Anniversaries are celebrated or marked every year.
That repetition, however, does not in the least diminish the importance of the event of which they remind us.
It has been 48 years since Greece’s post-regime change democracy [following the collapse of the seven-year military junta] was established, but preserving it requires a daily struggle, because as some politicians are wont to say, it is a difficult sport.
With that, and the conditions that have created successive crises in Greece and in Europe more broadly in mind, President Katerina Sakellaropoulou, in her speech at the annual reception at the presidential mansion marking the anniversary of the restoration of democracy, sent a clear message against populism.
She correctly stressed that populism takes root in the fertile ground provided by internal contradictions and inequality.
The president rightly reminded us that “the institutional counterweights [to populism] are the foundations of the rule of law, and they cannot be subjected to majorities [of public opinion’s sense of justice] or fleeting correlations [of events]”.
These are precisely the characteristics of our form of government that we must not forget, as they guarantee its very substance, and consequently our own liberties.
As all Western democracies, Greece’s today faces difficult dilemmas and tough choices with which the energy crisis and galloping inflation have confronted it.
There appears to be a revival of populism, which exploits the natural anxieties of citizens regarding the tough winter that lies ahead.
Yet, it is up to us not to allow them to sway us.
We must not forget that even when they highlight real problems, they always offer impracticable solutions.
