by ALEXIS TSIPRAS
Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras PHOTO/Reuters/Alkis Konstantinidis/RT
Madam President,
Ladies and Gentlemen MPs,
I take the floor today in this historic meeting not only for symbolic, but also for substantive reasons.
First and foremost, in order to pay tribute to the victims of WWII. But also in order to honor the male and female fighters from all over the world who gave their lives for the freedom of their homelands, who gave their lives in order to defeat Nazism that threw its poisonous fog over the people of the world.
I also take the floor in order to honor the fighters of the Greek national resistance, who gave their lives in order to rid the country from the Nazi atrocities and occupation. In order for us to have today a homeland free and sovereign.
Some people tell us – why do you tackle the past, look at the future. But what country, what people can have a future if it does not honor its history and its struggles? What people can move forward, erasing the collective memory and leaving historically unjustified its struggles and sacrifices?
Indeed, not much time has passed since then, ladies and gentlemen. The generation of the Occupation and of the National Resistance is still living. And the pictures and sounds from the tortures and executions at Distomo and Kaisariani, at Kalavrita and at Vianno, are still fresh in the collective memory of our people.
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This, of course, is not an excuse but an explanation. It is the lesson of the short 20thcentury – if we remember Eric Hobsbawm as well. After WWI, what prevailed was hatred and revanchism. What prevailed was a short-sighted logic of humiliation of the loser for its sins, the logic of humiliation and misery of an entire people because of its loss. And this choice was later paid with the blood of the youth of the entire world. Including Germany’s.
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London’s treaty, however, recognizes at the same time that the final German Reparations for WWII remain, and they should have been resolved by the final peace agreement – which wasn’t signed until 1990, due to Germany’s separation.
The reunification of the two Germanies has created the necessary legal and political conditions in order to resolve this issue, but the German governments since then have opted for silence, legal tricks, deferment and dilatory tactics. And I wonder, ladies and gentlemen: is this stance actually ethical?
I talked about legal tricks, and since these are very important issues, I would like to explain clearly what I mean so no shadows [of doubt] remain. When Germany even accepts to talk about the issue of its debts towards Greece since WWI, it evokes the Bilateral Agreement of 1960.
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