Although the pamphlet claimed to be neither propaganda nor partisan, the newspaper went on to quote the following passage which referred to PASOK’s victory at the polls in the autumn of 1981:
“On October 18 – momentous day – Greek youth was wanting to breathe, to be free, to express itself. Youth was thirsting to exist, to create, to live, to obtain the right of self-determination, to participate in a leading role in the building of a decentralized, self-administering socialist community with democracy and liberty.”
“In the midst of the celebration of this unprecedented victory of popular will, our eyes met, our hands clasped, our arms were filled, our hearts soared. We illuminated our ideas and our longings. We staked a wager with history. We made an oath to ourselves and to our fellow, known or unknown, standing beside us. A grey page had been turned at last.”
The ‘grey page’, lying on the right-hand side of Parliament, was not going to take turning over of a new leaf lying down. On the same day, Mr. Averof, leader of New Democracy, indignantly demanded that the Prime Minister intervene for the immediate removal of the Minister of Youth, Mr. Laliotis, and the withdrawal of the pamphlet. “It dynamites the foundations of democracy,” he asserted, “and only propaganda of the Goebbels sort could conceive of such a text.”
In reply, the government stated that the pamphlet was only a basic declaration on the part of the Minister, not a program for action; that it was not propaganda, since the word ‘socialism’ only appeared in the text once, let alone partisan, since PASOK was not mentioned at all. Far from being required reading for high school students, it was addressed to the “students’ communities” and only one issue was sent out to each school.
The conservative opposition would have none of this pussyfooting. Demonstrating its belief that the issue was a major one, New Democracy created four committees, each with its own set of questions for the government to answer. This led the pro-government press to say that the tempest was now in four teapots, each whistling a different tune. Among the opposition’s objections were that the pamphlet was a monument to one-party brainwashing and expressed unconstitutional ideas commonly used by all totalitarian regimes from Pinochet to Amin, from Hitler to Mao.
Some of the more controversial passages deserve to be quoted, if only for the richness of the prose and the density of the thought:
“We address ourselves to the young workers, those men and women for whom the factory, the construction site, the office are not just areas of barren exploitation, but ghettoes where monotony kills and anonymity assassinates.”
“The overall crisis in Greek society manifests itself to youth on every side: long-term imperialistic subordination; blind, entrepreneurial capitalistic growth; wars; occupation; resistance; civil division; conditions of terrorism; successive interventions and anti-dictatorial struggles have all left their grievous mark.”
“We believe that the conditions have ripened to pull down the walls of tradition, to demolish the hermetically closed circuit, the unconventional monologues between successive competitors and the hope-bearing generations.”
“Young men and women: to you whose glances met, full of joy, on the night of the elections of October 18 -no matter how you voted – there is only one answer.”
Opinion was divided on the text. It was either seditious or it was allaloum, that is to say, jabberwocky. It is understandable that people holding certain political beliefs should read only those newspapers, periodicals and pamphlets that reflect these beliefs, feeling a need for what are colorfully described today as ‘supportive scenarios’. Yet, it does seem odd that no conservative member of parliament seemed to be aware of this official pamphlet, printed at public expense so many months ago. Equally odd is that the sentiments expressed therein should be cause for astonishment. The words and diction of Mr. Laliotis appear to be inspired, however muddily, by the works of Che Guevara which have been widely published, admired, and read throughout the world for the last twenty years and are easily found at neighborhood bookshops even in conservative countries.
The opposition, however, has rightly objected to the government’s circulating this pamphlet as an official document of its policy. A party that has made an issue of banning periodicals of special pleading in schools can hardly defend itself in distributing this sort of thing. It is made to appear not a freely elected alternative government at all, but a party forming a structure outside of the democracy which encouraged it and the parliament, which represents it. Still, the opposition need have no fear.
“A Proposal of Life for the Young Generation” has none of the luminosity of “Venceremos!”, and it is very unlikely that its author will win, for Greece, a third Nobel Prize for Literature.
Ismene Phylactopoulou
She was born in Smryna in 1908 of well-to-do parents. At 14, she and her family were swept up in the maelstrom of the Asia Minor catastrophe, and she found herself a fugitive in Greece in 1922. As refugees from the American School for Girls in Smyrna had established Pierce College in Athens, she continued her studies here. Winning a Venizelos scholarship, she continued her education at Wellesley College. In 1929 she returned to Pierce as a member of the faculty and taught biology. In 1936 she married George Phylactopoulos who, born in Constantinople, shared not only her Asia Minor background, but a dedication for teaching at a school which had also been born out of it – Athens College. They had two children, and grandchildren.
Such are the skeletal facts of Ismene Phylactopoulou’s life, as a teacher of biology might say one should start out with. But Ismene’s students at Pierce say that what made her classes so memorable was when she closed the book and set it aside…
Like all first-rate teachers, Ismene Phylactopoulou said she was always learning something new from her students. Over the years, seeing that so many of them went on like herself to the U.S. for further studies, she conceived the idea of offering a similar experience in reverse: to start a school for American students in Athens. In the twenty years that have elapsed since she founded College Year in Athens in 1962, close to 2,000 students from over 200 U.S. institutions have followed its wide curriculum of studies in all aspects of Greek civilization. And always, during these years, she was alert to the changes in American youth.
So, like Henry Adams, Ismene Phylactopoulou went on getting educated all of her life. Nor did even violent attacks of asthma in recent years – at the onset of which she could never be certain she’d survive – stop her from returning to the business of learning more about life with renewed courage, thankfulness and high spirits. It may have been such uncertainties, early and late in life, which accounted for her remarkable ability to be so forthright and farseeing at the same time, and for her sense of humor, which was as startling in its suddenness as it was sound in its understanding.
On February 9, Ismene Phylactopoulou succumbed suddenly to one of these attacks of asthma, as she always, matter-of-factly, said she would. The great variety of mourners who attended her funeral in Kifissia testified to the wide scope and the generosity of her life. Her eulogists concluded with the simple and essential straightforwardness which was characteristic of the woman whom they praised: ‘she was greatly loved.’
