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Post by Wayne Hall on May 6, 2020 0:44:00 GMT -5
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Post by nikosvako on May 6, 2020 16:57:34 GMT -5
This is the link to my comment on what has been said about Capodistrias. m.facebook.com/groups/232724233731031?view=permalink&id=1163480943988684
Essentially Bogdanos is critical of the term "dictator" attributed to Capodistrias by the committee for the 200th anniversary of the 1821 revolution.
He did not question whether or not he was this, but rather whether it was a good idea to use such terms in view of the bicentenary, whose purpose is to promote unity and encourage it at the level of formulations.
Capodistrias indeed thought that the ground was not ready at that time for a Constitution. There was chaos after the Revolution, which he believed could not be dealt with through a democratic polity. It is for this reason that he is seen not as a modernizer but as a dictator.
Finally, is formulation of the historical truth divisive? Is it or is it not an indispensable prerequisite for enabling the past to teach us something? Is it or is it not a factor for real and lasting unity? If we believe that the truth is divisive, in what other way can we confront our bad points, which perennially lead us into impasses which foreign factors or local authoritarian saviors then hasten to solve for us? Should we not remember, now as much as ever, that we united together for freedom, as we should do now also, but when we achieved it what prevailed was chaos which justified a dictatorship? Albeit modernizing? Is it or is it note in the power of citizens to decide whether they will be divided and will await their guardian or whether they will together forge their future? Just as together they plan any struggle to claim a better future?
Will the repeated difficulties that we face now again unite us, ineluctably? Or will we accept that division is inevitable after a potential victory against our oppressors? Will we content ourselves with the self-flattery of the glorious achievements of our ancestors, "united" in our narcissism, beautifying every dark element? What is the point of being united against what is difficult if we cannot manage what is easier, after every victory.
Let us bear in mind what this has led us to so many times in the past. Let us not seek again to discover who is more to blame or who is vindicated more. Let us not keep waiting until there can be no question of unity being possible. Let us come together once and for all to preclude our division from being grist to the mill for insatiable players inside and outside the walls. And above all let us not expect saviors. Let this anniversary, and any other anniversary, not be yet another festival with evzones and little flags, as someone once put it.
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