Met trots delen we het winnende essay van Konstantinos Chelios, geschreven voor een essaywedstrijd die we samen met de Nederlandse ambassade in Griekenland organiseerden. Onlangs mochten we Konstantinos ontvangen op ons kantoor. In zijn essay reflecteert hij op de nalatenschap van Max van der Stoel en het belang van morele moed: het lef om je uit te spreken tegen onrecht, juist wanneer zwijgen makkelijker is.<\/p>\n
Lees het essay hieronder!<\/p>\n <\/em><\/p>\n By Konstantinos Chelios<\/em><\/p>\n It is a busy day in Athens. You take the metro to go to your University, listening to Moments like this are not present only in the everyday life. History is filled Between 1967 and 1974, Greece went through a period that almost broke its In this kind of suffocating atmosphere, where silence dominated both inside But beyond what is widely remembered, his contribution goes deeper. As His work also laid the foundations for a historic precedent: that membership in After the fall of the dictatorship, he became the first foreign Minister to visit Breaking the silence when silence is the safest path is never a simple act. To understand why Max van der Stoel\u2019s legacy matters for Greece today, we Greece today may no longer live under the heavy silence of a dictatorship, but it faces If Max van der Stoel was alive today, the battles he would face would be Perhaps, this is the clearest way in which a legacy survives: not in statues or As the Dutch philosopher Baruch Spinoza wrote, \u201cthe true aim of the state is His legacy invites us to ask ourselves what it means, in our time, to speak up Fern\u00e1ndez Soriano, V. (2017). Facing the Greek junta: The European Community, the Georgakakis, G. (1992). Martyries [Testimonies]. Delfini.<\/p>\n Klapsis, A., Arvanitopoulos, C., Hatzivassiliou, E., & Pedaliu, E. G. (2020). The Leuprecht, P. (2011). Max van der Stoel: A tireless defender of Greek Miller, W. I. (2002). The mystery of courage. Harvard University Press.<\/p>\nThe Courage to Speak: Max van der Stoel\u2019s Legacy in Greece Today<\/h1>\n
Moral Courage in Everyday Life<\/h2>\n
\nyour favorite song with your headphones. Suddenly, you notice people turning their
\nheads. A passenger is shouting at a migrant woman for no clear reason. The tension is
\nobvious, yet no one wants to get involved. Then one person steps forward \u2013 not
\naggressively, just calmly \u2013 and says: \u201cthat\u2019s enough, please stop\u201d. A simple act breaks
\nthe silence that held everyone else in place. This moment captures what we call moral
\ncourage. What makes moral courage so striking is that it \u00abrequires\u201d from someone to
\nput their own safety or comfort at stake, by being fully aware that speaking up may
\ncome with consequences (Miller, 2000).<\/p>\n
\nwith such instances where many remain silent while only a few choose to act. This
\npattern appears again and again: the hesitation of the majority, and the rare individual
\nwho steps forward despite the possible risks. One of the clearest examples in Greek
\nhistory comes from the years of the military dictatorship, when Max van der Stoel
\nwas one of the very few international voices willing to speak openly against the
\nregime.<\/p>\n
\ndemocracy. Imagine waking up in Greece in the early 1970s and turning on the radio,
\nonly to hear the same controlled broadcasts that regime allowed to reach people\u2019s
\nhomes (Papaeti, 2013). The streets might look normal, but the atmosphere doesn\u2019t:
\nsoldiers are standing on the corner, posters with the junta\u2019s slogans are everywhere
\nand people suddenly stop talking when someone they don\u2019t know walks past them.
\nSome testimonies even describe families whispering in their own kitchens, turning up
\nthe radio or water tap to mask conversation because they believed that even \u201cthe walls
\nhad ears\u201d, a phrase that appears in several oral accounts from that period
\n(Georgakakis, 1992). At the same time, many European governments responded with
\ndiplomatic restraint, maintaining formal relations with the junta despite reports of
\ntorture, censorship and repression (Papaeti, 2013). For ordinary citizens, this external
\nsilence made the internal fear even heavier, creating the sense that Greece was
\ntolerating its crisis alone (Klapsis et al., 2020).<\/p>\n
\nthe country and beyond its borders, the moment a foreign voice finally chose to speak
\ncarried an entirely different weight. As Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Netherlands,
\nMax van der Stoel openly condemned the human-rights violations of the Greek
\nmilitary regime at a time when many European governments preferred a cautious or
\nneutral stance. His action played a central role in bringing the Greek case before the
\nCouncil of Europe, where he supported the investigation that exposed torture,
\ncensorship and political persecution under the junta (Klapsis et al., 2020).<\/p>\n
\nRapporteur in the Council of Europe, van der Stoel brought to light evidence of
\ntorture that later shaped the official condemnation of the regime (Leuprecht, 2011).<\/p>\n
\nEuropean institutions is not unconditional but depends on respecting democracy and
\nhuman rights, a principle that shaped the Council of Europe\u2019s approach to
\nauthoritarian states for decades (Papaeti & Nafpliotis, 2024). As a result, historians
\nargue that the Greek case at the Council of Europe, in which van der Stoel was a key
\nfigure, was the starting point where European institutions began to consider human
\nrights as a real political criterion and not just rhetoric (Fern\u00e1ndez Soriano, 2017).<\/p>\n
\nAthens in 1974, and contemporary accounts describe crowds greeting him with a
\ngratitude that reflected how rare it was, in those years, to have someone abroad speak
\nfor them when almost everyone else stayed silent. The significance of van der Stoel\u2019s
\nlegacy for Greece today becomes clearer when we consider what it meant for
\nsomeone to break the silence at a time when staying silent was the easiest option.<\/p>\n
\nSilence protects you: from conflict, from attention, from consequences. Speaking out
\nexposes you \u2013 socially, professionally, and sometimes even physically. Perhaps
\nnaturally, people tend to follow the group, especially in moments of fear or
\nuncertainty, because conformity may feel safer than standing alone. We may have all
\nfelt this at some point: that strange pressure to blend in, even when something feels
\nwrong. This is why the person who finally speaks shifts the entire atmosphere; they
\ndisrupt a pattern everyone else has quietly accepted. In oppressive situations, one
\nvoice can feel like a flickering light in a dark room, a reminder that fear has not won
\ncompletely. When someone chooses to speak despite the risks, their act becomes
\nlarger than themselves \u2013 it becomes a signal to others that courage is still possible.<\/p>\n
\nneed to look beyond the historical moment itself and recognize what his stance
\nrepresents. His intervention was not just a diplomatic gesture; it was a reminder that
\ndemocracies survive only when people \u2013 and institutions- are willing to defend them.<\/p>\n
\ndifferent kinds of pressures: social division, political polarization, the rise of extremist
\nvoices and challenges linked to the treatment of refugees, minorities and vulnerable
\ngroups. He showed that safeguarding human dignity is never \u201csomeone else\u2019s
\nresponsibility\u201d, and that silence \u2013 even polite, institutional silence \u2013 can slowly erode
\nthe foundations of a democratic society.<\/p>\n
\ndifferent, but the moral compass guiding him would remain the same: standing with
\nthose whose rights are easiest to ignore. He would likely open the dialogue for
\nrefugees whose dignity if often lost in political debates, for people struggling with
\nmental health who are still treated with stigma instead of care, for minorities facing
\nhostility both online and in everyday life. He would probably try to shift Europe\u2019s
\nattention toward every place where silence has begun to replace responsibility \u2013 from
\novercrowded camps at the borders to the quiet discrimination that happens in schools,
\nhospitals, workplaces.<\/p>\n
\nhistory books, but in the choices ordinary people make when their meet their own
\nmoments of silence. In that sense, van der Stoel is not a figure confined to the past.
\nOn the contrary, he remains alive through us \u2013 if we choose to act with the same
\ncourage he once showed.<\/p>\n
\nfreedom\u201d. His words echo an idea deeply rooted in Greek political thought since
\nantiquity: that a polis is held together not only by laws, but by the courage of the
\ncitizens to protect freedom when it is threatened. By speaking when others chose
\ncaution, van der Stoel acted on this shared democratic principle.<\/p>\n
\nwhen staying quiet is easier, and how the courage of one individual can encourage a
\nwhole society to resist indifference. And so, the real question is: when the moment
\ncomes, will we have the courage to speak?<\/p>\nReferences<\/h2>\n
\nCouncil of Europe and the rise of human-rights politics in Europe. European
\nReview of History, 24(3), 358\u2013376.
\nhttps:\/\/doi.org\/10.1080\/13507486.2017.1282432<\/a><\/p>\n
\nGreek Junta and the International System. Routledge.<\/p>\n
\ndemocracy. Security and Human Rights, 22(3), 183\u2013185.<\/p>\n