"Ă“khi" is Greek for "no." One bright day in the autumn of 1940, while the Fascists still controlled Italy and after the Italians had annexed Albania, Benito Mussolini, the prime minister and dictator, decided to expand his new Roman empire by adding the island of Corfu (Kerkira) which was then, as it is today, under Greek control. His legate marched into the office of the Greek dictator of the day, Gen. Metaxas, to outline his demand.
Metaxas was a simple man. He said, "Ă“khi" - "No."
I don't know exactly what happened after Metaxas said "Ă³khi." Presumably the Italian legate made threats and warnings, trying to intimidate this simple dictator. One easily imagines the fist hitting the table and the screaming so common to Mediterranean culture occurring in Gen. Metaxas' office that day. The answer remained "Ă³khi."
Not long afterward, the Italian army invaded Greece. One was not supposed to say "Ă³khi" to the Roman's great descendants, and the descendants of the Roman legions were going to teach this lesson pointedly. The brave Romans' progeny were hoisted on their own petard by the Greeks. Not only was the Italian army driven from Greece, but the Greeks conquered a fourth of Albania in the process. This is what was found in a Google search:
"October 28, 1940: Okhi Day - The third most important holiday (after Independence Day and Easter Sunday) in the Greek calendar; commemorates the Greek rejection of Mussolini's ultimatum to the Athens government, which led subsequently to Italy's invasion of Greece from Albania."
Only when Hitler invaded Greece was this embarrassing defeat of Fascist military power rectified. The defeat of the Italians by the Greeks - which began with the simple word "Ă³khi," - "no," spelled the beginning of the end for Fascist Italy.
After this, the obvious guarantor of Mussolini's power, even to the Italians, was the German Army. It is not clear to me whether Hitler forced Mussolini to enter World War II, but the Italian military leaders knew that their army was not prepared for war. Mussolini overruled his generals, and, as is so often the case, the generals were right and the megalomaniac with the authority (fasces) was wrong.
.jpg?t=20120527181101)
Article comments
1 - Liberal
"There are the demands by the Arabs on our territory."
Do you mean the territory that the UN gave you in spite of the fact that other people were living there or the territory you took from Jordan an Egypt?
Which territory are you claiming?
2 - Ruvy in Jerusalem
Neither.
I'm talking about the territory that G-d gave us, that we have had to pay in blood for. Do you seriously think that abandoning our holdings in Judea and Samaria will lessen the Arabs'appetite for our land?
If you do, you are sadly deluded.
I pay attention to what they say to each other. They want ALL of our land.
But more to the point, the Arabs are just being used as a stalking horse for the Vatican, which has designs on Jerusalem.
Because I live here, I pay attention to realities on the ground - realities that you barely ever get to see, much less read about. Among these realities are five American bases in Israel, the presence of European "advisors" in Gaza, the plan of Ariel Sharon to bring in American and European troops to Judea and Samaria, and the fact that the CIA and MI5 are all over the place here like a bad smell.
Finally there is that big enchilada of a reality; one hundred thousand American troops only a few hours away in Iraq.
3 - Gogan
For saying "no" to threats one need not go to a butcher like Metaxas. You have a perfect argument: any demand for territories is irrational in the world we live in. It is backward because it is based on a concept that within certain borders the political powers which expect to govern them will be free to impose any form of social order they want irrelevant of the norms regulating the international community. While the idea of borders deflates by the minute, while the world globalizes - there are these efforts to carve territories for administrative purposes. Nobody prevents nor discourages Palestinians (or for that matter the ethnic Albanians in Kosovo) to irrigate and plough the land, to produce jewelry or computers, to sell tourist or software services. The appetite for territories is insatiable with those who would not work harder to catch up with the skills of the day. The moment it is quenched, it reappears as a new appetite, now for easy money. That in turn results with legitimization of the concepts that the world, "the others", "the rich" have an obligation to finance the monstrosities created on so carved territories.
This civilization will be much better off if it tried its best towards integration and provision of common denominators for human existence and creativity. The UN needs to proclaim that it can intervene wherever those basic rights of the people are disregarded. Forget the national borders. We have seen the interventions against sovereign states like Yugoslavia, Iraq, Afghanistan.
I was in Israel a couple of times. I will never forget the scene on the Ben Gurion Airport in Tel AViv the day Anwar el Sadat flew in on his famous peace mission. The man walked upright while the Star of David on the rows of fluttering Israeli flags by which he marched appeared as if fleecing his face as a reminder that the Arabs need never forget that the place was also the home of the Jews. I was shown that from the border of the new territory any Palestinian kid with a bazooka in the hands can destroy any passenger airplane landing or taking off from Ben Gurion airport. Sadat tried to show a new way and paid with his life. He was not slain by the Israelis. It is a pity that a man like Ariel Sharon accepted to clear the settlements. They should have remained and the Palestinians would have had to accept that even on their new territory they have to guarantee the safety for all, Arab and Palestinian alike. The same goes for Kosovo.
4 - Ruvy in Jerusalem
Gogan, you are right in much that you say. It is very hard to get Israelis to see this point of view. They spurn all that is their own for all that is foreign. I picked this disgusting pig of a dictator to make the point that Greeks have national pride, something Israelis used to have.
Many Arab leaders say they will not abandon one square millimeter of the sacred soil of the land. This is the preceise messzge our own leaders should have every day instead of seeking "compromise" daily. They compromise our honor, our dignity and have succeeded in losing 1,700 lives to terror becausxe of their cowardice.
5 - Grozdan Popov
Some 30 years ago Chaim Bar Lew gave me an interview in Tel Aviv, when he was secretary-general I believe of the Labour party. (I also spoke with Yassar Arafat, who had begun as a terrorist, on a different occasion and mention the fact for the record.) The war hero and probably the greatest Israeli general was the first to insist that Israel needs to dive into dialogue and accommodate some of the new realities. It was the first ever interview given to and published by a Yugoslav daily, which was an emotional move but also a sign. He insisted that there are some lines, some positions which are not negotiable. By allowing the settlements to go Sharon gave in to a direct blackmail and a demand which reveals the real intentions: separation for ever and more attacks on ever decreasing territorial safety.
6 - Ruvy in Jerusalem
The obvious that you can see seems ever to escape the notice of the upper crust that ru(i)ns this country.
The most intelligent secular Israeli plan ever offered to solve the problem of "peace" here was offered by Yig'al Allon, z"l, with the Allon plan. If adopted as the policy of the country when it was put forth, we would have been in much better position now than we are.
I'm forced to conclude that a Higher Power had other plans for us. One learns in this land that little is coincidental.
7 - Ronny
This was a very interesting read now I know one more word in greek that I did not know before :)