The importance of a patriotic counter culture.
Last week offered headlines for the entire Greek media.
Evritos, a social media personality who spend his time (anonymously) drawing gorgeous and patriotic paintings, murals and graffiti of heroes of the Greek revolution has been found to allegedly have links to “white nationalism.”
This includes social media interaction with a popular former Golden Dawn MP (now an independent) and supposed “White Power” graffiti (although that is disputed).
All of his patriotic work suddenly meant nothing anymore and he was attacked by all possible media outlets and newspapers.
The events became the scene of a witch hunt.
Shortly afterwards, anarchists started searching for more information about the guy, looking for ways to discover his real identity and eventually hunt him down.
Various leftist groups announced marches and demonstrations in the following week.
The unholy alliance of criminals, illegal immigrants and so called anti-fascists, with the backing of institutional power, is assembling itself against the Greek patriot.
Following that, the murals he painted of Greek revolutionaries and heroes were defaced and vandalized.
Something unthinkable even decades ago.
The people who are attacking him, are not only doing that because they oppose his “White Power” graffiti, but because they oppose him loving his country.
We must wake up to the fact that there are many Greeks who do not celebrate Greek history, do not take pride in a shared ancestry and kinship, do not want to commemorate the historic struggle of our people to free themselves from foreign occupation.
Quite simply, there are a lot of people who hate Greece and everything it contains.
A patriotic counter culture does not mean utopian ultra-nationalist violence, it means an organized effort at creating lasting institutions benefiting the Greek nation and its people.
It means celebrating and cultivating our country that we love, to guarantee a meaningful and prosperous future.
This organized effort does not necessarily need to be centrally planned, but just have a coherent ideological core.
It needs to contain various mediums which are currently controlled by the people who hate Greece.
That means alternative newspapers, alternative magazines, alternative think tanks, opinion makers, all over to actually having patriotic entertainment, arts and literature.
Patriots in Greece (and all over Europe) feel baffled when they find out that much of the media hates them and opposes their worldview, but they fail to articulate a meaningful and lasting response.
If you have a patriotic counter culture, you would not have to be dependent on the medium and power of your opponent, and if enough people follow through with this, your opponents will have to realize that their anti-Greek stance cannot continue.
Many Greeks rushed to defend Evritos on social media against the backlash he received and it shows that national consciousness is still very present in our society – it just needs proper support.
The internet basically gives people so many possibilities for self-determination and creativity that can be turned into patriotic projects, whether that be news agencies, cultural education, history or military analysis.
People like Paul Antonopoulos (Greek City Times) and Andreas Mountzouroulias (Pentapostagma) are leading the way.
To return to the case of Evritos, one might ask on the occasion, what is the Greek state actually doing to celebrate the 200th anniversary of the Greek revolution and the heroic struggle against the Ottoman Empire?
And the truth is quite shocking.
One would imagine that for such a historic event in which our ancestors broke the shekels of slavery and congregated for the cause of ethnic liberation and survival, there would be plenty of material, campaigns, movies, music and so on.
Yet the Greek state does not seem to want to celebrate it extensively.
Under such circumstances, a patriotic counter culture would be the only alternative to provide.
Nowadays, this might seem like something far-fetched, but it is the only viable solution for the future.
And it is our duty to help it grow.
This article first appeared on Achilles Delta, you can follow his Twitter account here.
The views of the author do not necessarily reflect those of Greek City Times.