Helene Glykatzi-Ahrweiler

Helene Glykatzi-Ahrweiler (born 29 August 1926) is a Greek-French academic Byzantinologist. She is also a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador for Greece.

Interview (2019)

 * a leftist is a person who does leftist things, not one who claims to be one. The left is a way of life, not a manner of speech. Someone who likes to talk but not listen, who is not willing to stand up for those who are wronged, including their rivals, is not a leftist in my book. Defending your rival’s rights is the greatest virtue. This is why there is no such thing as a virtuous politician as far as I’m concerned. And if I continue to claim that I am a leftist, it is because I still hope for a more just distribution of wealth and an education system that teaches this virtue.


 * It is not history’s duty to solve the problems of the future, but simply to remind us of the solutions that were chosen during similar situations. But history that teaches only one solution is a dangerous thing.


 * I’m not scared of the far-right: It’s like a growing boil that needs to be lanced and I have a feeling it’s already happening.


 * Yes, I haven’t changed my mind. For decades, anything that was decided in Europe came with a footnote, an asterisk, added by the British. But we can’t move forward with asterisks; they have to go.
 * "Are you still in favor of Brexit?"


 * The French, you know, have a good quality: They don’t tolerate arrogance. I’m the same way. I voted for him, but when I heard him tell an unemployed man asking for a job to “go across the street” and get one, and especially after the cover-up of the Benalla scandal – when Macron’s security officer beat up a protester – he was finished as far as I was concerned.
 * "You openly expressed your support for Emmanuel Macron when he was elected president of France. Do you still believe in him?"


 * Hope is something to comfort the weak.


 * We have come to the point of believing complacency to be a virtue. Yet complacency is the biggest form of cowardice. The worst thing we can do to our children is to teach them to remain quiet. In ancient Greece, during periods of crisis and division, citizens who would not take a position were fined. We tell our young people to be irresponsible, to stay off the pitch, instead of teaching them that we all need to be on the pitch and to fight. When you deny yourself the right of participation and choice, you’re denying your freedom.


 * Greece and Europe have been intrinsically linked notions since the time of Herodotus. We need to remember that. And we need to learn to live in a European and globalized society without saying “us” and “them.”


 * Speaking as a historian, there has never been an empire that was not multinational.


 * Europe has always been mixed-race, it has never had such a thing as biological purity. The crucial question today is how the migrants and refugees will be assimilated. Unfortunately, we continue making the same huge mistake – in Europe and in Greece. We treat foreign nationals like a separate community that cannot be assimilated. By doing so, we create a foreign territory within our own. The Arabs say that the land of Islam is wherever there is a single Muslim. The people coming to Greece, therefore, need to learn our language and customs, to be assimilated into Greek institutions in a manner that is not just restricted to the islands of the eastern Aegean and the hot spots, but which includes the entire country. We’re afraid of losing our culture by sharing it. But without contact with others, culture ceases being a culture.


 * When the incompetent are allowed to govern, it is the fault of the able.


 * Today, unfortunately, education does not start in the home and school is in no position to fill that void.


 * I was always in favor of the term “New Macedonia,” because North Macedonia naturally suggests a South Macedonia and in this case, North Macedonia is a country and the South Macedonia that is implied is a region in another country.