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- Ελληνικά
Leaders are people who are born with a better spirit, walk proudly and die gloriously. Not to have their names engraved in embossed letters on the rock of history, but to find the peace that will steel their ideals, their values and their duty to their country.
It is a great honour and a heavy burden of responsibility that today I undertake to deliver the commemorative speech of a figure who carried on his shoulders the greatest struggles of the modern history of our country.
It is a great honour and a heavy burden of responsibility that today I undertake to deliver the memorial speech of a figure who carried on his shoulders the greatest struggles of our country's modern history.
No synaxis can weave the endless web of the course of one of the greatest leaders of Cypriot Hellenism.
Vassos Lyssarides proved with his life that the future is written with the patchwork of heart and courage, with ethics and values, inspired by faith and hope. A fighter from his cradle, visionary and militant in any confrontation with history, he treaded firmly, with abundant mental reserves, not accepting the injustice that any fait accompli was trying to create.
With his poetic sensitivity and a romanticism that made him stand out from politicians with a "wooden tongue", he rightly earned the respect, universal recognition and appreciation of the entire political world, both in Cyprus and internationally.
"Better dead than absent", he writes in his poetry.
"I will borrow the crutches of determination
even if they are crutches to death".
Vassos Lyssarides was a doctor, politician, founder and leader of the Socialist Party EDEK, MP and Speaker of the House of Representatives, poet, painter.
Vassos Lyssarides was a doctor, politician, founder and leader of the Socialist Party EDEK, MP and Speaker of the House of Representatives, poet, painter. But above all, he was, acted and acted as a Man, created to decide and act on the basis of justification and selfless love for his fellow man.
He was born in May 1920 in the village of Lefkara.
He was born in May 1920 in the village of Lefkara. He attended the Pancyprian Gymnasium and then went to Athens to study at the Medical School during the years of the post-Saxon dictatorship.
As he had mentioned, the first seeds of his political consciousness took root by listening to the sermons of one of the also very important personalities of Cypriot history, Metropolitan Nicodemus Mylonas and the events leading up to the October 1931 events.
As he had mentioned, the first seeds of his political consciousness took root by listening to the sermons of one of the also very important personalities of Cypriot history, Metropolitan Nicodemus Mylonas and the events leading up to the October 1931 events. Since then he has been consistently 'present'. In all the struggles.
In his high school years he met his first love with which he flirted uncontrollably: the Greek flag at the Greek Consulate in Nicosia. He met his second love in Varvara Lyssarides, the American journalist with whom he shared his life to the end. As Petros Papapolyviou notes in his article "The youthful years of Vassos Lyssarides" "[...] He was among the protagonists of the post-war revival of the Cypriot cause in Greece, an active member of the nationalist EAM Cyprus, the All-University Committee of the Cypriot Struggle and the Coordinating Committee of Cypriot Associations."
As Petros Papapolyviou notes in his article "The youthful years of Vassos Lyssarides" "[...] He was among the protagonists of the post-war revival of the Cypriot cause in Greece, an active member of the nationalist EAM Cyprus, the All-University Committee of the Cypriot Struggle and the Coordinating Committee of Cypriot Associations. They took over the organization of the reception of the "Cypriot Embassy" in Piraeus [...]. He was also involved in the publication of an important book - a hymn to the Union of Cyprus with Greece, [...] entitled "Cyprus. His youthful quests, his reflections, his anxiety for his country, the defence of democracy, freedom and socialism turned him to combat politics and to a struggle, inside and outside Cyprus, for the rights of peoples to freedom, democracy and socialism."
His youthful quests, his reflections, his anxiety for his country, the defence of democracy, freedom and socialism turned him to combat politics and to a struggle, inside and outside Cyprus, for the rights of peoples to freedom, democracy and socialism. He was president of the Peace Front, a member of the council of the Pancyprian People's Peace Movement and countless other organizations that had freedom and justice as a common denominator throughout the world.
The struggle against the colonial yoke in Cyprus found him in the front line of the national liberation struggle of the EOKA.1955-1959. There, he was not only the Doctor of the fighters. He was the man who actively participated with his socialist ideology at the forefront.
He was a member of the Greek Cypriot delegation that Archbishop Makarios invited to London in 1959. He was among the few who opposed the acceptance of the agreements, "stressing that they legitimize the military-political presence of Turkey and lead to deadlocks which will be exploited by Great Britain and Turkey."
With the establishment of the Republic of Cyprus, in the first parliamentary elections of 1960, he was elected to the parliamentary office and since then he was continuously re-elected for the next 46 years.
He was a close associate, advisor and personal physician to Archbishop Makarios until his death on 3 August 1977.
In 1963, he was again in the front line, dealing with the so-called "Turkish Antarsia", which was aimed at the destruction of the Republic of Cyprus, and the beginning of the intercommunal conflicts. Together with Doros Ilias, he led the legendary Kokkinoskoufis group, whose action was decisive as it led to the thwarting of Turkish plans to expand the Turkish Cypriot enclave of Nicosia as far as Kyrenia.
When, on April 21, 1967, tanks took to the streets of Athens to impose a military dictatorship, Vassos Lissarides collaborated with the resistance organizations of the Greek people against the junta and especially with the Panhellenic Liberation Movement led by Andreas Papandreou, playing a leading role in the restoration of democracy in Greece. Even with his current memorial service, which coincides with the sad anniversary of the April dictatorship, he made sure to recall his debt and his struggle against fascism.
In 1969 he founded the United Democratic Union of the Centre, the EDEK, inaugurating the title of Socialism in Cypriot political events. He was President of the EDEK until July 2001. At the founding Pancyprian Congress of the EDEK on 3 May 1970, at the Pallas Cinema, he stated. The EPP, as the main agent of popular unity on the national issue and the unyielding struggle for social restructuring and justice, is called upon to play a leading role in the political life of our country." He continues: "We set out to create a better world...At this moment we are signing an indelible contract with the people to fight until justice, freedom, democracy and full popular sovereignty prevail."
On 15 July 1974, he led the resistance against EOKA B and against the coup d'état, as well as the post-coup in hard and difficult times, as the only organized political force that stood up, not counting the cost.
Vassos Lissarides' acts of resistance against the junta could not remain unanswered.
Vassos Lissarides' acts of resistance against the junta could not be left unanswered. On 30 August 1974 - a landmark date - an assassination attempt was made on his life, while the occupiers were collecting their loot.
He stood firm, defying the bullets of the fascists who wanted to kill those who would not be killed. The blood of Doris Loizou, his close associate, a member of the EDEK, a poet and a fighter, remained indelible on his white shirt. The ideas never died.
Lyssarides' timeless position on the Cyprus problem can be summed up in a single word: resistance. At every opportunity he supported and proclaimed the line of a dynamic militant politics. His unyielding position was to keep the Republic of Cyprus alive, with unity of the people, as a shield of Cypriot Hellenism.
Useful for Cyprus, both in the United Nations and elsewhere, proved to be his personal international connections, especially with the Arabs and Afro-Asians.
He had a life identified with the quest for freedom, not only of the Megalossos, but also of the oppressed and struggling peoples of the world. He participated in many conferences of Afro-Asian states, served as President of the Afro-Asian Movement of Solidarity with Cyprus, as well as President of the Cypro-Arab League. He has served as Vice-Chairman of the Bureau of the Afro-Asian Solidarity Organisation (AAPSO) and Secretary General of the International Commission against Racial Discrimination and Racism. He considered every person in need of help to be his 'brother'. That is why he fought against the colonial yoke together with the peoples of Africa and Asia, fought for the abolition of the racist Apartheid, for the liberation of Nelson Mandela, linked his name to the struggles of the Palestinians and to the successive efforts to restore the rights of the Kurds.
Ladies and gentlemen,
The "Doctor" conquered with his sword a great place in Cypriot, Greek and world history, remaining combatant to the end.
He was a handsome man, who, although few "married" him, no one and no one managed to remain unconquered and uninitiated by his greatness and not fall in love with him. A greatness that was dominated by the passion of politics, as a reflection of his love for the land that gave birth to him and by the passion of creation, with brush and pen, composing the world of ideals and truth.
And while human values today continue to be trampled under the creeps of occupation, all we can assure the late Vassos Lyssarides is that the struggle to which he dedicated his life will continue. As long as the barbed wire will divide our lands and our dignity, as long as the occupation flag "scratches" our Pendadactyl, as long as Lapithos, Kyrenia, Karavas, Agios Hilarion, Kantara, Karpasi, Morphou, Kefalovrissa, Apostle Andrew await the joyful sound of freedom, we will stubbornly resist. Until we walk smoothly to the smoother Pentadactyl. Just the way he wanted it.
We remain committed to the vow of return. That is why today we are not holding another memorial service. Vassos Lyssarides' ideas are deeply rooted in his fellow travelers and fellow fighters who marched in the ideals he taught them, who marched with him, beside him, from first light in 1920 until the thunderous "OXI" of 2004.
We continue to fight the battle for today and for tomorrow, for our children and for future generations, through the tireless efforts of the President of the Republic, Mr. Nikos Christodoulides, who fights with the same vigour of freedom and social justice: "We set out to create a better world...At this moment we sign an indelible contract with the people to fight until justice, freedom, democracy and full popular sovereignty prevail."
May the struggle be unfulfilled and unjustified. But Vassos Lyssarides knows that the "contract with the people" remains indelible since his struggles are continued by his spiritual child who is today at the helm of the EDEK,. By his spiritual child who tirelessly continues his struggles. By that child who died close to him and who continues his struggle without considering the cost. From Marinos Sizopoulos who, with the same ideals, with the same faith and dedication, continues to walk in the same footsteps. Because he knows that "the comrades are waiting in the barbed wire and the dead in the Pentadactyl". That is why, as a true EDEKite, he continues not to kneel and not to bend."
"Memory is not murdered", writes the late Vassos Lyssarides.
"...This story has only one end
The true justification.
And for this we will fight to the end.
And remember:
If you do not voluntarily kneel, even the dead cannot kneel."
His words are a legacy. The struggle for a better future for this country is our minimum debt to our great leader and guide Vassos Lyssarides.
His memory will be eternal.
(Ephys/NZ/EP)
Contents of this article including associated images are belongs PIO
Views & opinions expressed are those of the author and/or PIO
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