10518 - The first stage of the struggle
N. Lygeros
Translated from the Greek by Evi Charitidou
For those who wonder whether they are able or not to become combatants or fighters, they have to conceive what the first stage is, after realizing the necessity of taking a position. This is not, of course, resistance, as most believe; for without stance resistance is transformed to a reaction with no prospect of evolution. And the reason is simple. Without any background and substance you cannot support your position and consequently this decision may lead to mere fanaticism. Intelligence allows us avoiding this trap, but only by thinking when having an access to the sources. Without sources thinking is not able to overcome the limits detected by intelligence. At the level of ethics, however, the most important stage – even though it is only the first one – for someone is to take a position on an issue. Initially not aiming to change it; because one may not have the ability to do so. Yet, one must; because it is due to have a rationale. It is only in this way that someone – even if not a Just – will be able to justify one’s existence, when events would have passed. Each one of us may not say that one could not do anything and for this reason one did not say anything. Someone had to say something against Kemalism, later against Stalinism and later against Nazism. You cannot simply accept everything in order not to be annoyed in your daily life. Towards cases of genocide which are always crimes against Humanity each one of us should take a position. For whenever you remain neutral it is like opting for the perpetrator and never for the victim. The first stage of a struggle is the position of the human towards the indifference of society for a problem which it considers that it does not concern it. Yet, this problem may belong to the essence, namely to the evolution of Humanity. It is with this position that each human claims to actively belong to Humanity. This distinction liberates humans from individuals who are indifferent and forget everything. Without this first stage existence can never become a real life, simply because daily routine can never become life, as much as repeating the present cannot become future, because it has no past. In other words, the position of the human is essentially non reversible, which characterizes the being, too, as action for work. It is in this sense that we consider that it is the opus which creates the being and not vice versa. With the first stage of the struggle the human being starts an evolution which by nature changes it. By this change one may enter the phase of resistance to show to one’s own people whether or not one will have the endurance to stand up to the circumstances when the need for expression will emerge. This phase is, of course, crucial, because it has to do with the transformation of a human to a fighter; for he has realized that he is not alone any longer and he must think of his fellow humans too, if he really wants to be a human in the sense of Humanity.