October 28 has been a special date for every Hellene, and for every lover of freedom for that matter, since 1940 when Greece�s Prime Minister Metaxas answered the surrender ultimatum of Mussolini with his supremely eloquent one-word answer: ���. NO. Faced with invasion by German-backed Italian forces, just four months after the surrender of mighty France and amidst the bombing of Britain, the world was stunned by the audacity of tiny Greece.
They shouldn�t have been. Metaxas was spiritually and intellectually bound to repeat the very same response that Hellenes before him had always given to those who�d hurled threats of death and destruction at them. From the Persians at Thermopylae, Marathon and Salamis�to the Crusaders� besieging Constantinople in 1204 followed by Mehmet II in 1453� to the Ottomans who attempted to suppress their culture, Orthodox Christianity and their eventual declaration of independence in 1821� to Mussolini and Hitler� our answer as Hellenes to such evil has always been the same: ���. NO.
Since then, this �Hellenic Imperative,� i.e., standing up to those who threaten Greece or doubt its resolve, has never been more alive than during this special year of 2004. Once again, the world was stunned by tiny Greece�s audacity. To those all over the world who said that the Athens 2004 Olympics would be a disaster, an embarrassment, or not finished in time, Greece once more said, ���. NO. Skeptics and enemies alike not only saw how an Olympics could be staged, they were taught how an Olympics should be staged.
That same �Hellenic Imperative� will guide us beyond 2004 as well. Whether in response to Skopje�s usurpation of the name �Macedonia� and the historical Alexander the Great, or on the future of Cyprus, or the re-opening of Orthodoxy�s School of Theology at Halki and the rights of the Ecumenical Patriarchate� whenever what is right and just is threatened, we will always say: ���. NO.
Like Metaxas in 1940, we have no choice. We are Hellenes.
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