"Landmark of division." The phrase that Kyriakos Mitsotakis used in his Epiphany message to describe Ai Stratis "hit" those who heard it. To some positively and to others negatively. Apparently, this was also the prime minister's intention.
Because it concerned the island where Kostas Varnalis, Dimitris Glinos, Manos Katrakis, Yiannis Ritsos, Menelaos Ludemis and thousands of others were exiled as communists. Many anonymous, but with no less contribution in the most important moments of the social and liberation struggles, pre-war and post-war.
In Ai Stratis, the country's regimes from 1920 to 1962 exiled those they considered "dangerous" to their sovereignty. Primarily the communists. Since this was the main accusation against those who were found in this place of martyrdom.
This island was used as a place of exile by Ioannis Metaxas. The dictator who, according to a statement by the current Foreign Minister Nikos Dendias on February 11, 2016 in the Parliament, "regardless of his historical course and ups and downs, is the one who said "NO" to Nazism".
The example of Metaxas was followed by both the occupying governments and the first post-war and post-civil governments. When the persecutions against the communists reached their peak. With the "state of the right" going along with the parastate and the "foreign agent".
The intention of Kyriakos Mitostakis not to upset his party and his political audience as a whole is completely understandable. Especially the extreme right wing of his party. This, the latter would be...unallowable when 3 of its main representatives, Adonis Georgiadis, Makis Voridis and Thanasis Pleuris hold key ministries in the government.
But nothing justifies such a cynical attempt to rewrite modern Greek history. In terms, in fact, of neoliberal revisionism. A trend that has generally been observed in recent years, represented by specific "think tanks" of the political space in question.
A prime ministerial message is known not to constitute a "relaxed report" and the words used in it are never random. So we are not talking about some phrasal whim of a speech writer in the Maximus Palace. Let's not forget, after all, that it was Kyriakos Mitsotakis who declared a few years ago that a 17-year-old was not interested in the murder of Lamrakis and what happened in 1963.
But perhaps we should not be surprised by what happened. A prime minister who tries to convince us that with 50,000 cases of Covid 19 a day "everything is fine" and we will simply have some "ripples", he obviously wants to shape the present as he wishes.
Will it stick in the past and in historical memory?
PS:Someone who claims to have been a "political exile" in Paris should not make such a "mistake". Isn't that so?
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