Today’s article and the next one are excerpts from Professor Giorgos Dertilis’ book, “Seven Wars, Four Civil Wars, Seven Bankruptcies, 1821-2016,” on national self-knowledge:

Events from a two-century history, traumatic experiences we pushed deep inside us, forgotten bankruptcies stamped by ignorance and demagoguery, crises that enslaved us to deprivation, delusions and lies, wars that claimed countless lives, fratricidal civil wars that we repressed?

Events we consigned to oblivion to escape horror and guilt, when the only catharsis would have been memory and awareness. Let us open our eyes and our soul to History, which banishes oblivion and brings truth.

From 1821 to today, Greece has been involved in four civil wars and seven external wars. Over these two centuries, the Greek state “went bankrupt” seven times, sank into corresponding crises, and lived for almost its entire life under international financial control. Such repeated experiences can deeply mark the psyche and mentality of an entire society. To understand this, a simple thought is enough. In the history of modern Greece, there have never been Greek men or women who did not, at least once in their lives, experience the horror, or at least the threat and fear, of war, and there have never been Greek men or women who did not feel the profound insecurity of economic crises.

After the Asia Minor Catastrophe, the six responsible men were brought to trial before an emergency court, which sentenced them to execution. That too was a mistake. Serious newspapers around the world described the court’s decision as legally flimsy, vindictive, and blatantly unjust, while the sentence itself was called barbaric.

A civil war, a war of total extermination of our fellow human beings, presupposes mutual abhorrence and feeds boundless hatred. Abhorrence turns our fellow human being into a lifeless and repulsive object, and hatred demands their destruction.

These dominate the minds of the fighters in a civil war to such an extent that they eventually become a way of life and a mentality. And because a civil war tears the entire country in two, countryside, cities and neighborhoods, families and friendships, it becomes a hereditary pandemic. Whoever experienced hatred passes it on to their descendants. Time forges this mentality and, from generation to generation, transforms it into culture.

Civil-war demagoguery leads to dictatorship wrapped in the tatters of pseudo-parliamentarianism. A harsh word, but not an unfair one. Are the nonsense and lies of the “representatives of the People” who parade across the screens really insignificant? Are the fake duels and mutual accusations, the torn memoranda, the elastic consciences, and the nonexistent or false “declarations of assets” accidental?

And let us not forget Turkey’s expansionist ambitions, because after the collapse of the Soviet empire and the emancipation of the Balkan countries, the “Eastern Question” of our time concerns primarily the geopolitical and geo-economic space defined by energy sources and the channels through which they are supplied.

Also, let us not forget that war is less a matter of weapons than of financial means. So let us secure those first, and let us not be carried away too soon by the words of allies. For I fear our own mistakes more than the designs of our enemies (Thucydides).

In conclusion: if Greek citizens knew the errors that led to the first six bankruptcies in our history, we would have avoided the seventh. If Greek politicians knew the errors that led to the civil wars in our history, they would have renounced their civil-war demagoguery.

If we can learn anything from History, perhaps we may avoid some of the mistakes of the past in the future. Knowledge of History leads to self-knowledge and awareness. From there to action, the road of Democracy is open. It depends on us citizens whether we will finally emerge from the vortex of mistakes, whether we will halt the forces that drive it (to be continued).

Pavlos Marantos

marantosp@gmail.com