“In the elections of May 21 we can and will bring the change that the country needs and a progressive government of cooperation, a government of stability and long-term that can lead the country to another perspective of hope”, underlined Alexis Tsipras speaking in the central square of Menidi.

He emphasized that the victory of SYRIZA in the elections will pave the way for change, stating that he is confident that the mandate of the people will be strong and that “the stronger the victory, the more certain is the formation of a government of progressive cooperation the day after the elections.

In the presence of federations, associations and associations of Pontic Hellenism, Mr. Tsipras focused his speech on the Pontic genocide and the most important contribution of the Pontians to the formation of the modern Greek state at a social, political and cultural level. He referred to the central issues they face today and presented, in the form of a national road map, the party’s proposals for solving them.

The president of SYRIZA PS began his speech noting that the most important thing for the future of the country is the need for justice and that the first step is political change and progressive governance. “Change is a social, economic, cultural, national need,” he stressed. He said that it is not justice the “looting” of the funds, the low wages, “that families are evicted by the auctions for a few thousand euros and that the ND owes 400 million euros”, that the prices are “in the sky”, the middle class to live on vouchers and some idlers to speculate, while the government washes its hands.

Commenting on the situation in Pontic, he said that “some seeds were sprouting and others were wilting”, that is, he said, some animals are slaughtered and others ruminate. He added that it is not justice to keep indirect taxes high, “to monitor the leadership of the armed forces at nationally sensitive moments and this should be done not by Erdogan in Turkey, but by Mitsotakis through the Maximos Palace”. It is not justice, he continued, “for dozens of families to lose their loved ones in a railway accident that is purely due to indifference to public infrastructure and people’s safety, and for the prime minister to rush to blame the tragedy on the station master who himself, with bribes, appointed”.

National Road Map for Pontic Hellenism

Mr. Tsipras emphasized that justice is about dignity, the practical respect for history that each of us has individually and all together, explaining that his presence today aims to honor the history of Pontic Hellenism and its great contribution to the country’s progress us, and “to give a clear message that this story is not about the past, but about the present and the future of our country, our education, our culture, the housing rights and insurance rights of our citizens and our diplomatic relations . It’s about our identity.”

Mr. Tsipras pledged to implement the “national road map for Pontic Hellenism” that he presented and which “constitutes the basis for the State to support it in practice”.

  • In particular, he pledged that “in the next Parliament, which will have a majority of progressive forces, we will set up a permanent and lasting cross-party committee, which, in cooperation with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, will draw up and implement a specific plan of action for the international recognition of the Genocide of Pontic Hellenism the period 1914-1923”.
  • He pledged that the creation of a Museum dedicated to Pontic and Asia Minor Hellenism will proceed, as well as the recording and highlighting of other places of historical memory for Pontic Hellenism, with first the sanitariums of Aretsou where 20,000 souls perished. He recalled in particular that in May 2019, in Thessaloniki, he met as prime minister with all the Pontic Federations and Institutions, something that was happening for the first time, and it was decided to set up a “Committee to process proposals for the preservation of the Historical Memory of the Pontic Greeks”. The first step was the decision to create the Museum in the space granted to the Municipality of Pavlos Melas in Thessaloniki, together with the Museum of National Resistance. “Unfortunately, despite the declarations by the next government that it will proceed, this decision was not implemented.”
  • He pledged to “promote the learning of the rich history of Near Eastern Hellenism by strengthening the relevant references in school books. But also by actively supporting the Chair of Pontic Studies at AUTH, in the context of supporting our public universities”.
  • Mr. Tsipras pointed out that the conversion of the Hagia Sophia of Istanbul and the Hagia Sophia of Trebizond into Islamic mosques was a dark moment not only for the Greek but mainly for the world cultural heritage. “Therefore, we pledge that we will intensify the effort at the international and bilateral diplomatic level, for the protection of the Byzantine monuments in Turkey, which constitute world cultural heritage.”
  • He also pledged to change PD 99/1994 “in order to universally and irrevocably commemorate the Pontic genocide without moving the date from May 19, by organizing events at the state and self-governing level”
  • He pledged that the National Pension to ex-Soviet expatriates will be paid after 15 years of permanent residence and that uninsured elderly expatriates will receive the full relevant allowance.
  • He promised that with a new regulation, fines, surcharges and any kind of interest burdening the loans related to their residence will be deleted and from then on the remaining loan will be regulated for repayment in 240 interest-free installments with a higher installment of 100 euros per month. In particular he said that “it is unacceptable after such an economic crisis and after all the difficulties of the pandemic and the accuracy crisis that you experience every day to be faced with the issuance of payment orders for the seizure of your houses built with public guarantees”. It is unacceptable, he emphasized, that the government in May 2020 passed a decree “by which it says that any of the retirees who have a problem repaying their housing loan must either join the bankruptcy, or repay in 120 installments”. “As if the returnees who have gone through all that they have gone through to come to Greece are not a special case and as if the public has not guaranteed these loans”, he said, commenting: “Only the 400 million that the ND owes is special case”.
  • Finally, he committed to simplifying citizenship procedures based on European standards.

Mr. Tsipras referred extensively to the history of Pontic Hellenism: “It begins in the times of myth and the first Greek colonizations. When the ‘Axenos Pontos’, i.e. the inhospitable sea, turned into a hospitable one – i.e. the Black Sea – the period when the Greeks created more than 70 cities and towns throughout its circumference. But the area which over the centuries will have the most stable historical continuity and massiveness in terms of population, will be the Asia Minor Pontus. The city-states will first be created there, while in the Middle Ages it will constitute ‘Deep Greece’ as the ‘Arab chroniclers’ refer to the Kingdom of Pontus. And there in 1204 the Empire of Trebizond of the Great Komnenos will be created. But even after the fall of Trebizond to the Ottoman Empire, 8 years after the Fall of the City, Pontic Hellenism will remain alive and flourish again in the second half of the 19th century. Of course, we all know the tragic continuation of this brilliant history, in a catastrophic period with millions of dead, marked by the rise of the Young Turks in 1908, the First World War, the collapse of the Ottoman Empire and the conflicts of the great powers in the region, the assertion of political self-determination by Hellenism and – as it turned out – the disastrous and illusory hopes that were created around the Asia Minor Campaign. And above all, the genocide suffered by Hellenism and other non-Muslim populations by the Ottoman and Turkish states from 1914 to 1923. This history was painted in blood and pain, bringing a civilization of thousands of years to its dramatic end.”

The president of SYRIZA noted that these events opened a new chapter, not only for Pontic Hellenism, but for the course of our country. “Those who managed to escape and come to Greece as refugees contributed to the creation of a new society from which we all come. The refugees who arrived in Greece faced great difficulties and often the miserable questioning of even their Greek identity which they fought so hard to protect”. He emphasized that despite the suffering and discredit they received, they not only survived but contributed decisively to the economic, political, cultural and spiritual development of our country. The economy was revitalized, our democracy acquired a new, deeper and more essential content, he said, also emphasizing the contribution to culture and the labor movement.

“At the same time, those of the Pontians who did not come to Greece after the end of the wars and remained especially in Southern Russia and in the region of Mariupol, became agents of an amazing cultural renaissance in the period between the wars. Unfortunately, even there, during the Stalinist period, they would suffer repression, executions, persecutions towards Central Asia and the banning of the Greek language. We all know your hard story. Your exit to Greece since 1965 and especially after the fall of the Soviet Union. The invitation to the Pontians of the former Soviet Union by the Greek state in the early 2000s, to reside in Greece with state-guaranteed loans for their homes,” he continued.

“This is your history and this is the truth about the course of Pontic Hellenism,” said Mr. Tsipras, emphasizing that “the highlighting, the recognition of the historical truth and the preservation of historical memory is a struggle not only for the past, but mainly for the present and the future. Because the generations to come will only be safe when we can deal with the causes that cause genocides, ethnic cleansing and conflicts.” So, he noted, “that we never again have refugees and immigrants leave their homes in the Middle East because of the conflicts there and the destructive policies of the West. And let’s not have wars in Europe, in Ukraine, with thousands of Ukrainians of Greek origin leaving the historic city of Mariupol for Hellenism, as happened after the bloody Russian invasion.”