By Nick Stamatakis
I received our main photo today. My friends know (and many of our readers may have noted) that I was born in Nikea of Pireaus, Greece – informally known as “Kokkinia” (translated as “red soil”, “red storm” or “red” …anything)… The neighborhood was formed in the 1920s by about 90.000 Asia Minor refugees, mostly Greeks from Smyrna, some from Pontos, and some Armenians (which partly explains my deep interest in the Genocides…) In 1940 these refugees were called to fight the Fascists in the mountains of Epirus and Albania and they very bravely did – like all Greeks. Between 1941-44 they were a very energetic part of the most glorious Resistance against the Nazis anywhere in Europe – a resistance that, tragically for Greece, was usurped by the Left resulting in catastrophic results for the country after the end of WWII…
They paid a heavy price for their Resistance. On August 17, 1944, just 2 months before Athens was liberated, the Germans “blocked” the whole neighborhood (hence the famous “Mploko of Kokkinia”) and forced all males above age 12 into the main square. Two hundred were executed on the spot. About 10,000 were forced to walk to a nearby “camp”. Of them, 1,800 were sent to Germany to the famous Dachau and other concentration camps. Very few managed to return, and many were mentally disabled forever… How many disasters (within one single generation) can a human sustain without breaking down?
Many in my neighborhood were part of the “leftist” movement which started in the first part of the 20th century, grew up during the Resistance and the Civil War, and was definitely fed and propelled by the poverty of the refugee neighborhood. They believed in the Left’s Ideology with religious fervor – much like the Left does in today’s America… Many among them ended up mixing up the symbols of the two “religions” whenever they saw fit…
These photos show just that… The grandmother of this family was found a few years ago to have a “prayer corner” (“Eikonostasi”), where, next to the Virgin Mary’s, the “icon” of Lenin was worshipped…
As I turned 20 and was disillusioned with my socialist ideals, I was witnessing quite a few of my former “comrades” deal with their own disillusionment in a very interesting way: They went to Mount Athos and chose monastic life. Most of us would turn to the great Greek traditions of science and business/navigation. But they could not deal with the collapse of the Soviet Union and the failures of the socialist ideology in any other way – but by turning to religion. Monastic life after all was one of the very few successful “communes” in human history… They could NOT successfully apply communism in any aspect of modern life, but the Mt.Athos communes was a real communist paradise for them… Thank God, it was set to limit itself forever within the borders of the Holy Mountain – and other monasteries worldwide…
Unfortunately for humanity, other socialist “comrades” internationally (including Bernie Sanders, Hillary Clinton, Barak Hussein Obama, and others) were much more “hardcore” defiant leftists: They did not turn to religion but to “ecology” / “environmentalism” (which started by the French Socialist Party in the 1970s) and they turned this into religion. The results of their religious ferocity we are all living in today’s America with the “climate change” lies and propaganda. Do you see now why it comes so “natural” for Pat. Bartholomew, to support this unscientific garbage of climate change? Very soon, you will see the left’s climate change “ecologists” celebrate their religion in our Churches… While the rest of us will turn to worship Christ in our houses until they self-destruct for one more time in history…
Why did I remember all this? Every May 1st, “Εργατική Πρωτομαγιά” (International Worker’s Day), our neighborhood was celebrating the utopian socialist ideals… This year they have no problem at all co-celebrating with Easter…
May 1, 2021, n.stamatakis@aol.com, www.helleniscope.com
