«"In memory of Alekos Flambouraris: Engineer, Leftist, Original"»

President of the Hellenic Parliament,
Alekos' friends, comrades, his family.
I don't want to speak in big words or in a pompous manner about my father.

Alekos, for me – as I experienced him – was like
Robert Owen,
the local socialist whom Marx and Engels so valued.
He believed first and foremost in the character of people and then in systems.
He believed in them, in their ability to build a better society.

He was never the great thinker.
But he was an excellent engineer who, after 45 years of work, became, at the age of 77,
a professional politician — without having spent a single day in retirement.

Whether he was talking to the simplest person or the most powerful, he was always the same.
He never pretended to be anything other than what he was, because he was AEK and he was Original.

He maintained the moral advantage of his space.
It was negotiated, it clashed, but it was never bought out by capital.
Perhaps he was one of the few who truly understood what he meant in his writings.
Nikos Poulantzas.
Perhaps because, as friends, they had been together in Aegina that summer,
a few months before the great Marxist theorist ended his life,
defeated by depression.

Poulantzas said that the state has relative autonomy from capitalist interests,
and that's what my father tried to do — as a minister — to stand on his own
against the pressures and pursuits of the economic oligarchy.
Sometimes successfully, sometimes not.

For the last two years, my father has been carrying within him disappointments, burdens, and sorrows.
He saw things around him that hurt him and left him at a loss as to what to do.

I recently read an image in a book that reminded me of him.
It described a pigeon trapped on a small balcony, behind a transparent protective plastic.
He saw the light and the sky, but every time he tried to fly,
was hitting the invisible obstacle.
He would fall, get up, and try again — persistent but also tired.

But with care and love, the dove found the strength to fly freely in the sky again.
So does Alekos, to seek his own utopia.

Martin Parker wrote:

«"If utopia doesn't exist anywhere, then it's not dangerous.".
But if it exists, it is potentially very dangerous — especially for those who would prefer it to stay on the books.»

And Alekos Flambouraris was never just a man of books. He was a man of action.

Aleko, thank you for everything.
Goodbye to the Originals of paradise.