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     THE HELLENIC LINK,Inc.    
THE HELLENIC LINK, Inc.

View from the Other Side“A Letter from a Place Where Humanity Ends”Those “child deaths” occurring in the Aegean Sea have become almost
“routine” blow-after-blow on our consciences. Well, I received a letter from
a friend who resides in Canakkale, who informed me about what was happening in hisProvince, at the Ayvacik district village of Kuruoba. It is the capital of the refugee
tragedy in Turkey, the one we are seeing everyday on television screens and
reading about it in newspapers.The letter goes like this:”Kuruoba … This is the place where no state exists on the shore and no humanity
exists on the sea. In the small bay and every day hundreds, sometimes thousands, of
refugees gather and wait. Those whose turn it is are packed into boats choke-full
and sent to the Greek island of Lesbos.The passengers are hungry and thirsty.Now summer is over, the nights are cold. Whole families and their kids shiver at
night.Those who raise their voices, those who object to the boat that has been filled like a
slave ship, are beaten until they are left unconscious by armed bandits who
carry sticks in their hands. They beat men in front of their wives, mothers, fathers,
and their children. Even crying babies are slapped. Mothers and fathers go
insane.Sometimes gunshots are heard. There is a myth going around that they bury the
dead. Well, there is no identity; nobody is searching for them or asking for them …But there are local people over there whose eyes can see, whose ears can hear.There are local villagers, fishermen and retired people who reside there.Their hearts bleed when they hear the screams; the Kuruoba people cannot sleep in
their warm homes when the black-eyed and black-fated children are shivering out
in the cold.They take their blankets, quilts, beds whatever they find; they open their cars, tents,
depots and homes to them to accommodate them, to warm them.With their retiree pensions, with their fishermen and villager incomes, they are
feeding them and offering them some warm tea.But they are so many … They cannot supply enough.The more they give and offer, the more they are damned for those they cannot give
anything to, offer anything to them.Then bandits arrive with sticks in their hands and arms in their belts, like
cowboys from a Western movie. The road looks like Istanbul traffic with license
plates from all over Turkey; all kinds of cars arrive. Along the road, they scold older
people, old enough to be their parents, “Do not interfere; stay away. This is none of
your business. What do you have to do with them” They sometimes point their
guns and say, “We will shoot you.”Nobody can complain because of fear they will be informed about to those
human traffickers.On one hand there is the human conscience; on the other hand is the armed
banditry.This is the same all along the coasts of Ayvacik to Babakale, all the Turkish coasts
facing the Greek Island of Lesbos… The entire coast is like Kuruoba; all the local
people are like villagers from Kuruoba.”Well, this is the letter. This letter is about the children who died hitting the coasts of
our conscience.The letter was sent from the place where humanity ends.Now, I ask: Governor of Canakkale, Mayor of Canakkale, don’t you see thistragedy? What does the gendarmerie do? Where are the Canakkale deputies?Isn’t there a voice over there speaking for humanity?published in Hurriyet (Turkish) Daily News on October 16, 2015CULTURAL EVENTS THIS MONTH

• The Hellenic University Club of Wilmington DE, Chapter #95 of the Order of AHEPA, The Daughters of Penelope, along with the Hellenic Link, Inc. co-sponsored   a Lecture event at the Holy Trinity Community Center (808 N. Broom Street, Wilmington) on Saturday, October 24, 2015 at 7:30 pm. The theme of the Lecture was:

“How Greco-Roman Thought and Judeo-Christian Ethics Made America Great.”The Speaker was Dr. Michael Soupios, Professor of Political Science at Long Island UniversityDr. Soupios is a highly regarded professor who has taught at LIU for nearly 40
years. He has eight graduate degrees including four earned doctorates, and has
authored numerous articles, papers and books, among them The Song of Greece,
The Greeks Who Made us Who we Are, and co-authored The Ten Golden Rules:Ancient Wisdom from Greek Philosophers on Living the Good Life. Dr. Soupios
has been a member of the Advisory Council of the Hellenic Link. Our colleague
Dr. Dean C. Lomis, Professor of International Education Emeritus, University of
Delaware, had the care of organizing this event.

• Presidential Inauguration at the Hellenic College (HCHe)

The Community of the Hellenic College/Holy Cross Greek Orthodox School of
Theology, Brookline, MA will celebrate the inauguration of its new President,The Very Reverend Christopher T. Metropoulos, on Thursday, October 29, 2015.
The Hellenic Link Bulletin wishes him a long and most successful
administration of the unique institution for the benefit of its students, our Church,
and of the Greek Orthodox communities in the United States of America, and across our Continent.

• Inauguration of New Endowed Chairs of Hellenic Studies at Queens College
  The official investiture of two endowed Chairs of Professor and Director of the
  Center for Byzantine and Modem Greek Studies at Queens College took place on
  October 8, 2015. To honor the benefactors, the Chairs were named after the late
  Olga and Constantine Brown. The size of the Endowment, unprecedented in the
  40-year history of the Center, reached one million dollars. In the fiscally difficult
  times we live, this Endowment hopefully will enhance the preservation and growth
  of the Center’s Program. Recipient of the two prestigious awards is
  Professor Christos Ioannidis, whom the Bulletin congratulates warmly wishing
  that the Center’s educational mission under his direction be sustained and
  luminous long into the future.MHNYΜΑ ΑΠΟ THN:
  ΕΛΛΗΝΙΚΗ ΛΕΣΧΗ TOY BIBΛIOY Oκτώβρης 1940

• Ο Ήλιος πλυμένος με το καθάριο πρόσωπο στραμμένο στον άνθρωπο, χαιρετάει τους δρόμους που τραβούν στη μάχη. Αυτοκίνητα περνούν γεμάτα πλήθος. Αποχαιρετιούνται στις πόρτες και γελάνε, ύστερα ακούγονται τ’ άρβυλα στην άσφαλτο, το μεγάλο τραγούδι των αντρίκιων βημάτων που μακραίνει και σβήνει στο βάθος του δρόμου,

  ως το βραδινό σταθμό με τα
  χαμηλωμένα φώτα.

  Εκεί τα τρένα περιμένουν
  σφυρίζουν για λίγο έξω από την πόλη,
  ακούγονται οι αποχαιρετιστήριοι πυροβολισμοί
  κι ύστερα όλα σωπαίνουν και περιμένουν.

  Διαβάζουμε τα τελευταία παραρτήματα:
  Νικούμε. Νικούμε.
  Πάντα νικάει το δίκιο!
  Μια μέρα θα νικήσει ο άνθρωπος.
  Μια μέρα η λευτεριά θα νικήσει τον πόλεμο.
  Μια μέρα θα νικήσουμε για πάντα.

  Aθήνα, Νοέμβρης 1940, Γιάννης Ρίτσος
  Από το βιβλίο της Ζωής Σπυροπούλου, «Τα κείμενα της πατρίδας».

  

Επισκεφθείτε το νέο μας site: www.elbi.grHELLENIC LINK, IncA NON PROFIT CULTURAL AND SCIENTIFIC ASSOCIATIONOF  HELLENES AND  PHILHELLENES INCORPORATED IN DELAWARESuite No. 278, 38-11 Ditmars Blvd, Astoria, New York 11105WebSite: http://www.helleniclink.org Email: info@helleniclink.orgContact Telephone: (718) 217- 0430

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