Women's day and the monument of the Unknown Soldier

The story goes that, some feminists had sat across the “unknown soldier’s” monument at a national celebration, where politicians showed their respect placing wreaths wreaths, protesting with billboards that read in big letters “there is someone even more unknown than the Unknown Soldier and that is his wife”.

Their action seemed to me (and still seems) as proud, just, smart and so real. I felt like a kid, as if they scored against a major football team. That’s what I was thinking while I was driving late at night, passing by our burned national kiosk. They burned the “Unknown Soldier” and I afterwards remembered that today is the 8th of March, women’s day and I smiled. I drove the car Panepistimiou str., while my thoughts drifted as they always do, when I drive into the empty streets of the city.

What was I doing in the wee hours of the morning on women’s day? Just the usual stuff, in this suffocating city of Athens.

At 9.00 am I kissed my girlfriend goodbye after hugging each other all night, I took the dog out for a walk, then ran to the public market for some shopping. I returned home and went out again for some groceries from the supermarket, taking the dog with me again. At the store’s entrance I realized that I couldn’t take the dog in with me, so I stood there for a while, thinking where to leave him, since I didn’t want to tie him up to the tree all alone. I saw a woman standing in the crowd, in front of a telephone booth, talking with someone on the phone, with a pram and a baby in it, while people were walking up and down next to her. She was talking and talking as if for hours and I thought I would ask her if I leave the dog with her and beg her to keep an eye on him until I return. Strange thought, I know, but at a second glance I saw her waving at me and I realized that I’ve met her before. So I approached and quickly tied up the dog’s lease on the wheel, telling her I’d be back right away. I rushed into the supermarket and stressing to hurry up, I forgot what I needed to buy and the more I tried to hurry, the later I was. Rubbish! The truth is I was shocked to have seen her.

A couple of years ago we used to live right next door to each other. I knew her boyfriend quite well, better than she knew him and I used to feel a lot of guilt for this woman. I was aware that her boyfriend was HIV positive and I suspected he was sleeping with her for years without using protection, but I never had the courage to warn her. She had a child and apparently was pregnant with another. I suspect that as an immigrant, she would have married someone because her birth-country’s culture doesn’t allow for unmarried women to have kids, so she must have moved on with her life by now.

I knew that her ex-boyfriend was HIV positive and that he had lied to her. As she didn’t speak Greek well back then, he got the results from the hospital and afraid as he was not to be left alone, he lied to her. About a week later, the ex-boyfriend got killed in an accident, so she moved out and I never saw her again…till now. I was certain that she probably didn’t have a clue.

The sun was shining so bright, giving an optimistic view while covering the neighborhood’s concrete. I wouldn’t want any damn soul to stop me on the road and ruin my already anxious day with something even worse. It’s a constant fear I have, that when your life is finally bright for a while, a minute later, it can turn grey again, and now I was the one to do that to someone else.

I paid the cashier with my eyes set on the road and my mind rudely calling me coward. I got out, I unleashed my dog and winked to her that I’d wait for her to finish the phone call. So I told her everything, however much her broken Greek could allow her to understand. She denied it with shame, she was completely misinformed. She thought that since she is married with a child and another on the way that there’s no way she has this filthy virus. I gave her my number, I told her to call me if she needed anything. Now after having this intense experience I came to the conclusion that knowledge saves lives and I did well, even if I acted so late. Then I slipped into the alleys of my neighborhood, which so gaudily tolerates the poor, exhausted migrants and allows the locals to live a few floors higher.

An immigrant woman, with no education, no access to information, being a victim in the hands of other male victims, the ones that burn streets and national monument kiosks, screwing women and crying like babies in women’s arms, acting macho and fighting on TV or in parliament with their obnoxious prestige, leading in battles and conflicts, so called heroes and liberators, creating their own wars, their own authorities with winners and losers, those who come out of hurting vaginas, which they desire and silently, desperately need them.

“Shame and disgrace” those cretins yelled on TV about the burned monument. I would like them, for once, to yell for one of those millions of people who don’t have the luxury to think about burnt kiosks simply because they are being “burned” alive and powerless in our “wealthy civilization”. I would like for once to hear “shame and disgrace” to be told for more important issues happening in this world than a burnt monument. For “Mercy” and other exclamations from our Greek tragedies, to come out of their mouths, about our unsubstantial, uncertain little lives. The same ones that yell about officers in the army wearing thongs, who yell about the burnt momument seems like a paradox to me since their decisions about our health, our education our LIFE are criminal.
 
I believe that people are far too indignant and that if they weren’t such cowards they would want to cut out with extreme pleasure, one by one, all the stupid symbols for every life that has been unfairly taken away from them.

8th of March, woman’s day, if it’s a celebration day, those wise witches who got burned during the dark ages, on the 8th of March of 2007 in Athens they burned the dummy monument of men. Those men who are forced to sacrifice their lives, to defend an unjust world!

Maria Cyber