MY SWEET HOMELAND Written by Konstantinos Konstantinidis Amphiktyon Socrates: “Mother and father and of all other ancestors, the Fatherland is more honorable than all others” Euripides Temenidai: Those who love the homeland must by every word and in every way work for its unity “Eikos is everywhere and reason and engine of the homeland, seeking to work out salvation” The same: Never tire of trying to set foot in the homeland “Do not make the homeland yours while being tempted” Euripides Fonissai: The homeland’s love for man is the greatest, as it seems and you cannot even say how much the homeland is beloved “The fatherland, as it was inhabited by a friend, you eat it You can’t even be called a friend if you are a friend” Euripides’ Aeolus: A black life to leave the borders of the fatherland “Bitter the ages of the fatherland, the lost borders” Euripides’ Aegeus: What is dearer to a man than his native land “For what fatherland is a man more beloved than earth?” Euripides’ Dictyos: You would be so bad if you weren’t You would never despise your homeland “If you were not bad at all, you would never be bad at all if you were a father Homer: One of all omens is the best to defend your homeland “It is an excellent omen to defend one’s homeland” The same: But Odysseus is enough to see the smoke rising from his homeland, even if he dies “But Odysseus, remaining and breathing smoke, thinks of the earth, and is destined to die” The same: Nothing is sweeter than homeland and parents “As no sweetness of homeland or of the land” Sophocles Antigone: I would never consider a friend of my country an enemy “Not if I had been a friend to a man I would have hated a hostile earth myself..” These were the words of our wise ancestors, who remained free and were glorified and bestowed upon us world civilization. What do we tell our children about our homeland, our heroes, our wise men? Internationalism and the denial of our homeland will transform us into a mass that will easily dissolve and we will be enslaved and disappear. Our identity must be our language, our ancestral religion, our customs and traditions, our timeless values, our attachment to the roots of our race (omaemo) and with these resources and with modern technological civilization we can shine in the world. But first and foremost, let them remain free