by Anagnostis Laskaratos
The poet’s saying is most commonly used by the Roman Nationalist Party, as the culmination or conclusion of one of its articles, as a certificate of validity of the lies it has spread there. We who believe in it as a universal and timeless principle, validated for the Greek Orthodox Pharisees and by the one they slander as their god (“Know the truth and the truth will set you free”), do not resort to Solomon to gain prestige, but to provoke those who consider lies to be ammunition in their “patriotic” arsenal.
We consider it an obligation now that the Chams have started again with the election of the president of the Cham party to the office of vice president of the Parliament, to say some useful truths that are not heard, as much as they should, in our country. It is very clear to us that we equally condemn Albanian and modern Greek nationalism, their crimes, their methods and their goals, and it does not surprise us at all that today two “center-left” or “left” governments (flirting with entering and exiting the EU) are clashing on such a field, when logically the last thing you would expect from them is to pull out rusty myths and old hatreds from their chests.
Edi Rama, a painter who lived in Paris, an athlete, a nonconformist to the point that Berisha’s acting colleagues used to publish nude photos of him on the beach, is currently pursuing a policy of Albanian grandiosity as an antidote to economic problems, and the answers he receives from the populist government of the old squatter, with a foreign minister who is a vagabond of the political landscape, a former Bolshevik and (I hope former) interlocutor of the Russian Nazi Dugin, differ little from those that a Samara government would give, in the familiar barren and always harmful field of mutual dead-end pseudo-patriotic cockfighting.
The feeling I have is that Albania has fallen into the hands of the unjust, but this has no particular value since I am very one-sidedly informed. The certainty I have, and with it I will speak, is that Greece, without conceding even a little of what belongs to us, must, in good faith and dialogue, close the open accounts it has with the historical truth, because as long as the Greek people do not know it, the resurrected demons of modern Greek nationalism will dance with the risk of dragging our homeland, once again (1897, 1922, 1974), into disasters.
I resort to the excellent book by the university historian, Professor George Margaritis, “Unwanted Compatriots. Evidence for the Destruction of the Minorities of Greece. Jews, Tsamids”, Bibliorama-Athens, 2005, about which, regarding the compatriots of Christ, you can read here (Review by Rena Molcho).
Not having the time to cite many excerpts about the Chams, I will write a few characteristics, which certainly do not do justice to the sad extent of the events, concluding with a reference to a historically accountable metropolitan, whom the national state Church presents as supposedly pious, a resistance patriot, a philanthropist, etc.
A) The Albanian Chams of Thesprotia, whom their nationalists present as descendants of the Molossians, were in danger during the terrible exchange of populations based on religion (1923-’26) between Greece and Turkey of being exiled to Asia Minor. Ultimately, this atrocity was avoided, after their strong interventions in the ‘League of Nations’ and for many other reasons.
During this time, they suffered a terrible psychological, and not only, war, which led to the forced sale or even the looting of their property. Many self-exiled to Albania, carrying from then on the feelings of the expatriate refugee with what this entailed for the future. The Metaxas dictatorship brought in 1937 Law 735/8, which provided for the compulsory expropriation of the remaining Albanian properties.
We must therefore understand the feelings that all this inspired in the minority, which felt persecuted, forcing it to see every invader as its liberator, as has always happened historically with every oppressed minority (e.g. the Uniates of Ukraine, who collaborated with the German-Nazi invaders).
I do not want to justify these reactions of the wronged minorities, but we must understand for ourselves which criminal nationalist behaviors of reactionary Greek government circles caused them, turning minorities into Trojan Horses of irredentism, and ensure that they do not repeat themselves, not even with processions of Epitaphs in purely Muslim villages by pious ministers of the left and far right.
B. At the beginning of the Occupation, the remaining Chams of Thesprotia numbered around 20,000. The collaboration of some of them with the troops of the fascist and Nazi Occupation, not out of ideology but out of necessity, was almost inevitable, if we take into account the criminal and stupid tactics of EDES against them, which fueled hatred and drove them to apostasy. Unfortunately, the presence of EAM in these areas was initially limited.
In 1943, many Chams participated in the Nazi reprisals for the murder of 10 German soldiers, namely the destruction of the Phanar and the execution of the 49 pre-eminent people of Paramythia, taking revenge even by raping women.
On June 26, 1944, EDES entered Paramythia after a brief resistance from the Cham militia. G. Margaritis writes: ” All testimonies from whatever side they come from agree on the extent and brutality of the killings and abuses against the Muslim residents. Many hundreds – the number is unknown, but perhaps approaching 500 people – were killed in the most brutal ways in and around the city ….. Major Kranias, … of EDES decided to punish the ‘primates’, that is, the execution of 34 Chams who had survived the massacre … It was not the last phase … the purges of the Muslim villages south of Kalamas, drove most of their inhabitants north of the river … “.
Eleftheria Manta [“ The Muslim Chams of Epirus (1923-2000) ”, ed. ‘Idr.Mel. Chersonisou tou Aemou’-2004] notes:
“ The Albanian population… who had not crossed the border was relentlessly persecuted, there were dozens of victims, Albanian houses were looted and set on fire and mosques were destroyed. For about five days, chaos and destruction prevailed. Dozens of women and children were locked in the school and only thanks to the intervention of the officers of the Allied Mission and the Greek residents who did not agree with the tactics of the EDES units were they saved ….”
The EAM, to its credit, had a truly patriotic and unifying policy. A mixed battalion of Christian and Muslim fighters operated in the region. Its primacy was also accepted in the procedures that accompanied the Caserta agreement with the subversive move to name the leftist forces as “Turkish-Albanian partisans”. Thus the climate was created and with the permission of the British liaison officers in the region, EDES attacked the mixed forces of ELAS, repeating the horror of Paramythia in Filiati and the surrounding Muslim villages.
Margaritis concludes with something that we owe the Albanian communists credit for: “Despite the multifaceted pressures and tension…the Liberation Front of Albania refused to take any retaliatory action against the Greek minority of the neighboring country. Contrary to usual Balkan practices, blood was not returned with blood…we mention this at a time when too many and too easily proclaim that…in the Balkans of recent years…our own country “taught civilization”. In this case, the lesson was important and certainly did not come from the Greek side.
C) By the nature of our blog, we are obliged to refer to the national action of Metropolitan Paramythia Dorotheos (Dimitris Naskaris), for whose national action the state Church boasts to this day. His holiness was an orphaned village boy from Lelova, Preveza, who in his youth worked as a laborer at the infamous theological school of Corinth, until he was discovered by the later viceroy, metropolitan of the city, Damaskinos.
The newspaper “Epiros” (f. 165 19/3/1914) wrote about his arrival in his diocese as a warlord: “The day before yesterday, the Venerable Paramythia, abbot of many soldiers, arrived in our city of the romantic capital of the Autonomous State. … A religious leader, a Metropolitan, but also a warrior … with the Cross of the Savior and the sword of the Devil, he comes to encourage, … but also to fight at the same time.”
In 1952, the chieftain who had despised his Order, abandoned his bride, the Metropolis, and his flock with an uncanonical transfer – the penalty for which was also foreseen, demotion – and became Metropolitan of Trikki.
Margaritis, referring to the Greek claim of the complicity of the Tsami in the selection of the prime victims of the Nazi execution, notes that “ it remains a subject of speculation, especially after the fictional constructions of the –constantly absent from the region- Metropolitan Dorotheos …”. There is another negative testimony about Dorotheos: “
The only one that will remain, however, is the report of the British Major Wallace (15.8.1944) about what followed the entry of the EDES into the Tsami villages, in September 1944 (note: the columnist of “Eleftherotypia”, wants to say on 11 August in Margariti, after all, David John Wallace fell heroically a few days later, on 17.8, in the battle of Menina and was buried in Paramythia). If anything, the local representative of the Most High himself is said to have played a leading role in the looting, albeit with controversial results:
“The rebels indulged in an orgy of revenge, looting and deliberate destruction of everything. The beautiful town of Margariti was completely burned down. The metropolitan of Paramythia participated in searching the houses for loot, coming out of a house, however, he discovered that his already heavily laden mule had been lightened by some rebels “…” (‘Ios’-‘Eleftherotypia’, 27/4/2003 ).
In any case, Dorotheos is responsible, if not for his full participation, at least for his absolute silence in the terrible crime of the cowardly massacre of his Muslim fellow countrymen.
His behavior reminds us precisely of the Metropolitan of Patras, Germanos, who, according to the descriptions of Kanellos Delligiannis, plundered Tripolitsa with his mule kneeling from the loot, which cost him after his murder by his son-in-law, George Kalamogdartis, in order to seize the 80,000 thalers of the loot.
