By Pantelis Boukalas

We are the inventors of words. We thus alter or murder their meaning particularly those among us who are politicians, who use language as a means for concealing facts or misleading people.

The word “hub” has become the politicians’ latest casualty. The word has, of course, been quite popular in political and educational discourse. From an early age, we are taught that our country, Greece, has been a hub between East and West, north and south, past and present.

And then came the premier’s thank-you note to his outgoing merchant marine minister, who quit Friday following corruption allegations. We were thereby informed that Greece was not a hub (geographical, economic or spiritual) at the time of Athenian democracy, Alexander the Great or Byzantium but that in fact it became so during the tenure of Giorgos Voulgarakis. Thanks to the privatization of the country’s ports, Karamanlis said, according to the government spokesman, Greece became “a significant hub between East and West.”

Well done then. But then why is the minister under fire? How can we oust a politician who finally read the country’s destiny before playing it to the full?

They must be words of comfort or, simply, pure injustice. In fact, the latter is the case. Voulgarakis was treated unfairly, for apart from reviving philosophy with his ideas on legality and ethics, the politician who has also served at the ministries of Culture and Public Order has left a notable legacy: How could one forget the espionage case, the Pakistani abductions, the devastating fire at Olympia? And before all that, Voulgarakis joined with ONED youth party members in their vulgar verbal assault against PASOK’s president. The ND minister should have been fired back then but none in the government seemed to really mean what they said about heralding in a new era of “political civilization.”

Of course, then Greece would never have become a hub.