PM: The Greeks can accomplish everything if they remain united

"Freedom means to wage, united, the war against the tribulations we face, our enemies that have designs against us, and our own bad self, far removed from divisive slogans, the fatalism of subjugation and from national inferiority complexes," Prime Minister Antonis Samaras said on Monday.

Samaras called the anniversary a "day of historic memory, in days of national tribulation, for all of Hellenism and today, especially, for Cyprus".

However, he added, "it suffices for us to look back at our entire contemporary history to realise how many tribulations we have gone through, always in a painful way, but always with success"

"And we always emerged stronger as a nation, better as a society, and prouder for what we are, more certain of what we can achieve. Provided that we remain united and standing," Samaras continued.

"The Greeks can accomplish everything if they remain united and standing," the prime minister concluded.

PASOK leader Evangelos Venizelos said that "our national independence is being tried amid exceptionally difficult European and international correlations", adding that the Greek people are undergoing "immense sacrifices in order to avert the worst, which we unfortunately see is threatening Cyprus".

He warned that "blind, conservative ideological choices and economic ethnicism are prevailing, which in reality halt and disdain the idea of European integration".

"This year, the March 25 anniversary finds Hellenism in the vortex of the economic, but also international-political crisis of Cyprus," Venizelos said,

In these conditions, he continued, "genuine patriotism is that which actively offers the maximum possible dignity, security and prospect, without big words, irresponsible demagogy and fleeting but dangerous delusions".

"The anniversary of the national rebirth imposes that we remember that 'national' is the 'true', and that the most crucial factor of our national strength is our unity," concluded Venizelos, leader of the larger of the two junior partners in the three-party coalition government.

The March 25 anniversary is a day of memory, indelibly recorded in the conscience of the Greek people. It symbolises the start of the heroic struggles for liberation, independence and the creation of the Greek state, the leader of the second coalition government junior partner Democratic Left (DIMAR), Fotis Kouvelis, said in his message.

"In the present difficult conditions Hellenism, in its entirety, is going through, the struggle concerns dealing with the dangers of the economic crisis with emphasis on protecting the weaker social strata, the country's incorporation into an internationalised economic and political environment and its participation in a course towards European integration. A course of political, economic and monetary unification which, in order to be sustainable, must consolidate the participation of all the member states, solidarity among the partners and the democratic participation of the peoples," Kouvelis said.

"Everything that has occurred these last three years in Greece but also everything that has taken place in recent days in Cyprus convince even the most unbelieving that the future of our children and our family tranquility and happiness are at risk," Independent Greeks leader Panos Kammenos said in his message.

"With faith in the ages-old values of Hellenism, and generating lessons, experience and courage from the epic struggle for independence, the anniversary of which we honor today, I call on Hellenism to a united struggle for Greece to remain a sovereign and independent country and not be turned into a protectorate of the German Europe," he said.

"Today, the March 25 anniversary takes on a special meaning," main opposition SYRIZA said in its message. It charged that the three-party coalition government, in harmony with the Troika, irresolute, voiceless and catastrophic, projects the Memorandum policy as the one-way street for society and the country".

Their aim is to destroy whatever is left of the social state and the conquests of a century, SYRIZA said, warning that the labor rights, social security, public education, state property, health, the environment, and even democracy itself, are being sacrificed for the profitability of the big capital, for the creditors, for the select few.

"Today, more than ever, the immediate activation of all the working people, the unemployed, the youth is necessary in a large, collective and unifying struggle not only in Greece but in all of Europe. Today, particularly, the Greek people are at the side of the Cypriot people, knowing that the goal is a common one: to change the correlations, reverse the catastrophic policies of neo-liberalism and austerity. History shows that there are no one-way streets, that the only lost struggles are those that are not waged. The struggle for freedom, democracy and dignity is always timely," SYRIZA said.

The Communist Party of Greece (KKE), in its own message, said that the message of the 1821 Revolution is that "history is written with insubordination and disobedience to the laws and legality of the old orders, which do not leave on their own from the forefront of history but must be ousted by the revolutionary struggle of the people".

"In the history of the human societies, revolutions were always the vehicle for society to move forward," the KKE said, adding that "the people must believe, today too, to the justness and strength of their struggle, reject the blackmail by the parties of and the European Union".

"With organisation and alliance, the people must impose their own interests and their own power, disengage the country from the EU and the other imperialistic organisations, and turn the monopolies into their own property in order for them and their children to have a better life," the KKE concluded.

"In 1821 the Greeks, totally on their own, almost unarmed and condemned by the foreign forces, toppled an empire. Proof and lesson for us all, the Greeks of today -- who cannot compare to the giants of that beautiful and harsh era -- that nothing is gained without sacrifices, and freedom is not won without blood," the ultra-right Chryssi Avghi (Golden Dawn) said in its message.

It added that "Alamana, Maniaki, Messolonghi, are the brightest landmarks of resistance, the beacons that show the way and remind us of the Greeks' historic duty. Dervenakia, Tripolits and Valtetsi are the eternal examples of how tough we must deal with those who have designs against the freedom and integrity of our country".