Letter to an English friend

Writes Nikos Lygeros

Translation : Paola Vagion

I have been thinking of you since some time and today I decided to write to you. I am trying to understand the actions of the past and I assumed that it would be best to talk to you. We have so much to say, isn’t it? I am contemplating our homelands, the things that unite us and the others that divide us. They might of course not be important to a rich country but you know how the situation is in the land of the sun and surely you understand that we pay attention to the details, because in essence we don’t have anything else. I wonder, therefore, if you remember the sound the saw makes on the marble. I hope I do not disturb you, I simply wanted to tell you that it spins in my mind like a top and it doesn’t leave me in peace. You know here we are familiar with the wearing of time on the ruins that man constructed, but we interpret all these in our own way. It is the relationship of mankind with time, nothing more, nothing less. But the saw is different. It leaves the trace of barbarity on the stone of the sun and this cannot but hurt us. And you know how much. I have been thinking, therefore, of the guilty and their guilt. Some are guilty, because they have committed a crime. Some have guilt, because they couldn’t stop it. In any case there is no reason to continue this accusation and this feeling. Try to talk to your own and I will do the same. There is the process of correction. As long as we both want it. Why should my people feel despoiled? Why should your people be the successors of a barbarity? The marbles are not just objects but symbols. The Caryatid is not just a statue, but a woman. They all belong in a country that is not just an exhibition site. It is its history that shaped this marble, the stone of light. Europe was born here and you know and you respect it. Think about it and you will see that these details are the pieces of our history, the fragments of our past. We who live in the same present cannot change the past, but we can create the future in the New Acropolis Museum. The issue is not political, nor diplomatic, it is just a matter of will. And I know that you want as well the wellbeing of humanity. I am waiting with longing your reply.
Your Greek friend.