Sunday, July 5, 2015

Anti-Austerity 'No' Campaign is Reminder of Greece's Anti-Nazi Resistance During World War II

Actually, I've been seeing these Angela Merkel Hitler Photoshops for years now, so this isn't that new.

It's interesting that Foreign Policy's going with it, though.

See, "For Greece, ‘Oxi’ Referendum Campaign Is Resonant of Anti-Nazi Resistance":

On Oct. 28, 1940, an emissary of Benito Mussolini’s wartime government went to see Greece’s dictatorial leader, Ioannis Metaxas, to deliver an ultimatum: succumb to occupation by Italian troops massed on the Albanian border or face a brutal invasion. Metaxas had a one-word answer — oxi, Greek for “no.”

Italian forces invaded, and humiliation followed for Mussolini’s men. Outnumbered Greek troops, assisted by British air support, bravely resisted the Italians, fighting them in the mountains and launching a counterattack that pushed into Albania. It was a brief moment of glory for the Greeks: an early, unexpected Allied land victory against Axis troops.

But it was not to last. Fearful that he had left Romanian oil fields exposed, Adolf Hitler delayed his invasion of Russia and sent his troops south to aid in the conquering of Greece and its eventual occupation. Greece’s wartime experience was a miserable one, marked by famine, hyperinflation, and left-wing guerrilla resistance to the brutal Nazi occupation.

Today, wartime history remains resonant in Greece, and the word oxi — pronounced och-hee — has become shorthand for the country’s spirit of defiance. Every year on Oct. 28, Greeks mark what has become known as Oxi Day.

Nowhere is the spirit of resistance more evident than in Greece’s current government, many of whose ministers are steeped in Marxist theory and trace their political history to the leftist partisans who fought Nazi occupation from the mountains...
Yes. "Steeped in Marxist theory, as if that's some kind of virtuous bonus, or something.

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