17-11-16 Education Minister Gavroglou addresses parliament on 17 November anniversary

Mr. Speaker, Ladies and Gentlemen colleagues

The anniversary of the Polytechnic uprising is an opportunity to ponder not only our past, but mainly our present, the present of our Democracy. Certainly, the Polytechnic uprising constitutes a symbol that transcends its strictly historical and geographic parameters. It is often difficult to distance oneself from the intensity of the symbolism, so as to discern the composite and non-linear ways that past events remain present even today.

In November 1973, groups of youths, mostly university students, started to occupy the premises of the Polytechnic, with the demand that the junta leave. They followed the example of other young people a few months earlier, who took to the roof the Law School. The youths at the Polytechnic had the support of many citizens, sometimes open and sometimes tacit, were confronted with the indifference of as many citizens, and certainly in the first days they acted without the generous encouragement of political parties, including those on the left.

The youth at the Polytechnic, however, were indifferent to all that. They ignored the counsel of their elders, even in the case of left-wing youth groups, and all together confronted a great challenge: to manage to co-exist, to discuss, to create a synthesis of their views, and to plan their actions. They decided to co-exist even while clashing. In that crucible, they forged the constitutive elements of our modern democracy – all that which today stirs fear in those who want to exorcise the post-junta political era, all those who fear the legacy of the Polytechnic.

 Let us not forget the message of the Polytechnic, and even more let it not be transformed into a memory severed from the framework of the present. Let us not forget the dead, the youths who were murdered in cold blood, the unspeakable pain of their families, the desperation of all who loved them, and the infinite sorrow of their friends and comrades.

It is of no import that the latter day apologists of the dictatorship attempt to downgrade what exactly occurred in those few days of the distant November of 1973. It is of no import that the neo-Nazis deny the deaths. Those deniers will be ignored by history and scorned by the coming generations. The dead of the seven-year dictatorship, all those who were tortured, imprisoned or displaced, the young men and women killed in the three-day uprising, the “free struggling university students” who called upon the people to show solidarity in their fight against fascism, all those who refused to leave even when the tanks crushed and pushed the metal fence upon them – all of them remain indelibly etched in our memory.

 What is it that inspired the struggle of the youth of 1973? It was nothing less than the decision to resist the authoritarianism of the regime, and to promote a vision of a just, democratic society, a society of brotherhood and freedom. At the core of this vision, however, was education, the vision of a democratic educational system linked to the future society.

The anniversary of the Polytechnic forces us to underline the deep ties between education and democracy. Education is inconceivable without democracy, nor is democracy conceivable without substantial education. To speak of one without the other is not only bereft of meaning, but rather is a political position that undermines both social goods. The institution of education does not only transmit knowledge. It has a deeply political role, central to social reproduction. Education reflects the present of society and mirrors the manner in which it imagines its future.

This deep political aspect of the anti-dictatorship struggle is downgraded by those who hypocritically maintain that the university students in 1973 limited their demand to student unionism. What was at stake in the uprising was much broader. Young men and women struggled unselfishly and with self-sacrifice against the reality of an authoritarian present and the dystopia of it reproduction.

The post-1974 educational reforms were radical and substantial. We cannot but cite the establishment of the demotic language, the replacement of boys’ and girls’ schools with co-educational ones, the abolition of the apron and of physical punishment, the establishment of student communities, and the democratisation of universities. These changes ran parallel to more general social changes, such as the recognition of the National Resistance and the new family law code.

 I will agree with all that was said by my predecessor Nikos Filis last year from this position, that education is a precondition for safeguarding democracy, and that the heart of education is the public school.

We have a duty to trust and continually improve our educational system by supporting it at all levels. Today we need a democratic school which will prepare citizens of the world, citizens who can incorporate in the parameters of their thinking not only the immediate field of their experience, but also the great global problems.

 It is imperative that we prepare citizens who can withstand uncertainty, who can in adverse conditions resist the “dark lure of irrationalism” and authoritarianism, and instead become defenders of democracy and solidarity, equality and participation.

Are our schools democratic though? Are our universities democratic? To the extent that the culture of toleration, discussion and argumentation predominate, they are. To the extent, however, that the predominant element of the daily practice of our educational institutions is the search for easy solutions, of authoritarianism, and a bureaucratised transmission of knowledge, they are not.

For this reason, the fundamental role of educators again arises – educators who are the catalyst in the strenuous efforts of us all to achieve more democracy on all levels of social life. The anniversary of the Polytechnic usually brings to mind our school and university students. Today, let our thoughts turn also to their teachers.

 However, the substance and importance of the message of the Polytechnic is in its being updated. Much has changed internationally from 1973 until today. Our society faces new challenges: The prevalence of the neo-liberal model as the dominant model of understanding and interpreting reality has led Europe to a crisis of enormous proportions. That includes growing poverty, social exclusion of large swathes of our societies, the steady growth of the far right both on the social and political levels, the wars and millions of refugees – all of this tests the endurance of democracy in Europe. The social cohesions have been seriously wounded, leading to divisions and clashes, without the ability to offer a convincing hope and a clear vision to citizens, who feel danger ever more and experience the reality of their social marginalisation.

Democracy in Europe is being challenged, and it is being challenged harshly.

The message of the Polytechnic as a message of a continual struggle to defend democracy remains tragically timely. Conditions since 1973 have undoubtedly changed. The demand, however, remains timely.

It is not only wrong, but also dangerous to consider all that was won then as a given. Democracy requires perpetual defense, both as a system of governance and as social practice.

What is at stake today is more crucial than ever. We are called upon to defend not only our wounded democracy, but also the very human face of our societies.