The unveiling of the official logo that will accompany events next year commemorating the 200-year anniversary of the beginning of the Greek War of Independence generated criticism and questions by numerous quarters in Greece over the past week.
The Greece 2021 committee unveiled a logo bereft of the Holy Cross, which features on the country’s flag since its establishment of an independent state in 1830, and which adorned many of the banners during the bloody eight-year struggle of the Greek nation and Philhellenes to overthrow the yoke of dour Ottoman rule.
Besides the “vanished” Cross, no hint of the weapons used by the freedom fighters, such as swords, canons and muskets, is evident.
All missing from the official statement by the Greece2021 committee is the word “nation” and “Ottoman occupation” (Tourkokratia).
Most noted historians agree that the struggle waged by the Greek nation against Ottoman rule prominently featured a religious component, namely, to depose the second-class and often oppressive system enforced by the Ottomans rulers on non-Muslims.