Mitsotakis urges the Greeks: "Smile even if you are barefoot and poor"

I live in a country where a very rich prime minister has long lost touch with reality and is trying to convince the Greeks: “If you live in poverty and walk barefoot, you still have to smile!“.

During a visit to Ioannina, Epirus, in northwest Greece, on Wednesday, Prime Minister Mitsotakis showed the gathering photographs from the 1960s of three barefoot girls smiling at the camera by American photographer Robert McCabe.

Χαμογελάτε πτωχοί pic.twitter.com/o3HOWpgOfM

— Ιερώνυμος boss (@JeronymoBoss2) April 5, 2023

The prime minister called the painting “a symbol of the future.” “Three little girls who don’t even have shoes but have big smiles on their faces. Thanks to this photo, I think this is the best symbol of Greece, which has a future, has a perspective and, finally, knows that it can look up: firmly, boldly, rushing only forward … ”, the Prime Minister said enthusiastically on his election tour .

The three girls, two of whom are barefoot and one with a bandage, are children from Epirus in 1961. They belong not to the ND program and the propaganda of Mr. Mitsotakis, but to the history of suffering, destroyed and beaten Greece, the prime minister is told on social networks.

The picture was taken Robert McCabe in the village of Mega Peristeri in Ioannina in 1961, during the difficult years of poverty in the 1950s and 1960s, when the country was struggling with the wounds of World War II and the Greek Civil War. Hundreds of thousands of citizens migrated to secure a better future for their families. Is this picture really an example for the conservative and neoliberal government of the New Democracy, and is it really … a guide to the future? What is the message to the Greeks? “Smile despite poverty?”

The irony is that he made the statement when he presented the program for the development of the most underdeveloped region of Greece – Epirus – in the context of the presentation of the program presented by the New Democracy party. It is worth noting that this is not the first time Kyriakos Mitsotakis has used the photo in question as an example.

In December 2018, as the leader of the official opposition, he showed the photo during a budget debate in parliament, documento reported. The jubilant prime minister with barefoot children drew hundreds of caustic comments from social media users with irony and caustic phrases addressed to the prime minister, who posted photos of barefoot children during difficult years in Greece:

“Which one of these barefoot smiling children Mitsotakis?”.

Ποιο από αυτά τα τα Answers παιδάκια που χαμογελάελάει συμβολίζοντας το μέλλον ώρας είναι κυριάκοτάκης; pic.twitter.com/yhIrhxH9fY

— Kostas.Vaxevanis (@KostasVaxevanis) April 6, 2023

“Mitsotakis draws strength from looking every morning at this wonderful photo taken in February 1946 of one girl and three boys walking barefoot in the snow in Apsragelos, Ioannina, to get to school.”

Αυτή την υπέροχη φωτογραφία, με το κορίτσι και τα τρία αγόρια που φοράνε κουρέλια και περπατάνε ξυπόλητα πάνω στο χιόνι για να πάνε σχολείο, στη σκιά του Κάστρου, στους Ασπράγγελους Ιωαννίνων, τον Φλεβάρη του 1946, κοιτάζει κάθε πρωί ο Μητσοτάκης.
Ετσι παίρνει δύναμη! Από την… pic.twitter.com/LJXFxzKcP9

— Areti Athanasiou (@AretiAthanasiu) April 6, 2023

“These barefoot fun kids make us live in 1942 and 1950.” (photo of Mitsotakis and his wife on the beach).

4 χρόνια τώρα αυτά τα ξυπόλητα χαρούμενα παιδάκια, μας εχουν να ζουμε στο 1942 και στο 1950 pic.twitter.com/PRuJRlHhLs

— ▫️Έφη Βερ. (@Efie_Ver_) April 6, 2023

“These three little girls, two of whom are barefoot and one with a bandage, are the famous photo of the “Three Girlfriends”, children of Epirus in 1961. They do not belong to the agenda and propaganda of Mr. Mitsotakis, but to the history of the suffering, destroyed and battered Greece.

Αυτά τα τρία κοριτσάκια που τα δύο είναι Didυπόλητα το το το ποδεμένο, είναι τρεις φίλες, παιδιά της ηείρου 1961.
Δεν ανήκουν στην ατζέντα και στην προπαγάνδα του κυρίου Μητσοτάκη, αλλά στην ιστορία μιας πονεμένης, ερειπωμένης και ρημαγμένης Ελλάδας. pic.twitter.com/SHfp8u2ZqE

— Anichneftis (@Anichneftis) December 18, 2018

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