OPINION

Anniversaries and forgetfulness

Anniversaries and forgetfulness

At what point do we realize that the dangers which our country faces are so serious that we must deprive ourselves of the pleasures of our extreme domestic political rivalry in order to deal with them? This year is the centenary of the Asia Minor Catastrophe and, these days, the 48th anniversary of the Turkish invasion of Cyprus, two of the greatest disasters to befall Hellenism over the past 100 years. Between the two was a third – the Civil War that followed the end of the German occupation. And though we declare that we will not forget the tragic consequences of each catastrophe, and we damn those we blame, we are unable to accept that common to all is the fact that domestic division, the passion to destroy each other, prevented the correct reading of the situation and thus multiplied the dangers. Perhaps we do not want to feel that with our own behavior we, too, might face such a danger. However, even if we believe that such things don’t happen today, the war in Ukraine reminds us daily that sudden fluidity in international affairs can bring every nation to the point where it has to fight for survival.

Can anyone feel secure in today’s international climate, with insecurity in the energy and food markets, with high prices and inflation, with political and economic instability suddenly appearing in the European Union, with Turkey’s aggression? The climate crisis demands a national mobilization without precedent, as our lives are changing radically. And even as the international situation worsens, the country’s chronic problems remain unsolved. Despite some positive steps, the demographic problem, public and private debt, the insatiable bureaucracy, among others, hinder our ability to deal with outside threats.

And yet, instead of attempting a minimal national consensus as to what is going on, the public (and private) sphere is dominated by an unbelievable need for us to put each other down, to condemn, to eliminate the other. As if the only prize worth having is our opponents’ humiliation, through our need to show that they are less patriotic than us, more corrupt, that they have bad friends, that they care less for the “people.” This hatred, which has been cultivated for years as an instrument of political manipulation, feeds off itself continuously. Seeing only the domestic enemy, it is blind to everything else.

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