Saluting Mikis Theodorakis

Left Unity is very sad to hear that Mikis Theodorakis, the celebrated composer and political activist, has died in Athens at the age of 96. Mikis’ songs were always deeply political as was his entire life. He was repeatedly jailed for his beliefs and was sent into exile within Greece. Theodorakis was in the resistance to the Nazi occupation of Greece in World War Two. In 1947, during the civil war that followed World War Two, he was arrested and tortured. He was a leading figure opposing military rule in Greece from 1967-1974.

In 2011, along with the great anti-fascist activist Manolis Glezos, he launched a ‘Common Appeal for the Rescue of the Peoples of Europe’. This was a call for a broad European front to oppose the economic austerity measures and to co-ordinate international action to defend working people. We in Britain responded to this call and a Europe Against Austerity conference took place in London in October 2011. We set up the Coalition of Resistance which is now the People’s Assembly Against Austerity. The Greece Solidarity Campaign arose directly from this work and we visited Mikis along with a large trade union delegation in 2012. The photo is from this delegation at his home which overlooked the Acropolis. Mikis embodied the true spirit of internationalism and when Left Unity was founded in 2013 it built on the principles and values so clearly expressed by Theordorakis and the European anti-austerity movement.

We salute a great fighter against fascism and for socialism.