I was listening to him in amazement. The debate in the Parliament, for the 2022 budget, and on the podium was Panagiotis Kouroumblis, an experienced politician and many times a Minister. Twenty years in PASOK and ten years in SYRIZA. I did not believe in what I saw and heard. He had passed into another dimension. A creature of a different kind, furiously raging against the government. In a stentorian voice, passing generations of fourteen through the coalition and calling for the resignation of the Prime Minister. The hatred against the enemy was overflowing. ‘’It is your shame, disgrace! You are murderers! Apologize! ‘’ He shrieked and ostentatiously disdained the presiding officer, who asked him to recant. I make no secret of the fact that the scene shocked me. It was not a political debate. The way you saw him, in that state, you could tell he was ready for the anti-alien yurusi. It was hatred...

Unfortunately, he is not the only one who gives such examples in the Greek Parliament. And the fact is that all of them are on the left of SYRIZA or on the fringes of SYRIZA.

Be careful, I point out, I'm not saying that all Syriza leftists are in this situation. No. But they are a significant portion. And when this example is given in the Greek Parliament, then what can the ordinary people say?I think, maybe this is all a role. That is, a pre-planned communication show of self-promotion, or promotion of plans. There are many people who indulge in hypocrisy, doublespeak, opportunism and ineptitude in order to gain personal and political benefits. Maybe so, but maybe not. And that is what frightens me most. That is, that it is not a role, but a feeling: Hate!

In one of the last sessions of the Parliament, on the occasion of the discussion of a bill, a former minister of PASOK and now a leftist of SYRIZA, criticized the right-wing state and accused the Southwest of having partisanized the Armed Forces.

I was angry, because memory brought back the following little story:

Some years ago, on an island in the Aegean, there was an active mayor, partisan to the «democratic forces» of the social left. At the same time, the island had a very competent and efficient port director, beloved by both the islanders and his colleagues. The Mayor drank water in the name of the Harbour Master and did not seem to mind that he was politically opposed. After all, at no time, did the Harbormaster, involve politics in his duties.

Subsequently, the Mayor found himself in the central political arena and subsequently became a first-class Minister of PASOK, participating in the hard core of the exercise of power. The Harbour Master, moved to a major port, where after an extremely successful tenure, he was judged for his further career, in the Coast Guard. Judgments are clearly made by the Corps leadership, but the role of political leadership is both catalytic and institutional.

A common mind would assume that the Minister, the former Mayor, with the esteem he had for the Harbour Master, would advocate for his promotion, or at least for his remaining in the Corps, since he had all the formal and substantive qualifications for it.

Oh, no! The Minister gave the green light to the demotion of the Harbour Master, who had the ambition, the baby...because he was professional, efficient, well-liked, to still rise in the ranks, while he had the main qualification, he was not with the social left, but he had not filed credentials either. Therefore... he was on the other side, he was an enemy!

This PASOK minister was the SYRIZA deputy who accused the Southwest of the partisanship of the Armed Forces. The one who demobilized an excellent professional because he was not a socialist.

A few days ago, I read an interview with an extraordinary man of art who said the following amazing thing:

What I am also incorporates what a leftist is. What a leftist is does not include what I am. A leftist has no room in himself for someone who is not a leftist. Because according to the mind of a bigot, you are either a leftist or a fascist, there is no other.

I agree with the artist, but without generalizing, about all leftists. So this lack of space for someone who is not a leftist explains the Minister's behaviour towards the Port Authority, explains the left's rage for anything not leftist, explains the hatred of the Kouroumbles. It is they who possess the truth and they alone. The others are the ones across the way, the enemies.

It is the new division!

Our country, however, in this difficult period of pandemic, economic hardship and Turkish threats, cannot afford to be divided, which we have paid dearly as a nation in the past.

Therefore, all these people, as well as those who tolerate and foster divisive phenomena, should understand that history will judge them negatively and that, in the end, the people will not "give in" to the insidious proposal for the dividing lines that they propose.

And very soon it will put them in the dustbin of history.

And there they will stay!

By all means!

Nikolaos Manolakos

Lieutenant General (retired). - Honorary Commander ASDEN

Member of the Southwestern Democratic Party of Piraeus and Islands