When history undergoes surgery at the hands of state power, the first thing to be mutilated is memory. And in Greece, memory is not merely flawed; it is selective, for sale, and, most recently, available for rent. That tradition, which once fed on the blood of firing squads and the icy dignity of barren islands, has today managed to transform itself into something infinitely more degrading. Into a well-oiled bureaucratic routine, a market for temporary employees, and a pragmatic politics of the office chair.
The need to return to authentic historical accounts is not merely a philological or editorial necessity. It is an indictment. A merciless, public exposure of today’s political wretchedness, which, with excessive audacity, calls itself the «progressive camp.» It is a mirror that, if the current occupants of party offices were to look into it, would make them want to flee the country out of shame—if, of course, they possessed even a shred of it.
Let’s set the record straight, because reality brooks no sentimental embellishments, hagiographies, or partisan flattery. The people who built this space over the past centuries—the old-timers, the authentic fighters for social justice, who faced persecution and exile—were not professional politicians. They hadn’t graduated from elite universities, nor had they taken courses in political spin or political marketing. They were, in the truest sense of the word, lovers of an idea.
And as is well known—or at least as is well known to those who have opened a book other than the taxpayer’s handbook—the amateur (from the eros and art) acts solely out of love, out of passion, out of an inner, irresistible need. In contrast, the professional acts out of self-interest, based on the cost-benefit analysis of their career.
Those people, then, had no contracts with history. They didn’t have guaranteed spots on the national party slates; they didn’t expect to cash in the tokens of their social struggles on the stock market of government offices. They threw themselves into the fray knowing that their most likely «reward,» their only certain “reward,” would be a bullet at dawn, torture at the Security Police, or, at best, a few decades of a slow death on the barren islands.
This austere, Doric demeanor of the martyrs of the past highlights something that today seems utterly exotic, almost metaphysical to the modern, modernized modern Greek: the sense that politics is a matter of deep, existential conviction rather than a professional career. That tradition was not born to occupy the seats of power and manage the existing misery under slightly better, more «humanitarian» terms. It was born out of a universal questioning of reality—by people who decided to challenge their fate, with no guarantee of success.
And so we come to the present day. To the era of so-called «leftist melancholy,» which, of course, in its authentic Greek form isn’t even melancholy; it is a cheap, provincial bewilderment, mixed with a generous dose of shamelessness. We are watching the troupe of contemporary political parties and their surrounding offshoots engage in a ceaseless, public political striptease.
Party officials, members of parliament, and party appointees move from one political camp to another with the ease of a visit to a brothel, without any moral scruples. The pretext, of course, is always «deep ideological disagreement,» «a split over matters of principle,» or «the protection of one’s identity.».
The reality behind the grandiose proclamations is far more mundane and sordid. It’s the frantic, desperate search for a new political home that will secure the next congressional stipend, the next little office in some ministry, the next seat of power.
The problem, obviously, is not disagreement. Disagreements and conflicts are the lifeblood of democracy and, historically, the very nature of this space, which has always been fueled by internal divisions. The problem begins when political disagreement becomes the vehicle, the starting point of a purely personal path toward the next seizure of power. When clinging to office is presented with the audacity of «political necessity,» when in reality it constitutes the complete and unambiguous rejection and betrayal of an entire historical legacy.
Political activism, then, bowed deeply before the political career. Collective action—the «we» of the working classes and the oppressed—was replaced by political window dressing, the manipulation of public opinion or distortion of facts, and the strategic management of the media. The vision for a different society was reduced to the dreary management of parliamentary dynamics, and the struggle against institutionalized injustice was replaced by the «management of everyday life.».
In short, today’s institutional Left does not want to, cannot, and does not even consider changing the world; it simply wants to govern it. It wants to implement the exact same bourgeois, capitalist system as its right-wing opponents, but with a dose of «social sensitivity»— the greatest, most outdated political fraud of the post-dictatorship era.
The defeat did not come from outside. It did not come from the enemy’s tanks. It came from within, in the most humiliating way possible.
This movement was not defeated on the battlefield. There, I repeat, it was glorified and gained the moral high ground that sustained it for decades. It was definitively defeated when it entered the halls of government and discovered the sweetness of public funds and power. It was defeated when the «revolutionaries» of the amphitheaters turned into suit-and-tie managers of misery, trapped by the need to preserve their place in the world as it is at all costs, rather than doing everything in their power to overturn it.
The flow of events throws a merciless, terrifying yardstick right in our faces. It forces us, whether we like it or not, to look at the chaotic, dizzying gulf between politics as a historical, existential experience and politics as an anonymous limited liability company.
The old fighters marched on without knowing if they would ever be vindicated. Many of them died in exile, forgotten by gods and men, watching their dreams shatter. And yet they carried on. Not because they believed victory was assured, but because they were deeply aware that there are moments in history when inaction, compromise, and passive acceptance of evil constitute a far greater failure and moral catastrophe than defeat itself.
If politics cannot once again become a matter of values, if we cannot rediscover the lost meaning of sacrifice, of true collectivity, and of uncompromising solidarity with those «at the bottom» —those who have no voice, the marginalized, the working poor—and not with the hangers-on and sycophants in party offices, then let’s shut the place down. Let’s pull down the shutters and stop humiliating ourselves.
History, gentlemen of the insular party circles and television talk shows, is written by those who refuse to give up even when all seems lost. You, unfortunately for this country and for the tradition you claim to uphold, surrendered before the first shot was even fired, in exchange for a spot in the spotlight, a photo in society magazines, and a government car. What a shame about the blood that was shed, what a shame about the lives that were sacrificed, so that you can don the mantle of the “progressive administrator” today and peddle the history of our forefathers as your own political capital.
What we are witnessing unfold within SYRIZA – Progressive Alliance is no longer a political confrontation, but a tasteless postmodern reality show, where dignity is sold off live on air. Today’s gladiators in the party corridors, trapped in the microcosm of their personal ambitions and media hysteria, continue, with unprecedented callousness, to rub salt into the wounds of ordinary people—those thousands of nameless individuals who sincerely believed in the project of a great, governing Left, who bled emotionally, who exposed themselves in their neighborhoods and workplaces, carrying on their backs the hopes of an entire society. This grassroots base, which gave everything without ever asking for seats of power or government posts, now sees its historic investment transformed into a dismal arena for settling scores and liquidating ideas, confirming that the greatest defeat of an idea never comes from its sworn enemies, but from its petty, insignificant stewards.
