more concrete than recourse to the United Nations, that is, words again without cost to themselves. They must, therefore, be isolated.
In parallel, we shall brief our members only ORALLY about our intentions. Our sub-headquarters must, in gatherings of our members, analyse and explain fully and continuously the above, until each one of our members understands fully and is in a position to brief others.
NO WRITTEN REPORT IS PERMITTED. THE LOSS OF ANY DOCUMENT ON THE ABOVE AMOUNTS TO TREASON AGAINST THE NATION.
No act can damage our struggle as vitally and decisively as the revealing of the present document or its publication by our opponents. With the exception of word-of-mouth briefing, all our other actions, i.e., publications in the Press, resolutions, etc., must be very restrained and no mention of the above should be made. Similarly, in public speeches and gatherings, only responsible persons may make, under the personal responsibility of the Leader or Deputy Leaders, references in general terms to the plan. They must also have the authorisation of either the Leader or the Deputy Leader who must approve the text. ON NO ACCOUNT ARE REFERENCES IN THE PRESS OR ANY OTHER PUBLICATION PERMITTED.
Tactics. Complete briefing of our people and of the public by word of mouth. Publicly we shall endeavour to appear as moderates. Projection of or reference to our plans in the Press or in writing is strictly prohibited. Officials and other responsible persons will continue to brief and to raise the morale and the desire for the struggle of our people, but such briefing excludes making our plans public knowledge by the Press or otherwise.
NOTES: This document will be destroyed by fire on the personal responsibility of the Leader and the Deputy Leader in the presence of all the members of the General Staff within 10 days from its receipt. Copies or part copies are prohibited: members of the staff of the Office of the Deputy Leader may have copies on the personal responsibility of the Leader, but may not remove them from the Office of the Deputy Leader.
The Leader AKRITAS
Robin Lane Fox: Why Pericles Matters
Thanks to the reader who pointed me in the direction of Robin Lane Fox’s lecture Why Pericles Matters, which was recently given at Royal Holloway College, here in London. (You can see the lecture here if your computer is up to it but, if like mine, it’s not, I did manage to extract the audio and you can listen to it above).
In his lecture, Lane Fox tells us why the life, deeds and ideas of Pericles, the great Athenian statesman – or ‘the Zeus of the human pantheon of Athens’, according to Hegel – continue to matter to modern societies. Naturally, Lane Fox pays closest attention to Pericles’ funeral oration, as recalled by Thucydides, in which Pericles, on the occasion of the internment of those Athenian soldiers who fell in the early skirmishes of the war against Sparta, presents his idealised view of Athens and its citizens. It’s an oration that, for Cornelius Castoriadis is ‘the most important political monument of political thought I have ever read’, though for its detractors is an odious expression of collectivism, nationalism, militarism and totalitarianism. And, indeed, it is to these critics that Lane Fox addresses his defence of Pericles.
Lane Fox starts by telling us that Pericles’ funeral oration matters because Pericles attaches no religious meaning or connotations to the Athenian war dead being commemorated. There is no mention of gods, martyrdom or paradise. These battlefield deaths are afforded no sacred significance and there is no religious comfort – of an afterlife, for example – that Pericles can offer to the grieving relatives.
Pericles and his funeral oration also matter, Lane Fox says, because of the radical democratic ethos represented. When Pericles speaks to the gathered citizenry, he speaks not as a monarch or president might, not as the leader of an elite or vanguard, not as a general or commander-in-chief, not even as a representative, but as one citizen to another, as an equal. Indeed, Athens is its citizens; and its citizens are Athens. The relationship is symbiotic. One does not dominate or exist separately from the other.
For Athenians to be so enamoured and engaged with their city – and for Athenians to make the best decisions on issues that ranged from the mundane to the momentous – required an unceasing dedication to education and culture – to paideia; and in his funeral oration, Pericles indicates that, in Athens, paideia is intended to prepare its citizens for civic life and public duty by inculcating in them a love of beauty – without this implying ostentation; and a love of wisdom – without this implying softness, or neglect of martial skills.
As such, for Pericles, according to Lane Fox, Athens and the Athenian way of life promoted arts, festivals and athletic games; championed thought and debate, enquiry and innovation; expected versatility not uniformity from its citizens; and, though adorned with resplendent civic buildings, recommended modesty at home and in the display of private wealth. In short, Lane Fox says, Periclean Athens matters because it promotes individual freedom but, at the same time, is vigourously communitarian. The individual who wanted to live outside the community, or disparaged civic life, was not the epitome of freedom, as he is in some modern ideologies, but an idiot (ἰδιώτης), a useless and inept character, with nothing worthwhile to offer or say.
For further discussion on Why Pericles Matters, go here and here.
The Divisions of Cyprus, by Perry Anderson
Cyprus is, in truth, an anomaly in the new Europe. Not, however, for reasons Brussels cares to dwell on. This is an EU member-state a large part of which is under long-standing occupation by a foreign army. Behind tanks and artillery, a population of settlers has been planted that is relatively more numerous than the settlers on the West Bank, without a flicker of protest from the Council or Commission. From its territory are further subtracted – not leased, but held in eminent domain – military enclaves three times the size of Guantánamo, under the control of a fellow member of the EU, the United Kingdom.(Perry Anderson: The Divisions of Cyprus)
Perry Anderson has been for the last forty years one of Britain's leading left-wing intellectuals and historians. In the latest issue of the London Review of Books, he has written a breathtakingly brilliant essay on Cyprus, its modern history, from 1931 to the present day, which rejects the discourse on the Cyprus problem that views it as a spat between uncivilised rival ethnic groups in the grip of a primitive nationalism and sets the conflict in its correct colonial, post-colonial, geopolitical and cold war context.
As such, Anderson concentrates on the role in Cyprus of Britain, Greece, Turkey, the USA and, more recently, the EU and the UN – who, through a combination of malevolent conspiracy, arrogance, spite, negligence and disdain, have contributed, in one way or another, to Cyprus’ tragedy.
Anderson has produced a stunning, Thucydidean indictment of the cruelty, indifference and malice of the strong, in which he reserves his most withering criticism for Britain, its consistently destructive role in Cyprus, and for Lord David Hannay, Britain's special representative to Cyprus during the Blair government, the ‘brains’ behind the reviled Annan plan in 2004. Anderson's contempt for post-war Greek politics and politicians is only slightly less vitriolic.
Read the whole essay here. Below is a taste of what Anderson writes.
‘From the beginning, colonial rule had used the Turkish minority as a mild counterweight to the Greek majority, without giving it any particular advantages or paying overmuch attention to it. But once demands for Enosis could no longer be ignored, London began to fix its attention on the uses to which the community could be put.’
‘[For] Karamanlis, whose historical raison d’être was sentry duty in the Cold War… Hellenism was essentially for public consumption, to keep domestic opinion quiet: for the regime, it was anti-Communism that counted, and if there was a conflict between them, Enosis would be ditched without compunction.’
‘The postwar Greek state… started out as a British protectorate and continued as an American dependency, culturally and politically incapable of crossing the will of its progenitors. Greek Cypriots were often to charge its political class with betrayal, but the spinelessness of so many of its ministers and diplomats was structural: there was no inner core of autonomy to betray.’
‘The brutality of Turkey’s descent on Cyprus, stark enough, was no surprise. On previous occasions, as well as this one, Ankara had repeatedly given advance warning of its intentions. Political responsibility for the disaster lay with those who allowed or encouraged it. The chief blame is often put on the United States… but though America’s role in the dismemberment of Cyprus is clear-cut, it is Britain that bears the overwhelming responsibility for it.’
‘A fourth edition of the UN plan was adjusted to meet Turkish demands, and a final, non-negotiable version – Annan V – was announced on the last day of March. A jubilant Erdogan told his people that it was the greatest victory of Turkish diplomacy since the Treaty of Lausanne in 1923, sealing Kemal’s military triumph over Greece.’
Wikileaks: the Americans abandon Ioannides after shambolic coup against Makarios
It’s clear from the cable that Ioannides believed he had American support for the coup and that he is infuriated when it becomes clear to him that, with Makarios alive and the coup a shambles, the Americans were now not prepared to defend Ioannides’ putsch in Cyprus, which meant, it must have been obvious to Ioannides, there was now nothing to stop a Turkish invasion of the island, that, indeed, the Americans were sympathetic to such a development. Ioannides desperately seeks to assure Tasca that the coup was in American interests, ranting about Makarios and the imminent prospect of Cyprus ‘falling into the hands of the communists’. The cable also confirms that, inasmuch as Ioannides had thought through the coup, his immediate aim was not annexation of Cyprus to Greece, but the removal of Makarios in order to facilitate an understanding with Turkey on the future of the island, i.e. partition of the island between Greece and Turkey.
FOR THE SECRETARY
1. I USED SECURE RELIABLE CHANNEL DIRECTLY TO GENERAL IOANNIDES TO DELIVER MESSAGE REFTEL [Reference Telegram]. HE BEGAN BY EXPLAINING HE HAD PERSONAL MESSAGE FROM USG [US government]. AFTER EMISSARY HAD READ TWO PARAGRAPHS, IOANNIDES COMMENTED MESSAGE MUST BE SAME AS THAT AMBASSADOR HAD GIVEN KYPREOS [Greece’s foreign minister],IN WHICH CASE EMISSARY WASTING HIS TIME SINCE HE WOULD RECEIVE MESSAGE ANYWAY. EMISSARY EXPLAINED HIS JOB WAS TO FINISH READING MESSAGE AND HAD IT TO HIM AND WOULD DO SO, TO WHICH GENERAL IOANNIDES SAID FINE.
2. AFTER EMISSARY COMPLETED MESSAGE, THE GENERAL LITERALLY BLEW UP, JUMPED UP, BACKED UP, KNOCKED OVER A TABLE, BROKE EMPTY GLASS AND UTTERED A STRONG OBSCENITY. HE CONTINUED THAT ONE DAY KISSINGER MAKES PUBLIC STATEMENTS REGARDING NON-INTERFERENCE IN GREEK INTERNAL AFFAIRS AND A FEW WEEKS LATER THE USG SAYS "CONSISTENT WITH THE ABOVE PRINCIPLES..." AND THREATENS INTERFERENCE. NO MATTER WHAT HAPPENED IN CYPUS I (IOANNIDES) WILL BE BLAMED. IF I HAD PULLED THE TROOPS OUT THE FORMER POLITICIANS WOULD HAVE BLAMED ME FOR TURNING THE ISLAND OVER TO THE COMMUNISTS. SOME DAY USG WILL REALIZE THAT ON 15 JULY 1974 CYPRUS WAS SAVED FROM FALLING INTO THE HANDS OF THE COMMUNISTS".
3. GENERAL THEN CALMED DOWN, CAME OVER TO WHERE EMISSARY WAS SITTING AND SAID HE KNEW HE UNDERSTOOD HIM: DIPLOMATIC TALK IS TIME-CONSUMING BUT HE WOULD ANSWER IN AS DIPLOMATIC FASHION AS POSSIBLE BECAUSE HE HAD DIPLOMATIC MISSION.
4. GENERAL STATED THAT GREECE ALSO BELIEVED IN NON-INTERFERENCE AND IN A FREE, INDEPENDENT, SOVEREIGN STATE OF CYPRUS; GREECE WOULD ABIDE BY THE DECISION OF THE MAJORITY OF THE GREEK CYPRIOTS, MOST OF WHOM WERE NATIONALISTS, AND THESE NATIONALISTS WERE THE ONES WHO HAD MOVED AGAINST MAKARIOS. IT WAS IMMATERIAL WHETHER THESE GREEK CYPRIOT NATIONALISTS MOVED WITH OR WITHOUT THE PRIOR BLESSING OF GREECE OR WHETHER GREEK OFFICERS SUBSEQUENTLY ASSISTED THEM. AT THIS POINT HE WENT OFF ON A TANGENT STATING THAT NEITHER GREECE NOR THE GREEK CYPRIOTS HAD ASKED FOR ENOSIS, THAT GOT [government of Turkey] HAD OBVIOUSLY ACCEPTED THESE DEVELOPMENTS IN CYPRUS, THAT TURKS UNDER STOOD THAT THE MATTER WAS AN INTERNAL GREEK CYPRIOT AFFAIR.
5. ACCORDING TO IOANNIDES ONLY REAL RESISTANCE LEFT ON CYPRUS WERE COMMUNIST SUPPORTS OF MAKARIOS IN PAPHOS;THESE SUPPORTERS WERE EVEN SINGING EAM/ELAS SONGS. MOST OF THE REST OF ISLAND WAS IN NATIONALIST HANDS. GENERAL IOANNIDES STATED THAT EVERYONE SHOULD FORGET THAT MAKARIOS WAS AN INTERNATIONAL FIGURE, THAT HE WAS A NATIONAL HERO, THAT HE HAD SERVED SEVERAL USEFUL FUNCTIONS AND THAT HE WAS A MAN OF THE CLOTH; MAKARIOS HAD BECOME A ROTTEN PRIEST HOMOSEXUAL; HE WAS PERVERTED, A TORTURER, A SEXUAL DEVIATE AND THE OWNER OF HALF THE HOTELS ON THE ISLAND. TO PRESERVE HIS POSITION AND TO CONTINUE HIS ACTIVITIES, MAKARIOS WAS WILLING TO SACRIFICE SEVENTY PER CENT OF THE GREEK CYPRIOT POPULATION (ONLY THIRTY PER CENT WERE AKEL) AND ENTIRE ANTI-COMMUNIST TURKISH CYPRIOT POPULATION. IOANNIDES ASSERTED GREEK CYPRIOTS IN NATIONAL GUARD REALIZED THESE FACTS AND HAD BEGGED MOTHERLAND FOR CHANCE TO ACT AGAINST MAKARIOS; GENERAL CLAIMED THAT HE ONLY ASSISTED AFTER BEING PRESENTED WITH A FAIT ACCOMPLI.
6. AT THIS POINT EMISSARY INTERJECTED AND TOLD IOANNIDES POINT-BLANK THAT, WITH COUP ONLY TWENTY-FOUR HOURS AFTER HIS REPORTING TO US REGARDING A POSSIBLE OVERTHROW OF MAKARIOS THIS WAS VERY DIFFICULT FOR ANYONE TO BELIEVE. AT THIS POINT THE GENERAL AGAIN BLEW UP WITH ARMS WAVING, KNOCKED OVER SAME TABLE, BROKE A SECOND GLASS AND, BETWEEN OBSCENITIES, STATED THAT HE DID NOT PLOT AND ARRANGE THE COUP; INITIAL PLAN AND APPROACH WAS FROM GREEK CYPRIOT NATIONALISTS ON 13 JULY, AFTER LATTER LEARNED THAT GOG [government of Greece] INTENDED TO ACCEDE TO MAKARIOS' DEMANDS TO REDUCE NUMBER OF GREEK OFFICERS IN NATIONAL GUARD.GENERAL STATED HE COULD NOT ACCEPT AT LEAST 85,000 GREEK CYPRIOT REFUGEES FROM MAKARIOS' TYRANNY. THIS COUPLED WITH MAKARIOS' ANTI-REGIME EFFORTS, MADE HIM DECIDE TO ASSIST GREEK CYPRIOT NATIONALISTS. THE GENERAL STATED THAT IF MAKARIOS SUCCEEDED IN KICKING GREEKS OUT OF CYPRUS WHAT COULD KEEP HIM FROM THINKING HE COULD NOT KICK JUNTA OUT OF GREECE. AFTER DECIDING TO ASSIST GREEK CYPRIOTS, THE GENERAL CLAIMED THAT HE DID NOT TELL THE ARMED FORCES LEADERSHIP NOR ANY GREEK OFFICIAL. HE LIMITED KNOWLEDGE OF HIS INTENTIONS TO FEW SELECT OFFICERS ON 13/14 JULY; NO ONE ELSE KNEW AND EVEN AFTER EVENTS UNFOLDED ON 15 JULY ONLY A HANDFUL OF PEOPLE WERE AWARE OF HIS ROLE. IOANNIDES JUSTIFIED THIS ACTION BY ASSERTING THAT IF HE HAD BRIEFED NUMEROUS PEOPLE THEY WOULD HAVE RAISED SUGGESTIONS, ADVICE, ALTERNATIVES, AND POSSIBLE PROBLEMS. HE ADDED THAT HE ACTED ON SPUR OF THE MOMENT.
7. IOANNIDES DECLARED THAT GAME WAS NOW OVER FOR MAKARIOS, THAT GREEK CYPRIOTS HAD BOOTED HIM OUT, THAT NATIONAL GUARD AND GREEK OFFICERS HAD ASSISTED NATIONALIST GREEK CYPRIOT BROTHERS, AND THAT ONLY RESISTANCE NOW WAS IN PAPHOS. IN REPLY TO EMISSARY'S DIRECT QUESTION IOANNIDES STATED THAT MAKARIOS WAS STILL ALIVE "BUT WHO CARES; HE NOW HAS NO POWER AND NO ONE, IF HE BELIEVES IN PRINCIPLE OF NON-INTERFERENCE IN INTERNAL AFFAIRS OF SOVEREIGN NATION WILL ASSIST HIM- NOT EVEN THE RUSSIANS UNLESS TURKS ASK THEM TO DO SO AND THE TURKS JUST DON'T CARE."
8. IN REPLY TO QUESTION WHETHER GREEKS WERE IN DIRECT TOUCH WITH TURKS, GENERAL STATED WE HAVE NOT BOTHERED THE TURKS; WE HAVE NOT DECLARED ENOSIS. TURKS AGREE THAT "THE PRINCIPAL THORN" (I.E., MAKARIOS) IS GONE AND, "I AM NOT IN TOUCH WITH THE TURKS." HE EXPRESSED VIEW THAT GREECE AND TURKEY COULD NOW PROCEED AT SOME FUTURE TIME TO SIT DOWN, TALK AND SOLVE THEIR DIFFERENCES. INDEED, ACCORDING TO IOANNIDES GREEKS MIGHT EVEN BE WILLING TO SHARE PROFITS OF PETROLEUM FINDS IN A JOINT EXPLORATION COMPANY; HOWEVER, GREECE WOULD NEVER SURRENDER AEGEAN CONTINENTAL SHELF BECAUSE THIS WOULD MEAN TURKISH CONTROL OF GREEK ISLANDS. HE ALSO EXPRESSED BELIEF THAT GREEK AND TURKISH CYPRIOTS COULD PROBABLY SOLVE THEIR DIFFICULTIES PEACEFULLY, QUIETLY AND AMICABLY. HE EVEN JOKED THAT IN A YEAR OR PERHAPS MORE REALISTICALLY TEN, THE TURKS MIGHT WANT TO SELL THEIR SHARE OF CYPRUS FOR INCREASED PERCENTAGE OF PETROLEUM RIGHTS. AGAIN IN REPLY TO DIRECT QUESTION, GENERAL IOANNIDES STATED THAT HE WAS NOT IN CONTACT WITH ANY TURKISH OFICIAL; HOWEVER, HE ADDED THAT TURKS WERE "OFFICIALLY AWARE" THAT ENOSIS WAS NOT THE OBJECTIVE AT THIS POINT AND THAT GREEK CYPRIOTS DID NOT INTEND ANY BLOODY ACTION AGAINST TURK CYPRIOTS.
9. WHEN ASKED FOR SPECIFICS ON MAKARIOS, IOANNIDES STATED THAT ACCORDING TO GREEK INFORMATION, MAKARIOS WAS ALIVE AND IN HANDS OF BRITISH AT EPISKOPI BASE, HE HAD GONE THERE WITH ASSISTANCE OF CANADIANS AND BRITISH ON ISLAND.
10. AT THIS POINT IOANNIDES SUMMED UP AS FOLLOWS:
A) HE STRESSED THAT HE TOO HAD A GOD; HE WAS DEFINITELY NOT ANTI-AMERICAN; "EVEN A JACKASS NEEDED A POST TO BE TIED TO" AND IN HIS CASE IT WAS THE U.S.
B) HIS HASTY DECISION ON 13 JULY MIGHT HAVE BEEN STUPID. INSTEAD OF ABANDONING CYPRUS AND LETTING U.S. WORRY ABOUT ITS FATE AND POUR MONEY DOWN ANOTHER RATHOLE, HE HAD ALLOWED LOVE OF COUNTRY, A MORAL OBLIGATION TO THE GREEK CYPRIOT NATIONALISTS AND HIS "PHILOTIMO" TO OVERRULE LOGIC AND TO ASSIST GREEK CYPRIOTS.
C) GREECE WOULD DO WHATEVER WAS NECESSARY TO PRESERVE ITS NATIONAL IDENTITY AND TO STAY ANTI-COMMUNIST. IF THIS MEANT KEEPING YIAROS OPEN IT WOULD STAY OPEN AS LONG AS IT WAS NECESSARY AND HE WOULD ACCEPT NO STATIC FROM ANYONE ON THIS SCORE. INDEED,HE HAD INSTRUCTED A GREEK OFFICIAL TO TELL BRITISH OFFICIALLY THAT WHENEVER THE BRITISH LET IRISH POLITICAL PRISONERS OUT OF BRITISH JAILS, HE WOULD FREE THE FORTY-TWO GREEK POLITICAL PRISONERS ON YIAROS.
D) HE PERSONALLY DIDN'T LIKE NIKOS SAMPSON, BUT THAT WAS GREEK CYPRIOT NATIONALIST DECISION. HE KNEW SAMPSON PERSONALLY AND IN HIS OPINION SAMPSON WAS "CRAZY." HE JOKINGLY REMARKED THAT NEW CYPRIOT MINISTER OF DEFENSE DIMITRIOU WAS VERY PRO-AMERICAN AND THAT OUR EMBASSY THERE WOULD SOON REALIZE THIS. HE ALSO KNEW DIMITRIOU PERSONALLY.
E) WHILE SHAKING HANDS AT CLOSE OF CONVERSATION IOANNIDES STATED "REMEMBER WE TOO BELIEVE IN A FREE, INDEPENDENT AND SOVEREIGN CYPRUS, WE TOO BELIEVE IN NON INTERFERENCE, ALONG WITH TURKS AND ESPECIALLY WITH KISSINGER. WE TOO BELIEVE THAT THE CYPRIOTS SHOULD BE FREE TO SOLVE THEIR OWN PROBLEMS, BE THEY GREEK CYPRIOTS, TURK CYPRIOTS OR BOTH."
The Angels of Cyprus, by Nikos Kazantzakis
'Remember that the British fought in Cyprus, and seemingly had everything in their favor. It is an island half the size of New Jersey. The Royal Navy, which can be trusted to do its job, sealed off the island from the outside. There were 40,000 British troops on Cyprus under Field Marshal Sir John Harding, and his opponent, Colonel George Grivas, had 300 Greeks in the EOKA. The ratio between regular troops and guerrillas was 110-to-1 in favor of the British! After five years the British preferred to come to terms with the rebels.' (Bernard B. Fall)
EOKA (Εθνική Οργάνωσις Κυπρίων Αγωνιστών, National Organisation of Cypriot Fighters), under the leadership of Giorgos Grivas-Digenis, began its struggle to liberate Cyprus from British colonial rule and unite the island with Greece with a series of bomb attacks targeting government installations on 1 April 1955. Cypriots had been agitating for liberation and union with Greece since the Greek Enlightenment and the campaign came to a head after the Second World War, with anachronistic colonial empires collapsing and subject peoples winning their right to self-determination. The British responded to Cypriots' peaceful agitation for enosis with repression and in July 1954, the British government declared that Cyprus was too important to Britain's strategic interests and would 'never' be allowed self-determination. It is in this context of British cynicism and duplicity that EOKA was formed and in which Nikos Kazantzakis wrote in Nea Estia on 25 September, 1955, the following attack on Britain's Cyprus policy.
The Angels of Cyprus (The fate and honour of an empire)
These very days, a great people are crossing the Bridge of Trika. [The site of a heroic battle in the Greek War of Independence]. It is not only Cyprus' fate that is being judged. It is not the fate of Cyprus alone that is at stake. For the just rock is sure to devour the unjust mountain. What is at stake, what is being judged at the present moment is the fate and honour of a whole empire! The nation that had risen with such national pride and moral exaltation, as one man, to save the honour of the world in those critical hours of the war, is now undergoing one of the fatal apocalyptic trials that will reveal whether its value is genuine or counterfeit.
And at a still deeper, broader level, the fate and honour of the entire Western world is being judged. Always until now, it has boasted that it was fighting for the justice and freedom of other nations. But now we will see whether that world is worthy of using these sacred words, whether the soul of any honourable man at the present time can have confidence in world leaders such as these…
In a major island, 400,000 spirits are raising a hue and cry, demanding their liberty. And the thrice-noble nation where liberty and light were born is raising a hue and cry along with them. From the four corners of the earth (and even from English throats) voices of anger and protest are exploding. By now it is no longer possible for violence and injustice to stifle a whole people in secret, without protest. Apparently, this world we thought had gone rotten, still has spirits that dare to rear their head against hypocrisy, injustice, arrogance.
It is a critical moment. The moral salvation of the whole world depends on the answer given to the Cyprus question. And on this moral salvation, the political, social, cultural salvation of the world has always depended. Cyprus is no longer a detail now, a mere island at the extreme tip of the Mediterranean. It is becoming the fate-marked centre, where the moral value of contemporary man is at stake.
How is the British Empire facing this tragic moment where its own value is on trial? Alas! With means unworthy of a great nation; with unmanly silence at first; and then with deceit, sycophantism, violence. Shame has hidden its face, far off from the disgraced quarters of the Foreign Office.
The genuine people, though, are not despairing. They know that in this dishonourable, inconsistent world, certain fundamental principles still live and reign, daughters of man, whom he has created with his own sweat, blood, tears. And these are the immortal ones. Most of them were born in Greece: freedom, human dignity, the thirst for justice.
Great mysterious forces are multiplying and bearing fruit even while they are being pursued. Hear the words of an age-old myth: An angel came down to earth, and the ruler of the world was enraged on seeing it. And he lunged at it with his sword and split it in two. And at once the angel became two. And again, the ruler of the world lunged at them and split these two angels in two. And the two angels became four, and the four eight, and the eight sixteen, and soon the earth was filled with angels.
Who was this angel? The angel of freedom? Cyprus will soon be full of angels. And the ruler of the world will be crushed, disgraced in Tartarus, his sword shattered.
There is some mystic law in this world (for if there were not, this world would have been destroyed thousands of years ago), a harsh, inviolable law: in the beginning, evil always triumphs, and in the end it is always vanquished. Apparently, for man to buy this privilege, much effort, much sweat, many tears are imperative. And freedom is the most expensive good that can be bought. It is never given for nothing, either by human beings or by the gods. It goes from land to land, where it is summoned, from heart to heart, unsleeping, unsubduable, uncompromising. At the moment we can watch it traversing the soil of Cyprus with steady momentum. And soon its limbs will be spattered with blood. For this is the way freedom always forges its path.
For us this is a good moment to forget our passions and petty cares; for each man of us with his own God-given gifts to follow the path of freedom throughout the land of Cyprus. And we must share her grief, her upsurge, her danger, insofar as we are capable, and surely later on (for this is the law, we said) her great joy as well.
I myself represent nothing. I am not anything. Only a clear conscience. But a clear conscience weighs more in the scale of God and time than an empire. And now that Cyprus has been saved from the waves and is crying out, all clear consciences – from all the quarters of the world; wherever they may be – can hear this cry and see the injustice and cast the stone (the curse) against the ruler of the world, the wrongdoer. The ruler laughs and acts in a cynical manner. He has the power on his side, soldiers, fleets, lethal birds of the air, vast wealth and traitors – and great hubris. He laughs and acts in a cynical manner, but one day (such has always been the omnipotence of man when wronged) – one day, Clear Conscience will hurl this stone at it and it will hang around the neck of the empire and sink it. The great empires have always sunk.
Several years I went back to Cyprus, enchanted by her Greek light and pleasant air. An old man emerged from a peasant home near Famagusta. We picked up a conversation. He was discussing (what else?) the union, and his eyes flashed. And suddenly a broad smile flooded his sunburned face. He put his hand over his heart, and he said, slowly as though confiding some great secret to me:
'The foundation stones of England are shaking! They are shaking, because the human heart has stirred.'
Yes, the human heart has stirred, O great Empire!
Seferis on Hellenism’s unfinished task; and more from The Free Besieged
'Greece lives, to the extent that she is able to give birth to great poets… I believe that if she has not managed to provide suitable soil for the tree that [once] burgeoned upon her land… in years to come she will be able not only to give birth, but also to suckle and to nurture the Poet, the Messiah, who will seize [back] from the hands of the barbarians the beauty, the gold-flaming torch, they have stolen from us.' (Giorgios Seferis)Giorgios Seferis, along with Ion Dragoumis, is the greatest theorist of Hellenism in the 20th century and above is the conclusion of a lecture Seferis gave in Paris in March 1921, when he was just 21, on the Franco-Greek poet Jean Moreas (Ioannis Papadiamantopoulos). There's a lot to consider here; but just a couple of points: Seferis' optimism is surely based on the new Greek civilisation he hoped would emerge following the liberation of Asia Minor, an enterprise that failed and left Greece at the mercy of all sorts of barbarians, where, nearly 100 years later, it still remains. ‘Seizing back from the hands of the barbarians the beauty, the gold-flaming torch, they have stolen from us’ is Hellenism’s unfinished task.
■ Also, in my post for 25 March on Yiannis Markopoulos' musical interpretation of Dionysios Solomos' The Free Besieged; I omitted to make available the most beautiful and moving song on the album: Στα μάτια και στο πρόσωπο/In their eyes and on their face, sung by Nikos Xylouris. I've now put the song in Radio Akritas, and below are the lyrics.
Στα μάτια και στο πρόσωπο
Στα μάτια και στο πρόσωπο φαίνοντ' οι στοχασμοί τους.
Τους λέει μεγάλα και πολλά η τρίσβαθη ψυχή τους,
Αγάπη κι έρωτας καλού τα σπλάχνα τους τινάζουν.
Τα σπλάχνα τους κι η θάλασσα ποτέ δεν ησυχάζουν.
Γλυκιά κι ελεύθερ' η ψυχή σα να 'τανε βγαλμένη
κι υψώναν με χαμόγελο την όψη τη φθαρμένη.
In their eyes and on their face
In their eyes and on their face their thoughts are showing;
A host of major things they learn from the depths of their souls.
Their guts are violently stirred by love and desire for good;
Their guts and the sea alone are never still;
Sweet and free the soul as if it had broken loose,
And they raised with a smile their exhausted visage.
Markopoulos/Solomos: ‘The Free Besieged’
I’ve made available before some songs from Yiannis Markopoulos’ musical interpretation of Dionysios Solomos’ poem The Free Besieged (Ελεύθεροι Πολιορκημένοι), which, as mentioned in my previous post, is about the siege and exodus from Messolonghi and, more broadly, the rebirth of Greece. Now, above, is the entire work, which is brilliant, Markopoulos’ masterpiece, as good as Theodorakis’ version of Elytis’ Axion Esti. Irene Papas narrates, while Nikos Xylouris, Lakis Halkias and Ilias Klonaridis sing. If you want to download the mp3 – and you should – just copy the youtube address of the video (http://youtu.be/qlOyuFgb0XA), then go to keepvid.com and follow the instructions to download an mp3.
Exodus: with swords to cut their path
And I see in the distance the children and the brave women
About the flame they have lit and have painfully fuelled
With well-loved articles and modest marriage-beds,
Not moving, not lamenting, not even shedding a tear;
And a spark touches their hair and their worn-clothes;
Come quickly, ashes, so they can fill their hands.
They are ready in the relentless flood of weapons
With swords to cut their path, and in freedom to stay,
On that side with the comrades, on this with death.
Like the sun that suddenly cuts through dense and sombre clouds,
It strikes the mountains on its slopes and there! houses in the verdure.
And from where the sun rises
To where it goes down,
I did not set eyes on a place more glorious than this small threshing-floor.
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