A political challenge
In giving her truly remarkable testimony at the trial of the November 17 suspects, Dora Bakoyianni effectively launched the first political challenge to the terror group and against terrorism in general – a challenge which political parties, especially those of the Left, have so far avoided making. So, it happened to be Bakoyianni – mayor of Athens and an opposition New Democracy deputy whose husband was murdered by N17 – who was the first to vindicate the «defensive Left» – that particular Left which, with its good and its bad sides, constitutes a significant part of our history and an essential factor in our political life. The «Left» of small gangs was something unknown before the appearance of the murderous N17. It is a creation of a paranoid fantasy and a distortion of the Left. It never existed as a political reality and basically was fed by the hubris of those «whose lives were marked by struggles which they undertook in order to defend their left-wing ideas.» Bakoyianni revealed the totalitarian nature of N17 and the naive primitivism of the much-vaunted proclamations which she characterized as «politically illiterate documents oscillating between the far Left and National Socialism» – documents which no one would have noticed if they had not been duly followed by murders. The only reason behind the murders – atrocious though it may be – was the dissemination of «the ideas» formed in the sick minds of a few fanatical, self-proclaimed saviors.
