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Memorial speech

General Grivas:

A devoted soldier to the idea of ​​national greatness

 Glorious General, you left us on January 27, 1974 without your dream having been fulfilled.

A dream that Greece wanted then and still wants today, as those Greeks dream of a radiant greatness and a prosperous, strong and respected homeland. A homeland of calculable geopolitical influence, imposing economic strength, terrifying military power, recognized cultural significance and an undeniable historical imprint with a primary role and permanent political presence in the world community. All these invaluable ideas about a recognized glorious homeland have since been adopted, with sincerity and passion, by the descendants of General Grivas, the Greeks. These Greeks, imbued with the immortal spirit, who consider the accomplished work of the worthy son of the homeland to constitute a national legacy of virtues and, that true Greeks insist, that Hellenism must not be extinguished. It must not be destroyed, it must not be annihilated. Not only in our days but also in the centuries to come.

This legacy is heavy. It requires faith in the works of those people who raised the banners of freedom. It requires mental, moral and national strength to undertake the sacred duty of supporting the idea of ​​the homeland. Our homeland today, more than ever, needs models of Greekness. It needs Digenis.

You, General Griva-Digenis, followed all these values ​​and virtues to the letter. When, in the early years of your apprenticeship, you were taught the sacredness and supreme importance of the concept of homeland, then the foundation of your national consciousness was laid. This mental preparation also constituted the normative compass in the course of your life.

The typical flow of the nature of a human character is that which perceives the service of the supreme idea of ​​the homeland as the determination of a symmetrical and appropriate purpose. It also means its adaptation to that environment, which it considers to be conducive to the Greek spirit, the national consciousness, the patriotic ethos, the Greek soul. One such environment, among others, is the School of Hope. It is a noble institution of national importance. You believed in the superiority of this institution. And you chose it. And you became a servant and a partaker of Greek moral certainties.

General Grivas, today's people - as is often confirmed - have abandoned all interest in matters related to the principles and ways of penetrating the mind into the depths of national issues. Their everyday life takes precedence. And they are the majority. Despite this, there are also Greeks who believe in those national certainties, as they did back in your time.

You, General, in the eyes of these Greeks, are blessed. You are the bearer, you are the cultivator and the exponent of superior ideas. You are a functionary, a national servant without thoughts of self-interest, that degenerate characteristic of today's era that distinguishes those who are prominent and move with a personal pursuit of the form of follow the money.

You are the teacher of those who have eliminated matter from their concerns and have focused their consciousness on a loving embrace of all the values ​​that adorn virtuous personalities.

You, General, teach us what national orientation means, what duty, what continuation of Greek glory. You clarify for us what exactly structural rebirth is, where we must translate it in today's terms as a fundamental reconstruction of a disintegrating homeland. And we say that you are the teacher, because through your example you have made us understand what it means to successfully carry out all your effective missions, whether as a fighter in war, or as a national resistance fighter, or as a revolutionary in favor of the sacred goal of liberation from the suffering of a lateral slavery imposed by other ostensibly civilized countries.

There is nothing more that surpasses you and makes you jealous of the heroes of 1821, of the heroes of 1940, because you too are treated equally in the dance of heroes. You are among them. You are in the Pantheon of the worthy children of the Fatherland. And let this bitter thing be clarified. We will not encounter the Pantheon of the worthy Greeks tangible with physical dimensions, as it exists in many other countries. That is, where those other homelands honor their heroes with representations, with ossuaries, with mnemonic traces and timeless symbols, expressing their national gratitude. However, despite our institutional moral poverty, this Pantheon in the form of a moral imprint of a transcendent order is established within every unhypocritical, every intact Greek soul.

General Grivas, history has classified you in the category of eminent Greeks. And we all know that history teaches. And we, ordinary citizens, have registered you in our conscience as the tried, the pioneer, the respected and the teaching ancestor. And perhaps some young Greek will ask us what is special that defines such an ancestor as an honored and respected teacher.

What does a distinguished teacher teach? But the teacher is a bearer of moral ideas. And the practical result is that people retain the example, not the theory. And you, teacher Digenis, were a bearer of virtue, honesty, integrity, decency, conscientiousness, correctness and kindness towards your colleagues. We recognize your honesty in speech and responsibility towards the truth. You did not preach morality⸱ you embodied morality, personified it, conveyed it, materialized it. You were our national educator with a historical conscience with a linguistic identity of the Greeks, with a sense of the need for national continuity and responsibility towards it. We, your students, learned that the homeland is not a political slogan that is thrown from pre-election balconies. It is a duty to cultivate conscience and self-criticism. You, teacher, among other things, were also a behavioral advisor to the well-intentioned incarnaters of national thought and, moreover, you served as an enlightener on international and local issues. Those Greeks who have the ability to see things through their critical thinking understand this. And those who are able to think can and do distinguish information from propaganda. That is, they think by preventing their fall into the type of follower and plaything in the deceitful hands of the swindlers.

Our teacher, General, knowledge never ends. And you, with your action and your example, have made us understand that everything related to the course of the homeland must be perceived as an existential question. The continuation of the existence of the homeland is a question that needs to concern all of us without exception. Cypriots and Greeks. We all, through the teachings of our ancestors, must understand the magnitude of our responsibility towards the homeland. And when in our lives we encounter the remarkable teacher, we must not perceive him as a simple institutional node that connects state, family and individual. This relationship must not be formal. It is a relationship of absolute moral bond with the carrier of national ideology, with the dominant values, with the national narratives, with the actions in favor of the homeland. This is how success and the expected course in history are defined.

A few days ago I watched a delayed broadcast from a regional television channel of the church of Patras. It was an event at the War Museum of Athens on the theme of the 50 years of Turkish occupation of Cyprus. Among others, a choir of teenagers presented three songs that were successfully translated into music. Some of the lyrics of these songs are impressive. That is, in one song the refrain was heard "all together we wait for freedom to come..." and in another song "...we wait day and night for a wind to blow...". I observed widespread emotion in the audience. Tearful faces. Silent, unconfessed pain. An expression that testified to the anticipation of an angel from heaven with divine orders to bring freedom to the island.

But truth is not sought in heaven. The heavenly is a pious approach of faith that saves the pious. But here we are dealing with the apotheosis of the Thucydides-like justice of the strong by wicked people. The solution lies in physics, not metaphysics. You write in your memoirs, General Grivas, “…shooting your enemies in the street may have been unprecedented, but I sought results that were not previously achieved. How did Napoleon win his victories? He struck his enemies in the flanks or in the rear. And what is right on a large scale is not wrong when the scale is limited and the odds against you are a hundred to one.”

These were the conditions at the time. Today's people must make deductions based on national power. We understand this with dissatisfaction in the real dimensions of our issue. We face reality in the face of a dogmatic and unrepentant stance of the powerful whose will is synonymous with revisionism, assertiveness and hegemony. Today, the data dictate other approaches. Victory does not result only from military superiority, but from a synthesis of political will, strategic correctness, social cohesion and international context.

You, General Grivas, knew very well what Geostrategy and Geopolitics were, responding to what the manifestations of geostrategy and geopolitics could be in terms of exploiting successes. You knew with your action the strengthening of the international prestige and the legitimization of your struggle. You understood the increase in your negotiating power in international organizations. You imposed your own national agenda. You consolidated the strategic control of the areas of our national interest. You prevented opponents from acting effectively through a demonstration of your own power. You presented your successes as a model of doctrine or tactics. You cultivated national cohesion and legitimized it internally. You achieved international visibility with a glorifying narrative of power and success. You managed to influence public opinion in third countries that viewed the Cyprus issue from the perspective of protecting human life and dignity. You even secured the achievements through international law.

We all understand that the geostrategic and geopolitical exploitation of successes aims to transform a success into a lasting power advantage, not only immediate but also long-term, on multiple levels (military, political, economic, institutional).

But General, you didn't know anything about politics. Just like not all soldiers know anything. And this is because soldiers are taught in the army what responsibility means, what duty means, what honor means, what consistency means. Therefore, soldiers are not in this job.

The politician has other characteristics. A good politician combines ethics, knowledge, efficiency and humanitarian sensitivity, so that power functions as a service to the citizen and not as an end in itself. He must function for the benefit of his country and not in favor of the idea of ​​the next elections. I wonder what we can say about Kapodistrias, this model politician.

But let's return to the event I mentioned earlier. The end of the commemoration of the black anniversary was closed by the Archbishop of Cyprus, His Eminence George. He referred to the Cyprus issue, as it now has in its real dimension. Beyond any theory. He gave the public the image of the geopolitically unsatisfied Turk, who is even planning to occupy the entire island. With this pragmatic position of his, he poses the question in every direction and mainly towards the self-declared "motherland" but being irresponsible, narcissistic and indefinite as for example when he says "...Cyprus decides and Greece consents". If this is not an avoidance of national responsibility then what is? From Plato to Max Weber, politics is considered a space of heavy responsibility, where power without accountability leads to decline.

You, General Grivas, from where you are, see us and weep. Freedom is recorded as a gift of history. It was a heavy price. It was bloody. There were sacrifices through long and unrequited struggles. Within this struggle, there were souls who did not calculate any cost. They stood up. They chose honor instead of submission. From the blood-soaked land, freedom sprouted. It was solidified with the fierce memory and sealed with national dignity. And it was handed over to future generations as a sacred legacy. Here in this hallowed environment, we meet you today, General Grivas. And we today wonder if this is a good opportunity to renew an oath that promises the acquisition or preservation of national integrity? Freedom?

You then managed to achieve a geopolitical result when you changed the status of British-occupied Cyprus. When the British admitted that it was now time to take the Greek world of this island seriously into consideration. It was then that Archbishop Makarios congratulated you, General, saying: "EOKA has contributed infinitely more to the Cyprus struggle than 75 years of paper warfare have offered. The name of Digenis is an enigma to the British. But he is also a legend. He has passed into the pages of the history of the liberation struggle."

Today, 52 years later, we reflect on whether we have the same paper war that Makarios mentioned to us.

Does it need to be glossed over with some promising endeavor?

Until then, we, who are grateful to the fighter Grivas Digenis, must uphold a moral obligation that is a translation of the saying: "Remember, honor, respect."