Genocide against Greek minority in Albania committed by the Greek Pedagogic Institute

Attn: Pedagogic Institute

Notification to: Ministry of Education

In the recent edition of Geography’s book for the 5^th grade in Elementary education under the title “Learning about Greece” there is a specific subject: “Hellenism abroad”. There are two chapters referring to Cyprus, another chapter titled: “Hellenism of the Diaspora” is following suite and the book ends with the chapter “The Hellenic element in the ancient Greek homelands” References begin with Greek Diaspora in America, Australia, Europe and Africa. Such references bear up texts and maps in which one could read about Alexandria, Constantinople, Amaseia, S. Italy, Garni in Armenia, and Ephesus. In the worksheet there is a work study on ‘Hellenism’s seats in the Black Sea”.

However there is no reference to Hellenism in N. Epirus and to the ethnic Greek minority in Albania at all! Unless the Pedagogic Institute has reckoned that N. Epirus is located in another planet in which case it would be referred to in Astronomy class.

Such concealment is:

 -Counter-scientific, because it fails mentioning the only internationally acknowledged ethnic Greek minority, living very near the borders, with a rich history and accounting hundreds of thousands of people.

-Counter-pedagogic, because it repudiates the identity of some thousands of N. Epirotan students studying in Greece being either children of the 150.000 fellow-country people holding a relative ID card or descendants of those who took shelter in “motherland” long time ago meanwhile having already acquired the Greek citizenship.

- Unethical, because it ungratefully treats the home to our national benefactors who supported especially the institutes as well as the Education per se.

-Hypocritical, because the History class shrugs off Pyrros Dimas and the names of numerous cities in N. Epirus in which battles took place during the epic war in 1940-41 while at the same time mention of the above names is made in other classes’ books.

-Dangerous, because-it awards a “low-intensity genocide” policy practiced by certain circles in Albania which in the meantime in their school books are professing that eight (8) Greek counties should have been comprehended in the Albanian sovereignty, undermining this way peace in the region.

Anachronistic, because it practices the concealment policy on “inconvenient” issues, as it has been professed in recent dark decades. N. Epirotans are enjoying respect by Hellenism throughout the globe either speaking at the Teenagers’ Parliament or championing with the Greek flag’s colors on their chest.

–Anti-European, because it neglects the main principal of the European Union about maintaining national pluralism in Europe.

 Unconstitutional, since the Pedagogic Institute claims to itself the right to foreign policymaking and moreover purporting a policy which rivals the official one. It has been a fixed policy, taken up by all Greek governments, to protect the ethnic Greek ethnic minority in Albania as it anyway was stressed out even few months ago right upon the Aristotelis Goumas’ assassination in Chimara committed by fanatics on the ground that he was speaking Greek.

Thus it is imperative that the Ministry of Education within the next weeks should enact the edition of the chapter “N. Epirus: The ethnic Greek minority in Albania” and have it dispatched to schools completing that otherwise excellent book.

Such necessity turns dramatic contemplating that in spring 2011, N. Epirotan students are most likely to return with their families back to their homeland in order to get registered in the census being conducted first time since decades. Again homes and churches will open, cemeteries will be paid the visitors’ respects while they will also write down in a piece of paper their nationality “Greek” so that they would be able to perpetuate a thousands-year-long history and to claim a contemporary autonomous role of bridge between peoples. It is worth that they be supported.

Demetrios Petkos, Educator