28 October 2011 awarded the successful pupils of the Municipality of Xylokastro Evrostini to higher education. Argyris Chionis was the central speaker of the event and all the children gave him a book. So I went to Throphari to get it, and after the necessary stop at Intro Art Cafe, we arrived at Aggelos Sikelianos Theater. We sat down and waited for him to call him in step.

At one point he pulls out the papers he wrote and while he takes a last look he asks: "Is the bad guy a bad word?" "No," I answer immediately and I smile wisely. "Oh, okay," he said, and after a while he went upstairs.

At first - the children mainly - I can't say that they paid attention to the speaker. Soon after, the entire theater was hushed and listening reverently. It wasn't an ordinary reason. How could it be? Perhaps those who did not know him expected to hear trivial admonitions of a "wise" elder to the young. But, it was different. Fortunately, he cut me off and I pressed the recording on the mobile phone, I recorded it, so we have almost all of it. Apart from the introduction (where he thanked for the invitation) and a couple of words that cannot be heard, everything else is the same:

“…I was asked to make a speech. When I heard this I admit I was a bit stressed. 1st: because I am not famous for my rhetorical skills and 2nd: because what could one say, in such difficult times, to the young children who are starting higher and higher studies, without having the certainty that the knowledge they will acquire will be used by society. What do you say to these young people who are starting their academic careers when they keep hearing from their in-quote "wise" elders that the barrel of doom is bottomless and that there is no light at the end of the tunnel?
I, however, who is neither wise nor optimistic in nature, it is known that most poets and writers are a little depressed, I came to the conclusion that there is light. But not in the depths of any tunnel, but within us, in the depth of ourselves. And it is this light that we have to look for, always remembering that whenever the Greeks overcame and overcame any adversity they were because they bent within and sought this inner light.

So keeping your eyes ever directed towards this light, devote yourself to your studies without thinking of material benefit from them, because the goal of education is not to create wealth, but to shape character, morals and spirit. When this is achieved the others, i.e. the career and the accompanying material rewards, will come of themselves as a natural consequence. My own generation, which is clearly much older than yours and even older than your parents', lived its childhood in the post-war and civil war era in poverty and squalor and teenage and men within the social struggles and persecutions of the state. And yet, this generation excelled in letters and the arts. He led the overthrow of the junta and highlighted important personalities who still mark our society. Of course, it also highlighted a number of opportunists, utilitarians, paper workers, politicians and golden boys. That is, those who lost touch with their inner light, subordinated to their personal ambitions, their personal interest and the interests of foreign dark forces and led us to this mess and this shame we live in today. For this mess, however, we ourselves are responsible for entrusting our fate to their unworthy hands, as a result of which we are now in danger of losing our inner light.

Dear friends, today we celebrate the big NO that the Greek people said in local and foreign fascism. 71 has since passed, and while we believed that the monster had been killed once and for all, we now see it being reborn with a new form and a new name. The inside of the introductory "ideal" name of globalization, behind which is a dragon of big-money depositors and speculators whose aim is to enslave all the peoples of the planet to their absolute gluttony for wealth and power.

My friends, I have the feeling that we are already living a third world war, a new occupation. Already in our developed world, the armies of the unemployed ... carve the garbage looking for scraps and aphoros to appease their hunger and cover their nakedness. As for the underdeveloped world, the third world, we can only look at Africa that has become a huge cemetery. So is it time to turn to the forgotten light within us and to oppose this new barbarity a series of new NOs, some of which will also be directed at ourselves, that is to say, the damaged part of the system, eroded by the system ourselves?

For reference purposes only, I am listing here a list of immediate NOs, which I am sure you can fill in with many more yourself, because it is not possible that you have not realized that "we have got our lives wrong and need to change lives", as we will Seferis also said:

Not for the overspending of goods and the acquired needs that the merchants of the nations created us.
NOT on credit cards cards and bank usury.
NO to loans that we can not repay.
NO to the Palestinians and the Commissars.
NO to the biting vote.
NO in the middle and in the connotation. YES to meritocracy.
No to party enthusiasm, because it does not differ from the hooliganism of the stadiums.
NO to the personality and family geography.
NO to the illusion that by voting every four years for our elected leaders we are doing our democratic duty, and from then on we have no other role but to applaud or curse them depending on whether or not they serve our personal interests.
NO to the partisan and sometimes state-fed unions that operate as trade unions, taking care only of their members and writing in their old Shoes the rest of society.
Not in education that creates specialized dummies, insensitive technocrats, autocratic cartoons, ridiculous yappes, and golden boys predators. YES in education that produces the necessary expertise, broadens the spirit and gives meaning meaning to life.
NO to the patriotism and sterilized nationalism.
Not in racism and xenophobia.
NO to the destruction of the environment. We must finally realize that this world has not been created for us, and it belongs to us as much as it belongs to the least ant. It's not a game that our dad has given us and we can break it down to see what it has inside.
NO to excursionist or touristy nature. YES in our absolute identity with nature.
NO to laziness. YES to work, even to work that is not related to the studies we are doing. In times like the one we are going through and where there is no question of survival work It is not a shame. No job is just for despicable immigrants.
Not on TV, where in the central news bulletin we learn which glamorous non-existent married her glamorous counterpart. YES to culture. YES to music. YES in the theater. YES in cinema. YES and YES again in the book.
Not in unfair competition, in disagreement and in bouncing, in mugging, in "do you know who I am?" YES in competition, in noble competition, companionship, solidarity ... ".

Two months later Argyris made it suddenly. Christmas 2011 died of acute heart attack. But what do I say? Does the seed ever die?