Παρασκευή 2 Μαρτίου 2012

"Όνειρα και ελπίδα…"

Which countries, what dreams and journeys are you talking about, you incurably romantic Dreamer? Have you not yet understood that you are not being heard? Not because you do not have a voice. Rather because your voice is being extinguished in the ugly bray of the politicians, who allege to be thinking about you and bemoan your plight. Aloof, above the crowds, they proffer you solutions like discounted holidays in a sale at a travel agent's. Do you not understand - you ordinary humble Thinker - that they hide the truth from you? Do you not see that they withhold from you the fact that beyond the safety of your harbour lurk storms and calamities? They have made you believe that the sea is calm and the winds will always be fair. And so they have left you without a mast and your sails are in tatters.

Perhaps they are not to blame either as they themselves have not got them. Thus they fear those who refuse to hear the voice of their reasoning, and those who dare unfold their sails and set off towards vindication, brotherhood and the wider horizons. Yes, listen! The politicians fear those who dare gaze at the distant horizons which they themselves cannot perceive. And all these bright and colourful mutterings are nothing compared to the deep concealed desire of the strong-hearted: to regain that of which time has robbed them, and which has been preserved for you by the resistant memory. Because the things in which you put trust, no one can take from you: your voice, your dreams and your hopes. But those who, by any means, would have you return to their familiar shores, either openly or stealthily, tentatively but insolently reach out and tear the sails of your heart into shreds so as to feed the insatiable ambition of their inflated ego.

The bombastic words which you hear today, spoken from the smarmy lips of those who have not yet had their fill of their soiled feast, represent the cracks in the decrepit system and the rotten society which they themselves have laboured to dissolve. And you, you the incurable Romantic, who think with your heart, you know that - without a struggle and daring - the great journeys may never take place, that you may never glimpse new horizons, nor may you ever chart new ways. You know very well that those nations who banish the dream-captains lose their way amidst the narrow streets where their shiny-suited politicians lead them.
The nations which in the stormy and painful times of despondency blindly follow the social climbers along their desultory path meet only one end: they sink screaming into darkness. And yet you do understand that dreams and hopes are born and nourished within silence. Ah, you foolish Person, you Dreamer who would dare dream!… To dare means not just to dream but to venture against the waves, to take hold of the helm like a captain who seeks the Ithaca of his heart and his fatherland; who ideally carves his way with the tools of love, of humanness, and those of brotherhood.

Yes, you incurable Romantic… only a Romantic can dare to hold the stars in his arms and let this be his mark and, through the power of his reasoning, may strive to change the world. Ah, the Romantic Revolutionary, do not let the sweet-wrapped fulsome words of the wild quarrelsome voices drag you away from the potent voice of your silence. Whether you will take your pain and despair and head for tomorrow with hope depends only on you."