In wake of Capitol Hill attack, HALC says road back to unity ‘not short’

The Hellenic American Leadership Council (HALC) has issued a statement condemning the attack on the US Congress by supporters of outgoing President Donald Trump on Wednesday and said that the road back to unity “is not a short one.”

In Thursday’s statement, HALC said that was “appalled that the president of the United States openly instigated” the riot at Capitol Hill in Washington DC, “encouraged the anger and conspiracies that led to the violence, and made only half-hearted attempts to defuse tensions and safeguard American democracy and American lives.”

HALC added that while it joins the “ranks of those condemning the attacks on American democracy,” its condemnation “is not limited to what we witnessed yesterday.”

“Over the last several years, American democracy has been threatened by conspiracy theories, normalization of behavior and ideologies that belong in the ash heap of history, and levels of complicity and cowardice that are unworthy of America… Yesterday’s outrage was the culmination of four years of appeals to the worst instincts in Americans,” it said.

“Ultimately, American democracy held,” HALC said.

“Democracy, however, by definition requires more from the people. Unity will not result merely from us willing it…The road back is not a short one, and it is not the responsibility of a single administration or a single Congress. As Odysseus Elytis wrote in ‘The Axion Esti’: για να γυρίσει ο ήλιος θέλει δουλειά πολλή/For the sun to turn it takes a lot of work’,” it added.