History teaches us that great tragedies do not leave behind only the dead; they also leave open wounds in the collective consciousness. It is precisely at this threshold—between mourning and justice—that a dangerous temptation often arises: the political exploitation of grief.
The tragedy of Tempi is no exception. On the contrary, it is a characteristic example of how a deep social trauma can be transformed into a political narrative, not with the aim of institutional accountability, but of emotional mobilization.A society that truly respects its dead does not turn them into political capital.
Justice requires sobriety, institutions, and truth—not religious fervor and national intoxication.
If we owe anything to the victims of Tempi, it is silence before their pain and clarity before History.
Everything else is political exploitation—and, in Greek terms, hubris that sooner or later calls forth its Nemesis.

Τhe torch to Diotima.

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1. The Sacred Nature of Mourning and the Ancient Greek Concept of Hubris

In ancient Greek thought, death and mourning are surrounded by sacredness.
Hubris does not refer only to arrogance toward the gods; it also refers to the instrumentalization of death, when suffering becomes a means of projection, power, or domination.
When personal grief is transformed into a public political identity, the question is not whether the pain is real—it is.
The question is when pain ceases to demand justice and begins to demand power.

2. From Victim to Symbol — and from Symbol to Political Weapon

Contemporary politics no longer operates primarily through ideologies, but through symbols and emotions.
The victim—or the relative of a victim—acquires immense symbolic power:
they are difficult to challenge,
they cannot be questioned without social cost,
and they are often placed morally beyond criticism.
This is precisely where populism is born: not as a political theory, but as a moral coercion of society.
Anyone who disagrees is portrayed as heartless, immoral, or an “enemy of the memory of the dead.”

3. Ethno-Patriotism and Neo-Orthodoxy: Familiar Instruments

It is no coincidence that such political constructions are often clothed in:
nationalist rhetoric (“the homeland has been betrayed”),
neo-Orthodox mysticism (religious language, claims of moral superiority, divisive discourse),
and a sense of a “sacred struggle” against a vague but omnipotent “enemy.”
This mixture is old, tested, and dangerous.
It does not generate political vision—it generates camps.

4. The Party System and the Cynicism of Absorption

The Greek party system, ideologically exhausted, often tolerates or absorbs such formations, either out of fear or calculation.
Thus, instead of protecting the memory of the victims, the exploitation of that memory is institutionalized.
The tragedy becomes a political “abscess”:
a foreign body, emotionally charged, feeding on anger and reproducing division.

5. The Moral Boundary

No one has the right to question a mother’s pain.
Everyone, however, has the right—and the duty—to question:
the transformation of mourning into propaganda,
the use of the dead as a shield against criticism,
and the slide from the pursuit of justice to the pursuit of political power.
When this boundary is crossed, what remains is no longer memory; it is Hubris.

Diotima