A Lesson In Resistance

 

I don't recall why I stopped following the blog posts of Yannis Varoufakis, economist and former Minister of Finance of Greece.  I think it may have been because he was not posting much at the time due to other priorities. Today I found a reason to restore a link to his blog from mine, and to listen again to what he has to say about the state of the world.  

Varoufakis has written a new book which, as he says,

"...is unlike anything I have written before. Setting aside high theory, it is the story of five women who, over of a hundred years, resisted fascism, authoritarianism and chauvinism. It is, I believe, a universal story of five remarkable women who taught me how to resist bullies, bigots and chauvinists, as well as the sense of futility that threatens to overwhelm us."

The first woman Varoufakis talks about is his mother, Eleni.  The excerpt from the book's beginning relates a brief incident while living under the Greek dictatorship in the 1960s as seen through the eyes of a young child.

In the few brief paragraphs of that opening story, the seemingly overwhelming power and brutality of the authoritarian regime is captured in the description of a visit to see Eleni's imprisoned brother.  Scroll down the page to PART ONE - Eleni to see how the stoic bravery of the prisoner and his sister contributed to undermining the dictatorship's agenda.