HELLENISM A QUESTION OF SURVIVAL?
With all the negative discussions in the press about GREECE, I present the following as ‘food for thought’: -
There are one people who have the golden formula and community structure to sustain and maintain them in the Diaspora! Their population numbers are always on the increase and they integrate very well in the host country, but they never assimilate and thus never disappear and become extinct over time.
On the other hand, this ‘chosen people’ have a tremendous success all over the world. They have their own religion which they do not share with any other nation or nationality; they keep alive their religion, their language, their identity, their traditions and culture from one generation to the next. From their estimated small number of mixed marriages, 95% of the children from these marriages adopt the ethnic identity, religion, language, culture and traditions of the ‘chosen people’. (Unlike the great majority of children from Greek mixed marriages.)
All the Jewish children go predominantly to Jewish schools (bi-lingual religious schools) all over the globe. At these educational institutions, they are instructed and are taught thoroughly about their religion, language, identity, culture, history and traditions. There they obtain their own national/ethnic conscience and sense of loyalty to their mother country. Their children do not suffer or adopt an ‘inferiority complex’ because they are taught everything which has to do with their own ancestors and their own history (unlike Greek Orthodox Christian children who are not). They are not brain-washed with the history and throw-away religious beliefs from a foreign nationality and ethnicity! They are effectively taught nationalism in such a successful and responsible way which guarantees their survival as a nation and people!
The Jewish People live their dreams, they achieve their goals in life, they have tremendous success in all fields and they achieve success in all fields of human endeavour – WHY?
The Jewish People never turn their backs on their own nationality, ethnicity or people! Mostly ( 99% of the time) they always marry a person of their own ethnicity and people. They are proud to make their contribution, their duty to sustain, maintain and keep alive (in other words, the ‘survival’) of the Jewish People, religion, language, identity, tradition, culture and deep love and affection for their mother Country – EREZT ISRAEL-
I can only ask the question – WHAT ARE WE GREEKS DOING ABOUT HELLENISM? Can we out do the example of the chosen people? If not, can we at least match it! That is the challenge before us.
THE VANISHING OF CONSCIOUS HELLENISM
Minas Savvas, Ph.D.
Professor of American Literature and Creative Writing
San Diego State University, California
I was invited as a participant in a panel discussion entitled “The Future of Hellenism in America.” The other panelists were a professor of philosophy and a professor of ancient history. The professor of philosophy spoke about the modem borrowings and inspirations that sprang from the glorious achievements of the ancient Greeks. He enumerated some of the plays, operas, musical compositions and artistic works in subsequent centuries that would not have been possible without the legacy of Hellenism. The historian, the only non-Greek in the panel, echoed the philosopher, praised the ancient thinkers that all people must cherish and expressed his optimism for the Hellenic ideals.
When my turn came, I spoke about Greek America by reminding the audience that we are addressing our remarks on the future of genuine Greekness. Pessimism, of course, has never been popular, so I was obliged to qualify my remarks by explaining that my kind of Hellenism is not just history and culture in their bare reality, in their invulnerable substance. Such Hellenism is bound to survive, in spite of the barbarians at the gates – the afrocentrsts, multiculturalists and cultural relativists. My Hellenism, I explained, is impassioned knowledge. It is a compulsive affection, not unconditional (as chauvinism would be) but persistent and true. It is getting a lump in your throat when the Greek national anthem is heard or when you read some lines from George Seferis or Yiannis Ritsos. It is the Hellenism that will bring those involuntary tears to your eyes when a Greek village girl stands on the Olympic winner’s platform while the Greek flag is raised and the flutters on the high mast. It is the gloating and rejoicing when you read Sappho’s lyrics or Thucydides judicious prose. It is the urge to wish to fight back when you hear or read Greece and the Greeks are unfairly denigrated. {It would be chauvinism, however, if one did so when the criticism was fair}.
Far from chauvinism, my Hellenism is an instinctive, patriotic love for a vulnerable, much-tormented, achievement-rich, little country where I first saw the sun’s light. Yes, I am cautiously pessimistic about my kind of Hellenism in, say, the year 2060. What with intermarriage [ estimates of Greeks marrying outside of their ethnic origin now range from 65% to 80% ], with no migrants from Greece, and with the third and fourth generation having their consciousness rapidly and most noticeably diminish, I see no light in the end of the proverbial tunnel.
While some of us among the more ethnically vigilant, for instance, puffed our chests with pride because a Greek by the name of Tom Pappas was to represent the United States in the decathlon in the 2000 Sydney Olympics, the blond athlete himself was hardly aware that he was Greek. An article a few months after the Olympics, in the weekly The Greek American who interviewed him, pointed out that, “Toms only connection to his Greekness was his name.” (December 9-10, 2000). Tom is, in my view, the mainstream direction of the future, and, judging from similar examples, the future in some respects is already here.
Projections indeed suggest that even by 2040 Greek-American communities as we know them will be shadows of their former selves. AHEPA, the Pan Cretans, the Pan Arcadians, and other such organizations are already becoming geriatric. The lament “Where are the young? Is constant and persistent in specifically Hellenic organizations. Intermarriage and assimilation, already rampant, are bound to increase and though Greek names will still remain and may raise a knowing eyebrow or two, the throbbing musculature of Hellenism, that which is informed by passion and pride, is on its way to becoming a crumbling, osteoporotic skeleton. In certain pockets of America, I presume, even 50 years from now, we will still have the superficially Greek parochial festivals, with those Hellenes who are largely attracted by the catnip of mousaka and tsamiko. Yet, even these, I predict, will be smaller than and only remotely as Greek as we have come to know them in the twentieth century.
As for the role of the Greek Orthodox Church (if it will still be called “Greek Orthodox”), it will have – as it has for almost three decades – turned its back to ethniticity in general. I know there are exceptions, but the liturgy performed increasingly in English , the Church’s distance from secular celebrations, the galloping multiplications of converts, in both clergy and laity, should lead us to some conspicuous conclusions. Patriarch Bartolommeo’s recent unfortunate comment that the Church needs to be divorced from Hellenism is indeed a portent of the future. That the Phanar recently did not permit the patriotic Archbishop Christodoulos to lead the Greek Independence parade in New York should not surprise us.
Though my cynicism does not consort with some strident anti-clerical Greeks who think of the Church as the perennial enemy of Hellenism, there are those who will even argue that in general the Church in America has been trying to subvert Hellenism for decades, forgetting the inextricable connection of the language of the Gospels with the essence of Orthodoxy or of the importance of Hellenic (even if pagan - Hellenic National Religion and Faith) thought to the precepts of the early fathers and of Greek Orthodox theology. But I do surmise that here and there in the Orthodox churches of the future there will still be encouragement for those festivals. Such celebrations, after all, will help to raise funds and those for whom the name Aristotle can only mean Onassis will be parishioners who will have to understand that such ethnic affairs must emphasize more than Hellenism and that in themselves they are unnecessary to being a good Orthodox steward.
I hope, of course, that I am mistaken in my pessimism. And I do wish that my optimism were not so overwhelmed by my pessimism. Oh, yes, I do hope that if there is light at the end of the tunnel it is not the oncoming train. I even could here find it possible to light a candle, besides cursing the darkness. Though diluted and with some of the passion diminished, genuine Greekness may survive with people, Greek or non-Greek, who will concentrate on its values and its ideals. Some of the young Orthodox converts may indeed see beyond the religiosity; some non-Greek mates may move beyond the culinary and such and become truly interested in the essence of their partner’s ethnicity.
Non-Greeks, in general, may indeed out-Hellenize the shallow Hellenes as they become what Isocrates called “participants in our education” (“tis imeteras paideias metehontes”). In turn (and I have met such people) they may indeed promulgate the glory and ideals of Hellenism with an intellectual (even if not patriotic) zeal. It may be that our secular organizations will soon be alarmed enough to institute and subsidize schools – tutorial or of any other kind – that will teach the young their Hellenic heritage and culture. Perhaps, as well, such organizations will initiate closer and more frequent contact with the motherland.
Concurrently, the Greek government itself will have to increase its serious involvement in such endeavors. One can also hope that there will be more and better sponsored trips for our youth to Greece, organized by both the Greek state and our diaspora organizations, and all in consonance with the accelerated program of Greek teaching in the language, the culture and the history of mother Hellas. In this regard, a genuine, continuous dialogue between Hellas and the Hellenic diaspora is bound to enrich both. There is also a ray of hope in the “Greek Chairs” being instituted in American universities, though I do wonder how committed their graduates will become to their acquired Hellenism.
The Greekness whose gradual loss I lament here is a mode of thought and the love and passion that accompany it. For a culture to persist, its past and simple nostalgia, though very important, are not enough. To sustain themselves, traditions must stand fast at their core but ought to carve new pathways into the future. The diminution of Greekness does have much to do with the imperatives of evolution. Each generation, by the very nature of things, is bound to adopt its beliefs, its own priorities and its own perceptions. And yet, in my constitutionally-protected opinion, the Greek Americans, though commendable in many ways, have not done enough to sustain what is significant in their ethnicity; to pass on to their offspring the pride that comes from knowing who they are. Even if something of what had been may be salvaged, as I have here suggested, overall, I am sadly compelled to feel that we are headed toward “the cursed misfortune” of succumbing to their fate.
MONDO GRECO
THE GREEK-AMERICAN EXPERIENCE
FALL 2001 – SPRING 2002
WILL THE JEWISH PEOPLE IN THE DIASPORA CONTINUE TO GROW AND FLOURISH?
WILL THE HELLENIC PEOPLE IN THE DIASPORA DISSAPEAR AND BECOME EXTINCT?
ΕΛΛΗΝΙΣΜΟΣ ΖΗΤΗΜΑ ΕΠΙΒΙΩΣΗΣ
Με όλες τις αρνητικές συζητήσεις στον Τύπο σχετικά με την ΕΛΛΆΔΑ, θα παρουσιάσω την ακόλουθη ως «τροφή για σκέψη»: -
Υπάρχουν μία ομάδα ανθρώπων που έχουν τη χρυσή λύσει και τη δομή της κοινότητας τους, για τη διατήρηση τους στη Διασπορά! Η αριθμοί του πληθυσμού τους είναι πάντα σχετική με την αύξηση και η ενσωμάτωση τους πολύ καλή στης χώρες υποδοχής, αλλά ποτέ δεν αφομοιώνονται και έτσι ποτέ δεν εξαφανίζονται με την πάροδο του χρόνου.
Από την άλλη πλευρά, «ο εκλεκτός λαός» έχει τεράστια επιτυχία σε όλο τον κόσμο. Έχουν τη δική τους θρησκεία που δεν μοιράζονται με οποιοδήποτε άλλο έθνος ή εθνικότητα! Κρατούν ζωντανή τη θρησκεία τους, τη γλώσσα τους, την ταυτότητά τους, τις παραδόσεις και τον πολιτισμό τους από τη μια γενιά στην επόμενη. Από το 2% μικτών γάμων τους, το 99% των παιδιών από αυτούς τους γάμους εγκρίνει (διαλέγει) την εθνοτική ταυτότητα, τη θρησκεία, τη γλώσσα, τον πολιτισμό και τις παραδόσεις του «εκλεκτού λαού». (Σε αντίθεση με τη μεγάλη πλειοψηφία των παιδιών από ελληνικούς μεικτούς γάμους.)
Όλα τα εβραϊκά παιδιά πηγαίνουν κατά κύριο λόγο σε εβραϊκά σχολεία (δίγλωσσα θρησκευτικά σχολεία) σε όλο τον κόσμο. Σε αυτά τα εκπαιδευτικά ιδρύματα,δίνεται εντολή να διδάσκονται σε βάθος σχετικά με τη θρησκεία, τη γλώσσα τους, την ταυτότητα, τον πολιτισμό, την ιστορία και τις παραδόσεις τους. Έτσι αποκτούν τη δική τους εθνική / εθνοτική συνείδηση, αφοσίωση και την αίσθηση της πίστης στη χώρα προέλευσής τους (το Ισραήλ). Τα παιδιά τους ποτέ δεν θα υποστούν ή θα υιοθετήσουν «σύνδρομο κατωτερότητας» γιατί διδάσκονται τα πάντα που έχει να κάνει με τους δικούς προγόνους τους και τη δική τους ιστορία (σε αντίθεση με τα παιδιά της ελληνικής ορθόδοξης χριστιανικής θρησκείας). Δεν τους γίνετε πλήσην εγκέφαλος - με την ιστορία και αναλώσιμα θρησκευτικές πεποιθήσεις από μια ξένη υπηκοότητα και εθνότητα! Γίνετε σωστή και αποτελεσματική διδασκαλία του εθνικισμού με τέτοια επιτυχία και υπεύθυνο τρόπο που να εγγυάται την επιβίωσή τους ως έθνος και λαό!
Η εβραϊκή πολίτες (άνθρωποι) ζουν τα όνειρά τους, επιτυγχάνουν τους στόχους τους στη ζωή, έχουν τεράστια επιτυχία σε όλους τους τομείς και επιτυχία σε όλους τους τομείς της ανθρώπινης προσπάθειας - ΓΙΑΤΊ;
Ο εβραϊκός λαός ποτέ δεν γερνά την πλάτη του στη δική του εθνικότητα, φυλή ή λαό! Κυρίως το 99% τους παντρεύονται πάντα ένα πρόσωπο της δικής τους εθνικότητας. Είναι περήφανοι για να καταβάλουν το μερίδιό τους (προσφορά τους), το καθήκον τους να διατηρήσουν, και να κρατήσουν ζωντανή (με άλλα λόγια, την "επιβίωσης") του εβραϊκού λαού, τη θρησκεία, τη γλώσσα, την ταυτότητα, την παράδοση, τον πολιτισμό και την βαθιά αγάπη και στοργή για την πατρίδα τους - EREZT ΙΣΡΑΉΛ-
Μπορώ να κάνω μόνο την ερώτηση - εμείς η ΕΛΛΗΝΕΣ ΤΗ ΚΆΝΟΜΕ ΓΙΑ ΤΩΝ ΕΛΛΗΝΙΣΜΌ; Μπορούμε να ΞΕΠΕΡΆΣΟΥΜΕ το παράδειγμα του εκλεκτού λαού; Αν όχι, μπορούμε τουλάχιστον να ισοβαθμεισομε μαζί τους! Αυτή είναι η πρόκληση που έχουμε μπροστά μας.
Προς όλους τους ΕΛΛΗΝΕΣ
Για να αλλάξουμε αυτήν την χώρα
πρέπει πρώτα να αλλάξουμε τους εαυτούς μας,
το ξέρω είναι δύσκολο μα όχι ακατόρθωτο......
εγώ προσπαθώ κάθε μέρα.....
για μένα,για εσάς και τα παιδιά μας.....
Σωκράτης ( φιλόσοφος αρχαίας Αθήνας ).
.................................................................
With all the negative discussions in the press about GREECE, I present the following as ‘food for thought’: -
There are one people who have the golden formula and community structure to sustain and maintain them in the Diaspora! Their population numbers are always on the increase and they integrate very well in the host country, but they never assimilate and thus never disappear and become extinct over time.
On the other hand, this ‘chosen people’ have a tremendous success all over the world. They have their own religion which they do not share with any other nation or nationality; they keep alive their religion, their language, their identity, their traditions and culture from one generation to the next. From their estimated small number of mixed marriages, 95% of the children from these marriages adopt the ethnic identity, religion, language, culture and traditions of the ‘chosen people’. (Unlike the great majority of children from Greek mixed marriages.)
All the Jewish children go predominantly to Jewish schools (bi-lingual religious schools) all over the globe. At these educational institutions, they are instructed and are taught thoroughly about their religion, language, identity, culture, history and traditions. There they obtain their own national/ethnic conscience and sense of loyalty to their mother country. Their children do not suffer or adopt an ‘inferiority complex’ because they are taught everything which has to do with their own ancestors and their own history (unlike Greek Orthodox Christian children who are not). They are not brain-washed with the history and throw-away religious beliefs from a foreign nationality and ethnicity! They are effectively taught nationalism in such a successful and responsible way which guarantees their survival as a nation and people!
The Jewish People live their dreams, they achieve their goals in life, they have tremendous success in all fields and they achieve success in all fields of human endeavour – WHY?
The Jewish People never turn their backs on their own nationality, ethnicity or people! Mostly ( 99% of the time) they always marry a person of their own ethnicity and people. They are proud to make their contribution, their duty to sustain, maintain and keep alive (in other words, the ‘survival’) of the Jewish People, religion, language, identity, tradition, culture and deep love and affection for their mother Country – EREZT ISRAEL-
I can only ask the question – WHAT ARE WE GREEKS DOING ABOUT HELLENISM? Can we out do the example of the chosen people? If not, can we at least match it! That is the challenge before us.
THE VANISHING OF CONSCIOUS HELLENISM
Minas Savvas, Ph.D.
Professor of American Literature and Creative Writing
San Diego State University, California
I was invited as a participant in a panel discussion entitled “The Future of Hellenism in America.” The other panelists were a professor of philosophy and a professor of ancient history. The professor of philosophy spoke about the modem borrowings and inspirations that sprang from the glorious achievements of the ancient Greeks. He enumerated some of the plays, operas, musical compositions and artistic works in subsequent centuries that would not have been possible without the legacy of Hellenism. The historian, the only non-Greek in the panel, echoed the philosopher, praised the ancient thinkers that all people must cherish and expressed his optimism for the Hellenic ideals.
When my turn came, I spoke about Greek America by reminding the audience that we are addressing our remarks on the future of genuine Greekness. Pessimism, of course, has never been popular, so I was obliged to qualify my remarks by explaining that my kind of Hellenism is not just history and culture in their bare reality, in their invulnerable substance. Such Hellenism is bound to survive, in spite of the barbarians at the gates – the afrocentrsts, multiculturalists and cultural relativists. My Hellenism, I explained, is impassioned knowledge. It is a compulsive affection, not unconditional (as chauvinism would be) but persistent and true. It is getting a lump in your throat when the Greek national anthem is heard or when you read some lines from George Seferis or Yiannis Ritsos. It is the Hellenism that will bring those involuntary tears to your eyes when a Greek village girl stands on the Olympic winner’s platform while the Greek flag is raised and the flutters on the high mast. It is the gloating and rejoicing when you read Sappho’s lyrics or Thucydides judicious prose. It is the urge to wish to fight back when you hear or read Greece and the Greeks are unfairly denigrated. {It would be chauvinism, however, if one did so when the criticism was fair}.
Far from chauvinism, my Hellenism is an instinctive, patriotic love for a vulnerable, much-tormented, achievement-rich, little country where I first saw the sun’s light. Yes, I am cautiously pessimistic about my kind of Hellenism in, say, the year 2060. What with intermarriage [ estimates of Greeks marrying outside of their ethnic origin now range from 65% to 80% ], with no migrants from Greece, and with the third and fourth generation having their consciousness rapidly and most noticeably diminish, I see no light in the end of the proverbial tunnel.
While some of us among the more ethnically vigilant, for instance, puffed our chests with pride because a Greek by the name of Tom Pappas was to represent the United States in the decathlon in the 2000 Sydney Olympics, the blond athlete himself was hardly aware that he was Greek. An article a few months after the Olympics, in the weekly The Greek American who interviewed him, pointed out that, “Toms only connection to his Greekness was his name.” (December 9-10, 2000). Tom is, in my view, the mainstream direction of the future, and, judging from similar examples, the future in some respects is already here.
Projections indeed suggest that even by 2040 Greek-American communities as we know them will be shadows of their former selves. AHEPA, the Pan Cretans, the Pan Arcadians, and other such organizations are already becoming geriatric. The lament “Where are the young? Is constant and persistent in specifically Hellenic organizations. Intermarriage and assimilation, already rampant, are bound to increase and though Greek names will still remain and may raise a knowing eyebrow or two, the throbbing musculature of Hellenism, that which is informed by passion and pride, is on its way to becoming a crumbling, osteoporotic skeleton. In certain pockets of America, I presume, even 50 years from now, we will still have the superficially Greek parochial festivals, with those Hellenes who are largely attracted by the catnip of mousaka and tsamiko. Yet, even these, I predict, will be smaller than and only remotely as Greek as we have come to know them in the twentieth century.
As for the role of the Greek Orthodox Church (if it will still be called “Greek Orthodox”), it will have – as it has for almost three decades – turned its back to ethniticity in general. I know there are exceptions, but the liturgy performed increasingly in English , the Church’s distance from secular celebrations, the galloping multiplications of converts, in both clergy and laity, should lead us to some conspicuous conclusions. Patriarch Bartolommeo’s recent unfortunate comment that the Church needs to be divorced from Hellenism is indeed a portent of the future. That the Phanar recently did not permit the patriotic Archbishop Christodoulos to lead the Greek Independence parade in New York should not surprise us.
Though my cynicism does not consort with some strident anti-clerical Greeks who think of the Church as the perennial enemy of Hellenism, there are those who will even argue that in general the Church in America has been trying to subvert Hellenism for decades, forgetting the inextricable connection of the language of the Gospels with the essence of Orthodoxy or of the importance of Hellenic (even if pagan - Hellenic National Religion and Faith) thought to the precepts of the early fathers and of Greek Orthodox theology. But I do surmise that here and there in the Orthodox churches of the future there will still be encouragement for those festivals. Such celebrations, after all, will help to raise funds and those for whom the name Aristotle can only mean Onassis will be parishioners who will have to understand that such ethnic affairs must emphasize more than Hellenism and that in themselves they are unnecessary to being a good Orthodox steward.
I hope, of course, that I am mistaken in my pessimism. And I do wish that my optimism were not so overwhelmed by my pessimism. Oh, yes, I do hope that if there is light at the end of the tunnel it is not the oncoming train. I even could here find it possible to light a candle, besides cursing the darkness. Though diluted and with some of the passion diminished, genuine Greekness may survive with people, Greek or non-Greek, who will concentrate on its values and its ideals. Some of the young Orthodox converts may indeed see beyond the religiosity; some non-Greek mates may move beyond the culinary and such and become truly interested in the essence of their partner’s ethnicity.
Non-Greeks, in general, may indeed out-Hellenize the shallow Hellenes as they become what Isocrates called “participants in our education” (“tis imeteras paideias metehontes”). In turn (and I have met such people) they may indeed promulgate the glory and ideals of Hellenism with an intellectual (even if not patriotic) zeal. It may be that our secular organizations will soon be alarmed enough to institute and subsidize schools – tutorial or of any other kind – that will teach the young their Hellenic heritage and culture. Perhaps, as well, such organizations will initiate closer and more frequent contact with the motherland.
Concurrently, the Greek government itself will have to increase its serious involvement in such endeavors. One can also hope that there will be more and better sponsored trips for our youth to Greece, organized by both the Greek state and our diaspora organizations, and all in consonance with the accelerated program of Greek teaching in the language, the culture and the history of mother Hellas. In this regard, a genuine, continuous dialogue between Hellas and the Hellenic diaspora is bound to enrich both. There is also a ray of hope in the “Greek Chairs” being instituted in American universities, though I do wonder how committed their graduates will become to their acquired Hellenism.
The Greekness whose gradual loss I lament here is a mode of thought and the love and passion that accompany it. For a culture to persist, its past and simple nostalgia, though very important, are not enough. To sustain themselves, traditions must stand fast at their core but ought to carve new pathways into the future. The diminution of Greekness does have much to do with the imperatives of evolution. Each generation, by the very nature of things, is bound to adopt its beliefs, its own priorities and its own perceptions. And yet, in my constitutionally-protected opinion, the Greek Americans, though commendable in many ways, have not done enough to sustain what is significant in their ethnicity; to pass on to their offspring the pride that comes from knowing who they are. Even if something of what had been may be salvaged, as I have here suggested, overall, I am sadly compelled to feel that we are headed toward “the cursed misfortune” of succumbing to their fate.
MONDO GRECO
THE GREEK-AMERICAN EXPERIENCE
FALL 2001 – SPRING 2002
WILL THE JEWISH PEOPLE IN THE DIASPORA CONTINUE TO GROW AND FLOURISH?
WILL THE HELLENIC PEOPLE IN THE DIASPORA DISSAPEAR AND BECOME EXTINCT?
ΕΛΛΗΝΙΣΜΟΣ ΖΗΤΗΜΑ ΕΠΙΒΙΩΣΗΣ
Με όλες τις αρνητικές συζητήσεις στον Τύπο σχετικά με την ΕΛΛΆΔΑ, θα παρουσιάσω την ακόλουθη ως «τροφή για σκέψη»: -
Υπάρχουν μία ομάδα ανθρώπων που έχουν τη χρυσή λύσει και τη δομή της κοινότητας τους, για τη διατήρηση τους στη Διασπορά! Η αριθμοί του πληθυσμού τους είναι πάντα σχετική με την αύξηση και η ενσωμάτωση τους πολύ καλή στης χώρες υποδοχής, αλλά ποτέ δεν αφομοιώνονται και έτσι ποτέ δεν εξαφανίζονται με την πάροδο του χρόνου.
Από την άλλη πλευρά, «ο εκλεκτός λαός» έχει τεράστια επιτυχία σε όλο τον κόσμο. Έχουν τη δική τους θρησκεία που δεν μοιράζονται με οποιοδήποτε άλλο έθνος ή εθνικότητα! Κρατούν ζωντανή τη θρησκεία τους, τη γλώσσα τους, την ταυτότητά τους, τις παραδόσεις και τον πολιτισμό τους από τη μια γενιά στην επόμενη. Από το 2% μικτών γάμων τους, το 99% των παιδιών από αυτούς τους γάμους εγκρίνει (διαλέγει) την εθνοτική ταυτότητα, τη θρησκεία, τη γλώσσα, τον πολιτισμό και τις παραδόσεις του «εκλεκτού λαού». (Σε αντίθεση με τη μεγάλη πλειοψηφία των παιδιών από ελληνικούς μεικτούς γάμους.)
Όλα τα εβραϊκά παιδιά πηγαίνουν κατά κύριο λόγο σε εβραϊκά σχολεία (δίγλωσσα θρησκευτικά σχολεία) σε όλο τον κόσμο. Σε αυτά τα εκπαιδευτικά ιδρύματα,δίνεται εντολή να διδάσκονται σε βάθος σχετικά με τη θρησκεία, τη γλώσσα τους, την ταυτότητα, τον πολιτισμό, την ιστορία και τις παραδόσεις τους. Έτσι αποκτούν τη δική τους εθνική / εθνοτική συνείδηση, αφοσίωση και την αίσθηση της πίστης στη χώρα προέλευσής τους (το Ισραήλ). Τα παιδιά τους ποτέ δεν θα υποστούν ή θα υιοθετήσουν «σύνδρομο κατωτερότητας» γιατί διδάσκονται τα πάντα που έχει να κάνει με τους δικούς προγόνους τους και τη δική τους ιστορία (σε αντίθεση με τα παιδιά της ελληνικής ορθόδοξης χριστιανικής θρησκείας). Δεν τους γίνετε πλήσην εγκέφαλος - με την ιστορία και αναλώσιμα θρησκευτικές πεποιθήσεις από μια ξένη υπηκοότητα και εθνότητα! Γίνετε σωστή και αποτελεσματική διδασκαλία του εθνικισμού με τέτοια επιτυχία και υπεύθυνο τρόπο που να εγγυάται την επιβίωσή τους ως έθνος και λαό!
Η εβραϊκή πολίτες (άνθρωποι) ζουν τα όνειρά τους, επιτυγχάνουν τους στόχους τους στη ζωή, έχουν τεράστια επιτυχία σε όλους τους τομείς και επιτυχία σε όλους τους τομείς της ανθρώπινης προσπάθειας - ΓΙΑΤΊ;
Ο εβραϊκός λαός ποτέ δεν γερνά την πλάτη του στη δική του εθνικότητα, φυλή ή λαό! Κυρίως το 99% τους παντρεύονται πάντα ένα πρόσωπο της δικής τους εθνικότητας. Είναι περήφανοι για να καταβάλουν το μερίδιό τους (προσφορά τους), το καθήκον τους να διατηρήσουν, και να κρατήσουν ζωντανή (με άλλα λόγια, την "επιβίωσης") του εβραϊκού λαού, τη θρησκεία, τη γλώσσα, την ταυτότητα, την παράδοση, τον πολιτισμό και την βαθιά αγάπη και στοργή για την πατρίδα τους - EREZT ΙΣΡΑΉΛ-
Μπορώ να κάνω μόνο την ερώτηση - εμείς η ΕΛΛΗΝΕΣ ΤΗ ΚΆΝΟΜΕ ΓΙΑ ΤΩΝ ΕΛΛΗΝΙΣΜΌ; Μπορούμε να ΞΕΠΕΡΆΣΟΥΜΕ το παράδειγμα του εκλεκτού λαού; Αν όχι, μπορούμε τουλάχιστον να ισοβαθμεισομε μαζί τους! Αυτή είναι η πρόκληση που έχουμε μπροστά μας.
Προς όλους τους ΕΛΛΗΝΕΣ
Για να αλλάξουμε αυτήν την χώρα
πρέπει πρώτα να αλλάξουμε τους εαυτούς μας,
το ξέρω είναι δύσκολο μα όχι ακατόρθωτο......
εγώ προσπαθώ κάθε μέρα.....
για μένα,για εσάς και τα παιδιά μας.....
Σωκράτης ( φιλόσοφος αρχαίας Αθήνας ).
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