This morning, at around 9 a.m. local time, an elderly man shot himself through the head in despair publicly. This happened in Syntagma (Constitution) Square, in front of the Greek Parliament. Reportedly he said he did not want to pass debts on to his children.
Yesterday, another elderly Greek man reminded us of the German war reparations issue. The man is Manolis Glezos, who, as a young man, together with Lakis Santas, carried out the feat of lowering the swastika from the Acropolis and replacing it with the Greek flag. This was probably the first act of resistance and spurred a prostrate people into action when they saw their own flag on their own monument once again.
Manolis Glezos has been active on the war reparations committee for many years. He reminded us that during the war the Germans forcibly extracted a loan from occupied Greece, which they have never paid back, that they never paid reparations to Greece for the destruction of infrastructure and they never returned the antiquities they stole either.
Today is the 70th anniversary of Germany’s attack on Greece and he made a public request that we should all make this known however we can to whomever we can.
When what calls itself the Greek Parliament decided to vote in favour of the despicable loan treaty that gives just about every right Greece has away, Manolis Glezos, the hero of the resistance and still fighting for the rights of this country and Mikis Theodorakis* a man famous not only for his talent but also for his endless fight for his people, a man who has paid for his fight in years of imprisonment and bad health, were both gassed by the riot police outside the Parliament building.
* A small but important sample, as relevant today as when it was originally written.
