Fresh challenges
Saturday will be 60 years since the day in 1947 when – as civil war flared up on mainland Greece – the Greek flag was raised over the governor’s building on Rhodes, to the wild delight of the inhabitants. It marked the liberation of the Dodecanese Islands and their annexation to the Greek state. This was the greatest benefit to come from Greece’s decision to join hands with Britain and its allies before the breakout of the disastrous Second World War. From 1830, when the sultan was forced to accept the independence of the Greek state, until 1947 were 117 years during which national and political life was marked by military defeats and catastrophes, tens of thousands of deaths on the battlefields, occupations, civil strife and political changeovers. And yet the state never ceased to view the restoration of Greece as an ethnic and geographic unit. The Ionian Islands, Thessaly, Crete, Macedonia, Epirus, the Aegean Islands, Western Thrace and the Dodecanese joined the rest of Greece. By 1947, Greece already had enjoyed three years of independence within the framework set by the victors of WWII. The annexation of the Dodecanese did not end the process. The question of Northern Epirus remained, while on Cyprus the fight for independence raged. In the following years, developments helped Greece realize that growth and building a stronger country should be the next big idea. Current prosperity should not make us blind to reality on the ground. Social cohesion, after changes in the country’s population makeup, is still something to strive for. At the same time, the repeated attempts of outsiders to question our national sovereignty should keep us from forgetting the not-so-distant past, when Greece’s integrity was undermined by its neighbors – especially at a time of national weakness after the occupation. Changing borders in the Balkans could mean fresh danger for Greece.
