The Moral Conviction of the Greeks as a Factor of National Strength

Speech delivered by
Sarantos Kargakos
at the Greek Inependence Day Celebration March 27, 1999

(Summary Translated from the Greek)

Certain great minds can often formulate ideas of such universal relevance that they constitute unshakable life principles and are considered historical precepts.

In the essence of such wisdom, one may include the epigrammatic saying of our national historian Constantinos Paparigopoulos: "Human affairs are ruled by moral and not material forces."

For Hellenism, the moral conviction has been a factor of strength and national survival for over three millennia. By moral conviction, I mean the total devotion of the Hellene to a higher ethical and spiritual value, to the idea of nation, and to the Greek national ideals that are freedom, democracy, and, especially for us, the sense of self-honor (philotimo). It makes us proud of what we are, but also propels us to reach higher and become equal to or better than our ancestors. Because ancestors are worthy not when we just study them, but when we surpass them.

History, at least in our own national course, has always been eclectic. It abhors the material and embraces the moral dimension. The majesty of the Hellenes has never been arithmetic. Any time we clashed in the battlefields the outcome was decided not by the quantitative, but by the qualitative superiority.

"The men rescue the city, and not the walls and the ships which have no valiant men," wrote Thucyclides. Greece was not saved by the numbers, but through quality. Palamas taught it poetically:

The greatness of nations
is not measured by the acre
it is by the heart's fire
that it is measured, and by blood

It happens sometimes for the morally superior to be crushed by the material superiority of the adversary. This is no defeat, however. It is a victory and a moral one at that. Because those who sacrifice themselves for an ideal, perish as material beings, but salvage man's dignity.

Such dead people are more alive than the living. This is why the Turks should not count us as living dead. It is the dead they should fear. In a potential clash, we would not be alone. The Thermopylae warriors, the heroes of Alamana and of Arcadia, Gregory Afxentiou, and the more recent heroes Isaac and Solomos will awaken one more time in our souls.

What precisely is the moral conviction for Hellenism was expressed with the terseness of a Spartan mother, by Gregory Afxentiou's own mother: "Better my child be burned than surrender." This high morale supported Hellenism through a constant cataclysm. The great American


Hemingway stated: "Man is never defeated - he dies." Our own great, Makrygiannis, says the same: "God always wanted us Greeks to be few. Although the beasts feed on us, there is always leftover yeast. And when the few decide 'to die for the homeland, 'they lose seldom and win a lot."

The national morale of the Hellene is not racism or nationalism. It is humanism. For the Greeks were never just for themselves. They were there always for everyone. They may have been betrayed by friends and allies, but they never betrayed them. The Greeks always had a certainty about their values, and that is why they believed and still believe in them. And a nation that believes in its values, believes in itself and its future.

Many say that the Greeks live on the dividends of their ancestors. This is not quite right. If Greece has a glorious past, it can also have a glorious future. The past is not a resting place. It is a springboard.

Greeks and Philhellenes from all over the world gather these days to honor the anniversary of the great struggle not so we can glorify but rather awaken ourselves and to strengthen our national morale, that at this time appears to be ailing, which is why Greece retreats when faced with the insolent Turkish threats. We gather, in the words of Palamas, to "intoxicate ourselves with the immortal wine of '21."

'21 did not start on the 25th of March 1821; it started in 1453 with the answer given by Constantinos Paleologos to Mohammed: "To surrender the city is not within my authority, nor the authority of any of its citizens. By public consent, we have all decided to perish willingly in it without any pity for our lives."

The Greeks survived because of their high morale, even during the years of servitude. And if our people became slaves, there were always the kleftes: the yeast for freedom as Makrygiannis calls them.

There were the fortresses of freedom: Souli and Mani, which remained unconquered. The moral conviction of Greeks is not a vain expression of national egoism, but a defiant stance against death. To live is to know how to die, and one knows how to die only if one understands why we struggle. The reason for the struggle is defined with clarity by Constantinos Paleologos, who, talking in Aghia Sofia a few hours before his sacrifice said: "Please be brave. You know very well my brothers that it is for four things that we have an obligation to die together rather than live. First for our faith and piety, second for the country, third for the King who serves Christ, and fourth for our relatives and friends."

Fight, in the words of the poet, for hearth and altar in Salamina; for faith and country at the ramparts of the royal city; for faith and country and 1821. That's why we survive; that's why we will continue to survive and safeguard our Greek character. Foreigners, Europeans, and Americans want us as Greeks, not denying our Greekness. As Solomos says in our national anthem, only when the slaves took up arms for freedom "the land of Washington rejoiced."

America, which has freedom as its emblem, wants us to be free and not neo-slaves to any interest in order to continue to earn its respect. Let the banner of honor raised by the fighters of '21 be our guide again today.