Why such a fury around people with a glorious history ?
The philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche gives a unique answer ..
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We are tourists who stayed in Athens
[for two weeks
and unfortunately we felt like barbaric freaks...
What justifies the word "freaks" most,is that we ignore the human cost
while we mock and ridicule the Greeks...
Unemployed and soup kitchens,
[these past two weeks,
was the permanent spectacle, anyone
[who dare speaks
would first need to have visited this
[place before.
Easily we forgot that we took by force
[their money and even more,
we took their ancient treasures and [many thousands of souls...
Our civilization which, the great thinker
[Nietzsche extols,
should indicate to the authors of "Focus"
[to read
the grounds where the philosopher explains
[why the Greeks bleed ...
Maybe we have destroyed this land ...
History, our right to deride banned...
History, our right to deride banned...
Maybe we are the reason that today
[the Greeks have bled?
Τhink a little and ask other to think
[about what I have said.Τhink a little and ask other to think
ps. Ludwig Zacaro and Nina Lahge
did a proud movement, as life large...
German couple pay Greece £630 'war reparations'
A German couple visiting Greece walked into a town hall and handed over €875 (£630) in what they said were second world war reparations.
Dimitris Kotsouros, the mayor of Nafplio, a seaport in the Peloponnese, said: “They came to my office yesterday morning, saying they wanted to make up for their government’s attitude.
They made their calculations and said each German owed €875 for what Greece had to pay during world war two.”
The mayor of the historic town where the tourists deposited their cheque said the money had since been donated to a local charity. The couple chose his town “because it was the first capital of Greece in the 19th century”, he added.
Greek media reports named the pair as Ludwig Zacaro and Nina Lahge. They say Zacaro is retired and Lahge works a 30-hour week. They did not have enough money to pay for two, one paper said.
Athens is struggling under a debt mountain that amounts to about 175% of the country’s annual economic output. The country has long claimed that Germany owes it payment for a forced wartime loan and other reparations, and the prime minister, Alexis Tsipras, recently said Greece had a “moral obligation” to claim payment.
Several senior Social Democrats (SPD) and Greens in Germany have also said their nation should consider paying reparations. But Germany’s economy minister last week rejected the calls. “The likelihood is zero,” said Sigmar Gabriel.
Nearly 70 years have passed since the end of the war during which the Nazis occupied Greece for four years and forced the Greek central bank to give the Third Reich a loan that financially ruined the country.
The dispute has grown in intensity because of tensions between Athens and the rest of the eurozone as Germany leads demands for economic austerity that Greece and other southern European countries are struggling to handle.
Figures from some sources in Athens put the amount still owed by Germany at around €162bn (£117bn), or more than half the level of debt that Greece is struggling with.
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A German couple visiting Greece walked into a town hall and handed over €875 (£630) in what they said were second world war reparations.
Dimitris Kotsouros, the mayor of Nafplio, a seaport in the Peloponnese, said: “They came to my office yesterday morning, saying they wanted to make up for their government’s attitude.
They made their calculations and said each German owed €875 for what Greece had to pay during world war two.”
The mayor of the historic town where the tourists deposited their cheque said the money had since been donated to a local charity. The couple chose his town “because it was the first capital of Greece in the 19th century”, he added.
Greek media reports named the pair as Ludwig Zacaro and Nina Lahge. They say Zacaro is retired and Lahge works a 30-hour week. They did not have enough money to pay for two, one paper said.
Athens is struggling under a debt mountain that amounts to about 175% of the country’s annual economic output. The country has long claimed that Germany owes it payment for a forced wartime loan and other reparations, and the prime minister, Alexis Tsipras, recently said Greece had a “moral obligation” to claim payment.
Several senior Social Democrats (SPD) and Greens in Germany have also said their nation should consider paying reparations. But Germany’s economy minister last week rejected the calls. “The likelihood is zero,” said Sigmar Gabriel.
Nearly 70 years have passed since the end of the war during which the Nazis occupied Greece for four years and forced the Greek central bank to give the Third Reich a loan that financially ruined the country.
The dispute has grown in intensity because of tensions between Athens and the rest of the eurozone as Germany leads demands for economic austerity that Greece and other southern European countries are struggling to handle.
Figures from some sources in Athens put the amount still owed by Germany at around €162bn (£117bn), or more than half the level of debt that Greece is struggling with.
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"Proven in every period of its development, the western European culture has tried to rid himself of the Greeks.
This work is imbued with deep disappointment, because whatever we create, seemingly original and worthy of admiration, lose color and life in comparison with the Greek mode, came to resemble a cheap copy, a caricature.
So again and again soaked in a rage erupts hatred against the Greeks, against this small and arrogant nation, who had the nerve to call it barbaric whatever that had not been established in its territory ...
None of the recurrent enemies had the fortune to discover the hemlock, which could forever be rid of them. All poisons of envy, of hubris, hatred, have been insufficient to disturb the great beauty.
Thus, people continue to feel shame and fear of the Greeks. Of course, occasionally, someone appears to recognize intact truth, truth which teaches that the Greeks are the charioteers of any upcoming culture and almost always as the chariots and horses of the upcoming cultures is very low quality compared to the charioteer, who eventually work out driving his chariot into the abyss, which are beyond the Achilles 'Leap'
Τhe European anti-Greek sentiments : More timely than ever is Friedrich Nietzsche, arguably one of the most important German philosophers, namely one of the first "existentialist" philosophers. His first book, entitled "The Birth of Tragedy" (1872), in particular Chapter 15, Nietzsche made a special reference to the Greek nation by showing that Nietzsche is far ahead of its time.
The attitude of certain circles in Europe toward the Greeks in conjunction with the mistrust that exists around the Greeks have made scepticals from time to time the most severe judges of Greeks.
"The Greeks are lazy and fraudsters" are just some decorative comments heard internationally in recent months by many to wonder why such a fury around people with a glorious history and an enviable culture.
*Focus is a German weekly news magazine published in Munich and distributed throughout Germany. It is the third-largest weekly news magazine in Germany. It is considered conservative and leans towards economic liberalism.
Ιn the period of 2001-2002 Focus Money had a circulation of 149,000 copies.
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* Extract from "The Broken Mooring Line", an experiential
poetic work // page c36 // e-mail: pmataragas@yahoo.com //
Texts and Narration: Odysseus Heavilayias - ROTTERDAM //
Language adjustments and text adaptation: Kellene G Safis - CHICAGO//
Digital adaptation and text editing: Cathy Rapakoulia Mataraga - PIRAEUS
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the tales of a Greek Sailor
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