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Founded in July 2019, just days after that year’s parliamentary elections in Greece, Niki (Victory) will participate in its first national election on May 21, 2023. In response to the growing credibility crisis afflicting the Greek political sphere—which is challenging Nea Dimokratia (New Democracy), the center-Right party currently governing the country—several parties identifying themselves as right-wing, conservative, and/or patriotic have launched in recent years and will all be vying for parliamentary representation this year.
Niki, which identifies itself as a democratic patriotic movement, is one such party. It differentiates itself from other right-wing parties because it rejects the entrenched partisan system and personality-centric parties that are characteristic of Greek electoral politics. The party’s platform emphasizes education and the Greek Orthodox faith. It focuses on Greece’s unresolved national geopolitical issues, policies oriented towards the family and a reversal of Greece’s population decline, and a stance favorable towards Europe as a community of distinct nation states.
Niki’s founding president, Dimitris Natsios, a theologian, writer, and primary school teacher based in the northern Greek town of Kilkis, is known for opposing the use of school textbooks that promote revisionist views on the Greek language, history, the Orthodox faith, and content inappropriate for young children. He recently spoke to The European Conservative about Niki, Greece’s upcoming elections, the country’s political landscape, and the importance of the Orthodox faith in Greece’s history, culture, and its future.
Romiosini, the term that we use for Hellenism, existed long before the terms you mentioned were invented during the Greek Revolution of 1821. For example, when the revolution began, the great revolutionary Theodoros Kolokotronis was not on the Left or the Right. He was considered a nationalist. That perfectly sums up Niki today. Our efforts are not concerned with those labels, but we want to restore the virtues of Romiosini, to remember from whom we are descended. I will refer to one of our great historians, Konstantinos Paparigopoulos, who connects Romiosini, and Byzantium with modern Greece. There is a strong connection. Responding to the claim that we are the descendants of the ancient Greeks, Paparigopoulos says that you can’t be a direct descendant of your grandfather. You are a direct descendant of your father, and our ‘father’ is Byzantium.
Paparigopoulos also argues that for nations to progress, they need to proceed forward—except for the Greeks, who need to look back in history. This is Niki’s position. However, this ‘looking back’ does not refer to a sort of sterile conservatism or a base-level glorification of our ancestors. Instead, it refers to a fruitful dialogue with our history, so that we can find our footing with the rich inheritance that our ancestors have left us. We are using this inheritance as a springboard for a new effort. We have rich ancestral resources that we are depriving ourselves of, to our detriment.
Niki was launched approximately three-and-a-half years ago. We were encouraged to do so by some great Greeks, who have supported us in this patriotic democratic initiative. We are not politicians, and I stress this because in Greece today, the term ‘politician’ has been connected with indignity and lawlessness. The Greek people are not wrong when they blame our politicians for the country’s decline in the recent past. Here, I want to refer to a book by the philosopher Cornelius Castoriadis called The Rising Tide of Insignificance. What we’ve seen in Greece in the Metapolitefsi period—the period following the fall of the military dictatorship and restoration of democracy in 1974—which is the period of insignificance and of mediocrity. When mediocrity governs, the end result is where we find ourselves today.
Niki wants to end Greece’s rotten ‘partyocracy’ and to see this unfortunate but blessed land governed by people who come from the heart of our society, who understand day-to-day realities and challenges, but who also represent Greek values, such as philopatry, faith in Christ, and integrity of character. As long as our nation has spiritual antibodies, it can face any threat supported by our history and the unity of our people.
Every time there has been disunity in Greek ranks, disaster has followed, such as the Asia Minor catastrophe of 1922 or the invasion and occupation of Cyprus [by Turkey] in 1974. What we must work on cultivating—which I do not see happening at present—is unity amongst our people and with those institutions which can help forge those unbreakable bonds with our people and our past: our faith, the Orthodox Church, philopatry, our language, and our history. This is what we must cultivate, and if we do not do so today, we will not be able to move forward.
I recall a phrase about the Balkans, the region that we are a part of, which says that we quite often produce more history than we can consume. Our biggest national issue today are the ongoing threats from Turkey. This is not just a present-day phenomenon—this concern goes as far back as the Treaty of Lausanne in 1923. There is an ongoing effort by Turkey to fulfill the dream of restoring the Ottoman Empire, in some form or another. As a result, our nation has been on the defensive from the time of the Asia Minor catastrophe.
Greece’s official position today is that international law must be respected. I agree, but this is not enough: the morale of the people plays a significant role. This is something that I encounter with my students every day in my role as a teacher. If your morale is low, you’re essentially paralyzed. Our prime minister should not make public statements that respond to Turkish provocations. These statements will simply be ignored, as Ankara’s primary goal is to snatch our land and to revise numerous international treaties. Instead, he should look inward and raise the morale of our people. When the Turks threaten us, our response to them should be two simple words: Molon Labe! (Come and take!). Behind this phrase lies an entire history, an entire ideology, the history of our people. Here, I recall the words of our great poet Giorgos Seferis:
I belong to a small country. To a rocky peninsula on the Mediterranean, which has no other wealth but the efforts of its people, the sea and the light of the sun. Our country is small, but its tradition is immense and what characterizes it is that it has been passed on to us without interruption.
This is the position we should adopt for all of our national issues, including the dispute over Macedonia’s name. As I am a Macedonian born and bred, I regard the signing of the Prespa Agreement [which recognizes the naming of ‘North Macedonia’] as the biggest treason committed by our country’s leaders in our history. It is true that Greece’s history contains many betrayals, such as that of Ephialtes at Thermopylae or Pilios Gousis at the Battle of Souli, during the Greek Revolution. However, it wasn’t our leaders that betrayed us. Leonidas fell during battle. The leaders at Souli continued their battle until death. With the Prespa Agreement, the betrayal was committed by the then-prime minister of Greece, Alexis Tsipras, and without us having sustained a loss on the battlefield. It was a concession, a betrayal, and it bothers me deeply as a Macedonian. One of the reasons I joined Niki was this agreement, and I believe that it can be thrown into the rubbish bin of history with the participation of our nation, which can pressure for this agreement to be abolished.
Europe is the world’s most important continent, and its name hearkens back to the Hellenic cultural heritage. Many of humanity’s greatest innovations were born here. Unfortunately, however, today Europe exports many ‘viruses,’ especially across the Atlantic, which then return to Europe as ‘illnesses.’ The European Union began as an excellent idea, conceived by figures such as Konrad Adenauer; but over time the EU devolved into what it is today. I wouldn’t quite call it a dictatorship, but it is a heavily flawed form of rule of the people. As a result, today we see secessionist trends, with many nations thinking of disconnecting from this institution. We already have seen the departure of Great Britain. Throughout Europe, we see the rise of movements which are characterized by some as ‘far-right’ or ‘Eurosceptic,’ but I think it is a good thing that people are slowly beginning to awaken.
The EU today is so devoid of substance and so devoid of standing that, at some point, it will no longer be able to continue. I believe it will collapse on its own. Why do I say this? Every nation has its own culture, its own language, and its own history, and they cannot be homogenized and blended into each other as the EU has tried to do. Nations cannot be connected purely on the basis of economic criteria, and from the beginning, there has been no common foreign policy or defense. This Europe will collapse, and the collapse won’t come from us: we’ll remain in the EU for as long as it exists. It is the continued existence of the EU itself that I am calling into question.
Increasingly, the people are turning their backs not only on the governing party, but also on the entire party system. The political landscape today is poisonous. Greece has some of the highest energy costs, the highest percentage of deaths from drugs and illicit substances, and the highest percentage of deaths from traffic accidents, among other things. This is a massive undeclared war. Another issue is the low birth rate. It is our biggest national problem, and nobody is doing anything about it. I read somewhere that we import more adult diapers than baby diapers. It is said that, at this rate, our population will be halved by 2050. And while handouts are provided to migrants who enter our country—450 or 500 euros per month and free utilities—what are these 30,000 or 40,000 impoverished Greek families receiving? Why don’t they qualify for the same benefits? It is because the state simply does not care about Greek citizens.
Niki has a slogan: paideia (education) and paidia (children)—two words that are etymologically related. The Greek government has set various income criteria for families with multiple children, which are contingent upon them not having any more children. Here, I must praise the prime minister of Hungary, Viktor Orbán. In the words of the ancient Greeks, when your enemy is praising you, you must ask yourself if you are doing something wrong—and vice versa. When we see all the corrupt intelligentsia of Europe criticizing Orbán, it means he is on the correct path. He wants Hungary to survive, and he wants Hungary to grow with Hungarians. We need the same thing to happen in Greece. When we have Turkey next door brimming with young blood, we do not have the right to drain our country’s population.
Greece is governed by a partyocracy and by nepotistic families. If we look at our country’s recent history, from 1974 to the present, we see a continuous exchange of power between three families. Greece has been experiencing a rather unique form of monarchical nepotism, and this state apparatus wields control over the so-called ‘fourth estate.’
If we look at our more ancient history, when Philip II of Macedon visited Pythia at the Temple of Apollo at Delphi before launching his campaign into Persia, Pythia told him to “fight with silver as a shield.” You don’t need metal shields or, indeed, to fight a battle—instead, if you want to buy hearts and minds, you simply need to distribute money. That is exactly what our partyocracy does in our country today: it distributes money to the media and controls everything; in particular, public opinion.
As a result, no serious-minded ‘patriotic’ movement has been able to develop in Greece under such conditions. This is because the system, via its captured mass media apparatus, gives rise to mediocrity and, indeed, controlled mediocrity—and worse. Our efforts with Niki are serious, and accordingly, there is no chance that the media will give us any attention. If they do, it will be simply to ridicule us. In our country, anything that is seen as philopatriotic is immediately attacked by all the agents of the political system, who will characterize it as ‘regressive’ and ‘far-right.’ This is why they continuously promote those who cast patriotism in a negative light.
We had, for instance, a political party known as Golden Dawn, which no longer exists. These people did some inexcusable things. Is it possible, in a country which lost a million people at the hands of the Nazis and Hitler, to give a Nazi salute, as they did? Yet, the system gave them plenty of coverage—a form of ‘blackwashing.’ In essence, pure patriotism was criminalized by association. There is another party today called Hellenic Solution, that also claims to promote patriotism. However, its leader, Kyriakos Velopoulos, is a creation of the existing system. Indeed, he voted in favor of the austerity measures that were imposed in Greece during the financial crisis.
Our goal at Niki is, in a serious and honorable way, to break free of this system and to give rise to a political movement that won’t simply earn some seats in Parliament, but that will change Greece. Our country deserves to have a leader at last and our people deserve to be led by leaders who are Romioi.
The really unfortunate thing is that historically elections haven’t changed anything. One worthless party has supplanted another. As I mentioned earlier when I referred to Kolokotronis, the labels ‘Left’ and ‘Right’ have become meaningless. There is no difference. These people follow the diktats of their bosses.
The question therefore remains, what will happen with the potential collaborations among the parties in Greece’s so-called ‘patriotic’ sphere? At Niki, we don’t consider ourselves ‘super Christians’ or ‘super Greeks,’ nor do we believe that we hold a monopoly over the truth. However, patriotism in Greece today is on life support, and various parties are attempting to mold it in accordance with their ideology or, worse, on the basis of fanaticism. Not all of them are patriots, which is an important word, even if it is a word I do not prefer. I prefer the term philopatry—the love towards the patrida, the fatherland, which has a more Romaic—or Byzantine—connotation.
Not everyone who calls himself a ‘patriot’ is a patriot. We have to be extremely careful. By way of analogy, if you have two or three clear rivers and you want to join them with one where the water is murky, the end result will be that the murky river will pollute the others. As a result, we in Niki believe that the best collaboration is with people who are well intentioned. That’s what our heritage has shown: when good people have joined together, then ‘miracles’ can happen. The Greek Revolution of 1821 was one such miracle. The Battle of Kilkis, during the Second Balkan War in 1913, was another such miracle. And there was yet another miracle in 1940-1941, when we routed the Italians.
It is true that God has not stopped performing miracles, but in order for such miracles to occur, He must see people doing their part. Miracles cannot occur if we sit on the couch. Today, many Greeks are sitting and waiting. Miracles occur through people who have the ‘madness’ of Kolokotronis, the ‘Elder of Morea,’ who in 1838 made a historic speech on Pnyx hill by the Acropolis: “Everyone called us mad. If we weren’t so crazy, we wouldn’t have made this Revolution.” Do we have such Kolokotroni-esque ‘madness’ today? To give another example, when the Battle of Kilkis ended, the Bulgarian general Nikola Ivanov said, “I had thought of everything, I had taken everything into consideration, except for the madness of the Greeks.” In the words of Greek philosopher, writer, and revolutionary Ion Dragoumis, “it was then that Greece was saved.”
It was Dostoevsky who likened the West to a “beautiful cemetery,” where we go and mourn our fate. I’ll respond using religious terminology once more: Hedonism is taking hold of the world today. I will refer to something that happened recently at the school where I teach, where some people came in and presented a seminar in which they said that the words ‘father’ and ‘mother’ are being abolished. These words are imbued with holiness, and are important words in our history and culture. The Greek word patrida, used all over the world, derives from the word pateras, or ‘father.’ In turn, ‘metropolitan’ comes from the Greek word mitera, or ‘mother.’ In other words, these individuals are trying to convince me that in the course I teach on religion, I can’t speak of the Mother of God, which, among other things, is part of the lyrics of the Axion Esti, one of the most beautiful and well-loved Marian hymns of the Eastern Church.
More broadly, you just can’t speak to 7- and 8-year-old children about such topics. And yet, I see precisely this effort to corrupt our children. At that age, a child is a child, a boy or a girl. And, if I may say this, there are about 50,000 or 60,000 primary school educators in Greece today. Do parents trust us? Do they know if all of us are mentally balanced? Have we received training on how to broach these topics with children without causing lifelong damage to them?
I believe the future of our nation won’t be determined either in the Maximos Mansion (the official seat of the Greek prime minister) or in Brussels. It will be determined in our classrooms. If these trends take hold, then parents should be prepared to weep over the ruins. We are already beginning to see this. That is why one of the main positions of Niki is that our country needs to regain Romaic paideia, in addition to successfully addressing the low birth rate.
It is already the case that our children do not think in terms of meanings, but in terms of images. In our schools, for instance, there is no regulation or restriction in place regarding the use of mobile phones by young children. I often conduct a small experiment in the classroom. I ask the children what gift they would like, if I could hypothetically purchase a gift for them. Their response invariably is a smartphone, the latest model. One of the most destructive aspects of this—not just for children but for everyone—is that by having a smartphone in your pocket or next to you, it creates the false impression that it is an extension of your mind. What I mean by this is that anytime you need to know a piece of information, you no longer need to study, which requires effort. Instead, you can instantly search for it on your phone.
You end up with the impression that you know everything even though your mind is, in fact, empty or filled with rubbish. These technologies are particularly enticing for young children. Unfortunately, parents are often themselves not mature enough, or cannot dedicate time to sit with their children. Feelings of guilt can propel a parent to gift their child technology or fill their pockets with money. This is destructive.
It was Plato who said that education isn’t viewing the mind as an empty vessel to be filled. It is light and the kindling of the soul. The Church Fathers would add to this that education is a sacrament of holiness. But if, today, I go to an educational conference and say such things, that the goal of education is holiness, I would be told I’m insane. And yet, it is precisely this that was always cultivated by Greek tradition, by our paideia.
It is imperative that we rediscover our value system, and thankfully, we Romioi know where to turn to. All these people, these politicians, need to leave and paideia once again needs to take center stage. There is still time for us to accomplish this, and as a teacher of young children, I can say that I’ve simply written off postmodern books and materials. There is hope, both among children and parents. I see how receptive they are when the riches of Greek tradition are taught.
We shouldn’t forget that it is out of our present-day Greek society that priests and clergy arise, just like teachers and everyone else. The Greek people have high expectations from the clergy, because the Church has always played a role in our national liberation and salvation. It was unlike the rest of Europe, where the clergy represented a social caste of its own. Our clergy always stood by and fought alongside the people. One of the big accomplishments of the church was saving our very people and our culture during the years of Ottoman rule. Another major achievement was the church’s role during the Greek Revolution. It is no coincidence that the flag of our revolution in 1821 was raised by Bishop Germanos of Patras at the Monastery of Agia Lavra.
However, today we have to separate this and separate the ordinary members of the Church faithful from the Church hierarchy, which has made a series of disappointing decisions, especially in relation to the pandemic. When our ‘Caesar,’ the prime minister, decided to shut down our Churches during Holy Week and to reschedule the Resurrection of Christ three hours earlier on Holy Saturday, there was some opposition within the Church hierarchy. However, the people expected a much more vociferous and dynamic opposition.
But again, we should not forget that it is out of our society and the standards which exist within it today, that the priests and clergy arise, as with the politicians and teachers. We live in an era of mediocrity. There are some who say they are awaiting a new Ioannis Kapodistrias, the founder of the modern Greek state and its first head of state. My response to this is that it took centuries for the generation of 1821 to arise. And I must remind you, that Kapodistrias had next to him and across from him the Patriarch Gregory V of Constantinople (who refused to disavow the Greek Revolution and was hung by the Ottomans), the heroine and mother Laskarina Bouboulina, General Georgios Karaiskakis, Theodoros Kolokotronis, and the judge Anastasios Polyzoidis (who held roles in the first provisional government of modern Greece and later refused to prosecute Greek Revolutionary leaders on trumped-up charges). His bust appears today outside the Areios Pagos, Greece’s highest court. Today, who like this sits among us? This is why I say we are living in a period of mediocrity.