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January 2, 2012

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I Too Am Greek - French In Solidarity With Greeks!


Enfuriated by the "cowardice and lack of imagination of Western governments" and disgusted by the way Greek people have been humiliated on a global level, a new movement from France consisting of common citizens set up a blog and is openly petitioning to the Greek Consulate in France to give them Greek citizenship in solidarity to the Greeks and their current fight for democracy. According to their announcement the group is against the regime imposed on Greece and wants to symbolically share in the fate of its people. In such a framework they asked for dual citizenship by making a formal request to the Greek Ambassador in France!

Here is there announcement:

Solidarity with the Greek people !

I, too, am Greek ! - We demand double nationality !

Enfuriated by the cowardice and lack of imagination of the Western governments—including our own (1)—towards the dictatorship of the financial markets;

And disgusted by the current humiliations being imposed on the Greek people, shamefully accused of excess and dishonesty, pronounced guilty without being allowed a defence (2), condemned to endless austerity and penitant contrition, in a language that evokes 1940 and Pétain with its "moral order,"  "effort" and "spirit of joy;"

And certainly not forgotting those who now sacrifice Greece to the financial speculators, pretend that "economic fascism" will content itself with the little countries, sparing themselves... those same people who abandoned Czechoslovakia to Adolf Hitler in Munich in 1938, hoping that he would be satisfied with this new prey, following the cowardice shown to the Spanish republicans (3);
We will no longer support these nouveaux riches (the triumphant 1% of the globalised world), who ignore the moral debt that humanity owes to the Greek nation (4), which sowed the first seeds of direct democracy (5), based precisely on the abolition of debts and the emancipation of citizens reduced to slavery by their indebtedness 2500 years ago (6).

For all these reasons, we are all Greeks. We want to send a clear signal right now that we will no longer collaborate a minute longer in passivity towards the financial regime imposed on Greece (7). We wish to express our solidarity with Greece, and to share, at least symbolically, the fate of its people.

We therefore ask for dual Greek nationality, by making a formal request to the Greek ambassador in our country. We will launch this campaign with a list of primary signatories on the 24 November 2011, a
date that is also the anniversary of a significant action by the Greek resistance at the Gorgopotamos Viaduct on the night of the 24/25 November 1942 (8).

"Declaration of Nantes for Greece," 11/11/11.

"Your excellency, in solidarity with your country, I, the undersigned.............. request personally to be  counted at heart a Greek, to enjoy the rights and duties of dual nationality, and to express this international citizenship with a view to the establishment of universal democracy in liberty and equality, twenty-five centuries after the time of Solon, Clisthene, and Pericles. Thanks in advance for your response, and in fraternity with your people. "
My name, town and country of residence follow, along with my profession and other relevant personal information (blogger, musician, father, student, Hellenist, age, etc.): FAMILY NAME, First name............ Town........... Country of residence....... Profession and other personal information................. Where to send it ? In France, send a letter to l'Ambassade de Grèce, République hellénique, 17 rue Auguste-Vacquerie, 75116 Paris (Telephone : 01 47 23 72 28, Fax : 01 47 23 73 85 ).
Copy and paste this text, or write a personalised letter to the embassy. When you have done so, send a copy to the following list of email addresses (copy/paste the entire line):

mfapar@wanadoo.fr, grinfoamb.paris@wanadoo.fr, info@amb-grece.fr, grpresse@magic.fr, jesuisgrec@numericable.fr,

(The first address is that of the Greek embassy in Paris, the next two are those of its press office and communications office which must be informed of your application, the fourth is the Greek office at the Council of Europe in Strasbourg, and the latter is the liaison address for this initiative for information and coordination).

You can also post a personal comment on the dedicated blog: http//:www.jesuisgrec.blogspot.fr

This personal and collective response of a request for Greek nationality belongs only to those who undertake it, and is not directed by any party or institution. It has been proposed by the N.e.u.f. cultural association ("Nantes Est Une Fête! ", note 9)


Notes on the call for solidarity:

Note 1: We will never forget the paternalistic disdain displayed towards Greece by the leaders of Germany and France, an arrogant and vexatious attitude, made all the more scandalous by the fact that it is these two countries whose major arms deals with Greece have ruined the country.
  • We are shamed by the Merkel-Sarkozy couple, who lecture at Greece when it is down, forcing upon them a treatment that is as highhanded and inept as that of the bloodletting physicians of old, medicine which they next plan to administer to their own people.
  • We cannot accept that, for the first time in the history of mankind, a country will lose its political sovereignty at the diktat of financial markets, merely to defend the investments of the privileged 1% of the world, who have bought themselves government bonds.
  • We will not allow these slanders towards the Greek people to pass, while the responsibilities of the profitmongers and international traffickers and their accomplices remain ignored.
Note 2: Nor even to express themselves in a referendum.

Note 3: Churchill's well known comment after Munich: "You were given the choice between war and dishonour. You chose dishonour and you will have war." Gandhi's comment from India is less well  known: "Europe has sold her soul for the sake of seven-days’ earthly existence. The peace Europe gained at Munich is a triumph of violence; it is also its defeat."
  • We do not forget General Faucher, the French mission chief in Prague, who, sickened by the Munich agreement, submitted an honourable resignation to the French government, and then requested Czech citizenship. General Louis-Eugène Faucher (1874-1964) had lived for twenty years among the Czech people. On his return to France, he joined the resistance against the Nazi occupation, was arrested and deported to Germany, and survived to return home in 1945.
Note 4: Because Greece has given the world the inspiring myth of Antigone, the unconquerable defiance of conscience in the face of arbitrary tyranny;

Note 5: Because Greece gave Europe the first seeds of direct democracy (not delegated to a class of professionals, but exercised directly by an assembly and by drawing lots),

Note 6: And because the first act of the newborn Athenian democracy, though but a fragile and imperfect shoot, under the rule of Solon in 594 BCE, was precisely the abolition of debts and the general emancipation of citizens reduced to slavery by personal indebtedness. But who remembers that? We do not forget the eminent and heroic Greek resistance, which strongly participated in the liberation of Europe from Nazism.

Note 7: The controls imposed on Greece are a blatant coup d'etat against European democracy, a deliberate suffocation of its civil society, a material and moral humiliation of its people, which will
inevitably spread in a domino effect to neighbouring countries, including our own, with a risk of pre-fascist crisis.

Note 8: On the night of the 24/25 November 1942, the destruction of the strategic Gorgopotamos railway viaduct between Thessaloniki and Athens was an important joint action between two major elements of the Greek resistance: the communist EAM-ELAS and the non-communist EDES-EOEA, with the support of British special forces.

Note 9: The N.e.u.f association organises the Fête des langues (Festival of languages) and walking tours commemorating the resistance against fascism in Nantes (Pays de la Loire/Brittany, France). This association was instrumental in achieving the transparent publication of public finances on the internet in 1995, and in 1997 launched the "Réveillon de 1er mai" (Eve of the 1st of May) outside the Paris Bourse (Stock exchange), the first demonstration in the western world for the Tobin tax on financial speculation and against tax havens. N.e.u.f. also participated in the "Call to the youth for resistance"
of the 8 March 2004 with ATTAC, and the Décapol Declaration for Ten new rights for the coming century.

Source: Par solidarité, je suis Grec aussi.

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