Vassilis Vassilikos - ...And Dreams Are Dreams

“Isn’t that always the way imperialism works?

(Don’t forget that, at the time, England was a very powerful empire.) By hiding behind employers, lenders, and loan sharks, it bleeds dry an entire people or a single worker. It’s all the same, since every people struggling to break the chains of slavery is made up of many workers. Until they bring them to their knees, at which point the politicians arrive to play their dirty game. Isn’t it always a von Krupp who prepares the ground for a Hitler? Isn’t it the multinationals of today (ITT, IBM, and so on) that claim, proclaim, and disclaim leaders, chosen by the people, in order to allow rampant capitalism to play its shameless game?

“History provides us with very little information of Kontostavlos’s actions in America. The rest is left to our imagination. But imagination is not enough. We do not have sufficient knowledge of the period to know what he would do. All we know is that he is a patriot and he is concerned for his homeland, which is in a state of revolt, and which is waiting for these ships to arrive at last so that the struggle may begin.

“First he goes to the American builders, who tell him that if they don’t get any more money they will auction off the two frigates they’ve already built. They are unyielding, but L’Allemand has given them the right to be so by ganging up with them.

“Kontostavlos is alone in New York. Emigration has not yet begun because there is no Greek state.

Emigration will start a few decades later, when this state, for which Kontostavlos is now fighting, will become independent under such conditions that it will force its inhabitants to seek a better future elsewhere, especially in America.

“Kontostavlos is unaware of this. And it is just as well, because if he had known about it, perhaps he would not have fought with the same courage that he did then, when, upon realizing he had fallen victim to a gang of London swindlers, who were eating away at the money so that England would later be entitled to ask for it back, he listened within himself to the cries and pleas of the brave men who were fighting for their homeland, giving their all for freedom, going into battle with regard to everything but their lives; he listened and he took heart.

“In order to understand the loneliness

Kontostavlos must have felt, we should remember that in 1824, Greece only existed on the map as a province of the great Ottoman Empire, and that in the minds of most Americans, there was only ancient Greece, cradle of civilization. In America at that time, there were no Greek American organizations, no Greek lobby to put pressure on Congress and the Senate. Kontostavlos was probably the first Greek who Sodart, the secretary for Marine Affairs; Henry Clay, the foreign secretary; and Noah Webster, the famous professor of law, had ever seen. As Colonel Benton said when Kontostavlos went to ask him for his help, ‘When I studied Homer, I never imagined that I would ever, in my lifetime, be of use to his descendants.’ He shed tears of joy because he was able to help. And he did help.

“So, without counting on the all-powerful Greek colony, on the archbishop of the Orthodox Church, on John Brademas or any other senators and politicians of Greek descent (which is the sole weapon that Greece has acquired since then, and which she only uses when the Turkish threat appears), Kontostavlos had an advantage over his modern-day equivalent, whether he is called an ambassador, a minister without portfolio, or a special envoy sent to negotiate military aid or the rent paid by United States military bases or the preserving of the 7:10 ratio of United States military aid to Greece and Turkey respectively. His advantage was not knowing in advance what the result of his efforts would be, of having the right to dream of an independent, strong, autonomous state, free of foreign guardianship, where those who fought in the revolution would become the leaders of the liberated nation.

While he understood, because he was an intelligent man, that absolute independence is difficult to achieve, he hoped nevertheless that the Greeks would succeed as much as possible, since the name of Capodistrias had already been mentioned by the foreign protecting powers. He hoped nevertheless that that great diplomat who had helped the czar to solve the hitherto unsolvable problems of Russia in Geneva would be able to solve the problems of little old Greece.

Kontostavlos hoped, the way those people at the end of World War I dreamed of a better world and fought for it with the self-sacrifice and courage of giants. The disappointment that came later in no way diminishes their glory. After all, that is the way the world goes forward: with its ignorance of what is to come.

Fortunately, this ignorance allows humankind the necessary margins for it to hope, for it to struggle to change the world. If everybody knew in advance what was to come, then not a leaf would move in the human forest. There would have been no Paris Commune, no October Revolution. Thus, armed with his ignorance of what it meant to create an independent Greek state, the same ignorance that kept Kolokotronis and Karaiskaki fighting in the trenches, Kontostavlos struggled and fought all alone.

“Straight away he drew up a plan. He went to see a lawyer, Mr. Emerett, who, they said, was the best in New York. With his purse full of his own money, Kontostavlos presented the problem: they had ordered some frigates for the war. But the company they were dealing with, Leroy, Bayard & Co., was being difficult. ‘Either you send us more money so that we can go on,’ they said, ‘or you lose the money you’ve already sent us, since we’ll auction off the two frigates we’ve built.’ The reason they were behaving this way, Kontostavlos explained to Emerett, was that the contractors had taken on the frigate contract as a single order: either all eight frigates or none at all. It wasn’t worth their while otherwise.

“The lawyer listened, then said, ‘You have no legal recourse against the merchants; hence you will have to appeal to their sense of compassion.’

“‘Experience had taught me,’ wrote Kontostavlos later, ‘that if I had to appeal to their sense of compassion, I hadn’t much to hope for.’

“Himself a merchant, Kontostavlos was a realist.

He knew that there is no pity in commerce. If there were, then merchants would close up their shops and set up charities.

“This merchant Kontostavlos who was now

burning with other ideals was fully aware of these realities. He went to the shipyard, where he saw the two frigates, the two dolls, waiting, as we would say nowadays, for a bottle of champagne to smash against their cheek, for their voyages to be good ones, for the waters to be gentle with them. He saw them, and in his mind’s eye he saw them full of brave warriors who would have the rare fortune to fight the fleet of the pasha on board these ships. He saw them there, on dry land, in the huge shipyard in lower Manhattan, and his heart almost broke. It had taken him two months of traveling to get there. That’s as long as a letter would take. There was no communication, no telephone.

Whatever he achieved he would have to achieve alone.

“Desperate, he sat down and wrote to his friend Korais in France. He told him the story of the impasse he had reached. And Korais sent him a letter of introduction to the philhellene Edward Everett, who also happened to be a member of Congress.

“Kontostavlos took the letter to him immediately and, miracle of miracles, Everett opened up for him the legendary gates of power.

“‘It is difficult for me to describe the obliging manner with which I was received by this eminent friend of Greece, Mr. Everett,’ Kontostavlos wrote.

‘Within twenty-four hours he had presented me to Adams, the president of the United States, to Henry Clay, the foreign secretary, to Sodart, the secretary for Marine Affairs, to Professor Noah Webster (whose advice I took and for which I offered him payment but which he refused), to Colonels Benton and Hill and to all the members of the Senate and Congress who could help the most. With what kind feelings toward Greece they all received me! With what pleasure they heard me tell of the exploits of our heroes! I felt an inexpressible joy as I observed the enthusiasm with which they competed to see which one of them could be of the most service.’