Do we learn from our mistakes?

The former MEP Anna Karamanou is not an accidental figure. She has proven to be a fighter both inside and outside the European Parliament. Let us just remind you that she served as a member of the European Parliament (1997-2004), a member of the Presidency of the Socialist Group, and chair of the Committee on Women’s Rights and Gender Equality, vice president of Women of the Party of European Socialists and Democrats (PES) since 2004. And we are referring to only a part of her activities through the titles she held and holds.

In her interview with LOGOS, she showed that she loves Greece and the Greeks, being an inseparable part of them. However, she did not show this by flattering ears with compliments and the flamboyance of cheap politicians (politicians) who have learned to deceive the people, loudly applauding the king, praising the splendor of his attire with the applause of servitude, while he is utterly naked.

Quite the opposite. She chose the path of truth, no matter how bitter it may be, and how unpopular one may become with people who enjoy flattery, believing that it not only doesn’t help but harms society as a whole by offering a distorted image of reality, leading it quickly into deadlock situations, for which, however, this society is later called upon to pay a heavy price.

She said, therefore, that regarding the values related to solidarity, freedom, and equality—values that would help make our lives better and more humane—Greece did not participate in the European process “…and this has affected all parties and all citizens.”

These, however, are the indestructible human values that we are taught from the early years of primary school until we graduate from high school, and we continue to be taught them at the university level.

Something is wrong, then, that Greece (meaning the Greeks) could not follow the European “lights,” when (what irony!) these “lights” were given to Europe by Greece, with the foundation of “bright” values being Democracy.

Anna Karamanou tells us that “…The people are not innocent. They must reflect, use their minds, and not think with the minds of others. Greece’s crisis is not primarily economic. It is mainly cultural. A crisis of ideas, a crisis of the political system, a crisis in the way the people think, act, and choose…”

An absolutely clear and straightforward opinion, which leads to the conclusion that most of us think with the minds of others and decide and act not with our own thought and logic, but by following the logic and thought of those who find fertile ground, on a national and local level, to turn the people into sheep, obedient to the orders of every populist “shepherd”.

And up to a point, there is some excuse based on ignorance. However, after some time has passed and once each “shepherd” has shown their track record, no support for their destructive work can be justified.

Each one of us has only one “bullet” to “execute” the demagogic “leader,” and that is our vote when the time comes at the ballot box. The problem is that with this “bullet,” we may also end up committing suicide if we do not aim the weapon in the right direction.

We have a great advantage over the sheep. We possess memory, and it is this that we must use when the same demagogues (both on a national and local level) try to deceive us once again, relying on our forgetfulness and our constant tendency to swallow the gilded pill they offer us, simply because we are too lazy to chew it.