Former first lady Margaret Papandreou presented her autobiography, “Love and Power” (Patakis Publications) at Ianos bookstore at 8 p.m. on Thursday.
The panel of speakers included:
* Former deputy secretary-general of the UN, Sotiris Moussouris
Moussouris praised Margaret Papandreou as an activist, her efforts for women’s rights and the legalization of abortion in Greece. He spoke of her relationship with the late Melina Mercouri and lamented that she is getting on in years or else she would make a great chief at the UN.
* Former socialist PASOK deputy Theodoros Pangalos
There was a bit of a scuffle prior to his speech with the words “Traitor” being heard. Pangalos read out the demands of the protestors at the event that objected to the IMF in Greece and joked that Tsipras must have sent them. He said the book is interesting as it documents the journey of a young woman with progressive ideas to Greece. He shared an anecdote concerning the late statesman of Andreas Papandreou regarding the average middle-class person wanting to hear things that they wouldn’t really want to see enforced. “The average person wants not to pay taxes but to have the state work properly,” he said. “The average middle-class man wants a virginal daughter, virtuous wife but for himself to do as he wishes.” He spoke of Papandreou being a role model for so many people and they could not forgive him for not sacrificing his passions. Pangalos prefered to focus on the women’s cause and feminism in his address.
* Journalist Amalia Skepers
The book was to have been called “Political Woman” but was not as “catchy”. She criticised the press for considering the book a Harlequin Romance by focusing on the love angle of the book documented in just a few pages. She focused on Papandreou’s work championing the feminist cause. “The book is a political work on the whole,” she said. The book focuses on the political situation in Greece and her activism in international groups as well as contacts with prominent political figures of the time. “Reading the book ‘Love and Power’ again, while watching it at every stage of the creation, I admired the course of this woman,” she says, speaking to the former first lady’s social efforts. Andreas Papandreou had political protection but Margaret was just an ordinary citizen who saw her personal life hanging on newspaper kiosks.
* The coordinator of the Centre for Research and Action for Peace, Fotini Sianou
Sianou said that the Papandreou family has been under wrongful attack recently with a number of untruths written. The book is brilliant, according to Sianou and hardly romance fiction. The book ends with the baptism of her young granddaughter, Margaret, in April 1991 – now older and at the book presentation. She spoke of Margaret’s action as a peace activist e.g. breaking the UN embargo of Iraq. “Margaret never paid attention to her own promotion but to the essence of matters,” said Siamou. “DId you know that Margaret organized the Women for Mutual Security network? Who knows that?” Sianou spoke of Papandreou’s love for Greece, loyalty to friends, faith in Andreas Papandreou and her family. Regarding the Papandreou divorce, Sianou said that there’s a parallel plane where Margaret and Andreas never split up.
* Author Nick Papandreou, the author’s son
He said that Andreas Papandreou had sought help for his inclination to infidelity by visiting a psychologist that didn’t think the problem warranted professional treatment as it did not affect his work.
The book is prologued by Nick Papandreou, and describes the great love story between an American woman from Chicago and a man who became Greece’s most prominent statesman after their meeting at a dentist’s waiting room in Minnesota in 1948.
