The common commitment and the common danger bind you into a strong friendship with the people you work with. Even people you never really got to know--the person who came with you when you first went out at night to throw leaflets under the doors--even those people you remember and respect. You climb on the bus one day and you recognize the conductor as the man who went with you on your first effort, and he recognizes you, you just say "hello" and he presses your hand when he gives you the changes. That was it, but at that moment you knew that you could count on him and he could count on you.
It is amazing how many of the young Greek intellectuals have been radicalized in the past five years, how many risk their peace and quiet in illegal acts, and how many more talk about "doing something" even though it is not always quite clear what they can do. In the University the persecution of liberals and leftists has been particularly intense, but the democratic movement is on the upswing. Those who have actively demonstrated their opposition to the regime were expelled from institutions of higher learning. But now a new movement of semi-legal syndicalism seems to be springing up, and this time the students are slightly more experienced. They know how to exploit legality better, they keep the rules of secrecy more conscientiously when it is necessary, and, most important, the numbers of consciously politicized students are increasing.
The fear, though, is still there. It has not gone from your life, but you have learned to live with it. The fear is there when you try to talk to the farmer in the little tobacco-growing village in Macedonia, he will not tell you that during the "referendum" on the so-called Constitution of 1968 (where the "yes" votes were 94 per cent), there were only "Yes" slips in his village at the polls. He will not tell you about his cousin in Salonika who was not allowed to return to the village because he was considered dangerous, even though his only political involvement was voting "No" at the same "referendum". But if you sit with him long enough and if you steer the conversation that way, he will tell you with great bitterness how the Ministry of Agriculture supported the middleman in his nearest town by repaying him for World War II losses and yet never gave anybody in the village a single drachma and how the middleman is still paying the same prices to the producer for tobacco, but is now selling at much higher prices to the cigarette company.
The urban worker is more politicized, and, if he can get reasonable assurance that you are not a spy, he will tell you about the appointed administration of his union, that seems to listen only to the opinion of the Ministry. He may venture to say how his friend who had been in the council before '67 had been dragged away that morning in April--a little child had been sent to warn him at five in the morning but had not been fast enough.
A DISPROPORTIONATE number of people in the Resistance live outside Greece, either because they left to escape capture, or because the Greek students outside Greece find it much easier to work with the Resistance organizations than the ones inside, since ideas circulate more freely abroad and the immediate dangers are far fewer. But these people cannot do much except help those that are working inside. Still, there is much help to be given. Most resistance printed matter is published outside, and is sent in by various routes. Funds are being raised for apartments to be used for hiding, for printing presses, anything. The permanent headquarters of the resistance are in various cities in Europe, and people go in and out of Greece all the time, bragging information back and forth.
Living in the U.S., one cannot but despair at the enormous contrast between the commitment and the seriousness of one's friends back in Greece, and the confused happiness of the bright scholars here. The carefree intellectual who studies the world as if it were an interesting puzzle, who describes the film 'Z' as "a great thriller", and who laughs at stories of comically disorganized people who were suppressed by brute force, is a constant reminder of the old wisdom that one can only learn from one's own mishaps, and that one cannot look for help to those who will not realize that life, to some people at least, is not a joke. And yet we always hope that the new awareness that seems to be spreading among American students about what is really happening in the world will lead more and more of them to sense the necessity of action and of solidarity with the democratic forces all over the world. The least we can ask of the people here is that they take the world seriously, that they try to picture the tragedies that lie behind every dictatorship and every reactionary government, and mainly, to reconsider the "it-couldn't-happen-to-me" attitude that most of them seem to have.
There is a certain element of sacrifice involved in the whole idea of actively opposing the junta, but it is not in the least melodramatic. The idea has become a way of life for many people, and when you ask them why, they will not start reciting great ideals. They will only tell you of poverty, of oppression, of torture. They will say they are tired of living in a country that has no economy of its own, that has no political life for the people, that has no future but to be a satellite of the great powers.
..When I shook hands with my friend in Rome the night before he returned to Greece to continue the job he had undertaken, I remembered the verses of a song devoted to the guerillas of the Resistance against the Nazist: "When they shake hands, the sum is sure about the world," Don't be ridiculous, I reproached myself, this is the real world, this is no place for heroes. And yet, I will never forget how he raised his glass, looked at me with a sad smile and said, "How long can they keep screwing us? We'll get them. Someday.