How can we interpret the death of three important public figures within the space of a few days in an August that finds Greece mid-step in an unsteady world and the Greeks in search of identity and direction? “All passes! What’s coming?” Stelios Ramfos asked at the end of his book, “Politics from mouth to mouth” (2016), in which, as he wrote, he presented his thoughts on “a society locked in its prejudices and stubbornly refusing to look into the mirror for its own good.”
Perhaps these words are the most fitting ones for the “departure” of Ramfos, Stefanos Manos and Constantine Tsoukalas from our public life. Despite their different careers, all three were political beings in the full sense of the word. They analyzed their society and the Greeks’ path with exceptional insight and sincerity, and they proposed solutions.
Ramfos plunged deep into the currents that shaped a nation, which he thought was out of step with itself. Tsoukalas noted the lack of justice in Greece and saw the country’s problems within the international context of politics and ideas. Manos chafed at the dysfunction of Greece’s politics and economy and found practical solutions that he did not shrink from applying, despite the unquestionable cost to his career.
