Nikos Konstandaras

How can we interpret the death of three important public figures within the space of a few days in an August that finds Greece mid-step in an unsteady world and the Greeks in search of identity and direction? “All passes! What's coming?” Stelios Ramfos asked at the end of his book, “Politics from mouth to mouth” (2016), in which, as he wrote, he presented his thoughts on “a society locked in its prejudices and stubbornly refusing to look into the mirror for its own good.”

Our region is changing rapidly and it is likely that Greece could find itself at the center of developments. The chronic difficulties in Greek-Turkish relations, in conjunction with the rising tension between Turkey and Israel, are leading to closer ties with Israel at a time when new alliances are tangled up with old ones in a shifting geopolitical landscape.

Both Turkey and Israel are revisionist powers. Even if the current tension between them eases, sooner or later they will again face off in the race for regional dominance.

Death may come in the terrifying roar of a fire or in a massive wall of water, mud and rocks swallowing all in its way, or with a sigh in a room in which the heat overwhelms a tired body. From Himalayan mountain valleys to the baking walls of Europe, to forests burning across the world, our planet is shaken.

Among Donald Trump's few good decisions, perhaps the best was his order to fly the national flag at half-mast across the United States for a week, in honor of Dolly Parton, the internationally renowned singer who died on Tuesday aged 80. Not because the US president clearly wants to appropriate some of Parton's glory, but because she symbolizes all that he is not – an America where people born in poverty could achieve great things thanks to their abilities and hard work. Trump was not only born rich, but became richer through a series of bankruptcies in which he offloaded his debts on others, and is now working decisively to shape a society of great inequality. His policies are intended to further strengthen the rich while condemning the rest – his supporters included – to a life of few possibilities.

September 1 always reminds us of the tragic day in 1939 when Germany invaded Poland, triggering the most terrible slaughter humanity has known. After the end of World War II, after the Americans dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, humanity appeared determined to avoid repeating such a catastrophe. Even the Cold War, between the forces of the West and the East Bloc, had rules and mechanisms which prevented some local dispute from escalating into into war with nuclear weapons and global conflict.

I imagine that most thinking people in Europe understand that the European Union is the only hope for its nations to withstand the coming storms. And when we speak of a unified Europe, we mean the one that developed after World War II, a beacon of democracy, justice and prosperity in an ever more difficult and unjust world.

In a brief comment in 1946, “Decline of the English Murder,” George Orwell, with a dose of his satirical genius, laments the “Americanization” of crime in his country, comparing a murder that gripped the public imagination at the time with the traditional, English “formula.”

The impact of the extreme right wing AfD's electoral victory in a German state with just 1.7 million voters suggest that it is not only democracy's institutions that open the way to enemies of the system. Those who take part in the public debate – politicians, journalists, citizens on social media – play their part, too. On the one hand, they allow the extremists to keep the discussion focused on issues that benefit them, and, on the other, they speak and act as if the struggle is already lost and they can do nothing but wait for the unavoidable subversion of liberal democracy.

Ιn the 25 years since the attack on the Twin Towers and the Pentagon, humanity has been caught in the vortex of a multidimensional crisis from which there seems to be no escape. We see provocations such as those of al Qaeda on September 11, 2001, in the United States, and of Hamas on October 7, 2023, in Israel, provoking reactions that worsen the situation beyond the wildest dreams of those who wished to sow destruction.