EDITORIAL

A little over a year ago, Athens and several other cities in Greece were in flames. The trigger for that unprecedented wave of violence was the shooting death of a high school student by police. Within minutes of the shooting, throngs of anarchists, hooded street thugs, and looters, Greek as well as foreign, intermingled with students of all levels and other "discontented" youth, some of whom were as young as twelve (!) had seized the streets and begun burning, plundering, and laying waste across businesses, large and small, banks, public buildings, and university campuses.

The bomb that exploded outside the Greek parliament building, right next to the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, in central Athens on January 9, was yet another ringing reminder – no pun intended – that the Greek Government, Greek politicians, and all the Greek “social partners” are not doing what they are supposed to do in order to ensure this country exists in a state of reasonable domestic peace, security, and stability.

The attempted hacking murder of Danish “Mohammed cartoonist” Kurt Westergaard by an al Qaeda-connected Somali would-be assassin, and legal resident of Denmark, who stopped only after police officers shot him as he was trying to force himself inside Mr. Westergaard's home armed with an ax and a knife, comes as yet another stark reminder of what Islamic fanaticism means -- and what Muslim “martyrs” are determined to do in order to fulfill their destiny of joining their edition of paradise drenched in the blood of infidels. Coming only days after the attempt by al Qaeda-linked Nigerian Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab to blow up a full US passenger jet, the Westergaard attempt is deeply disturbing and yet another loud signal to all those willing not to sink their heads in the sand.

Cyprus used to be at the top of Greece's “national issues.” In the 1950s, the struggle for Enosis (union with Greece) animated the Greek people and pushed Greek politicians in endorsing the last “grand vision” of Hellenism in the form of bringing Cyprus under Greek colors and repairing, if partially, the catastrophe that Hellas suffered during the Asia Minor campaign of 1919-22. Yet, just like during that fateful expedition, Greeks remained divided on what the ultimate aim actually was and hesitated in committing the Nation to the kind of effort that drove Greece during the Balkan Wars of 1912-13. In the end, and despite the Cypriot liberation fighters bringing the British colonialists to an untenable situation, the infamous London-Zurich agreements that followed the armed push to expel the British signaled the beginning of a long period of tragic consequences for Cyprus, largely because Greece had, yet again, failed to grasp the strategic initiative.

"Work Sets You Free" read the infamous iron sign hung above the gate of the Auschwitz death camp by the Nazi murderers of millions. The evil irony of the sign's message has stood as the emblem of the ultimate Satanism underpinning the "Final Solution," the Third Reich's elaborate plan of ridding the world of Jews through extermination.

Following the Swiss referendum on banning minarets, many European politicians run head over heels to condemn this majority decision in perhaps the most intact model democracy worldwide as an incomprehensible slide toward “xenophobia” and, even, “racism.”