VIMAgazino
	10.2.2003

 

Stavros Theodorakis has been following the activities of Mrs. Anna Karamanou - the woman who has always placed the battle for equality above all else, and recently became the only woman Euro-MP, who –in opposition to her party– voted in favour of lifting the ban against women visiting the monastic community of Mt. Athos.

 

Anna Karamanou was never enchanted by the story of Adam and Eve. In vain did Mrs Georgia, her RE teacher at high school try to convince her. Little Anna was much more at home with Darwin's theory on the evolution of the species, and even after confession, when all the other kids from Sunday school claimed they were "relieved", Anna felt worse. Despite those concerns however, she was a straight A student, even in RE. Yet despite her achievements, she had to watch the boys of her class carry the flag in parades: it was inconceivable for teachers at the time to allow girls to do so. A short while ago she was the only PASOK representative and the only Greek who voted in favour of the European Parliament's report on human rights, thus demanding that the ban against women visiting Mt. Athos be lifted.

 

"Respect for tradition cannot be used as an alibi for the restriction of rights and gender-based discrimination", she repeats every day. And in order to justify her vote she sometimes attacks the status quo ("the decision of the monks was taken in the era of Europe's dark Middle Ages"), and she sometimes employs Christian doctrine (quoting Jesus Christ: "He said that no distinctions should be made between Jews and Greeks, freemen and slaves, men and women".

 

She rarely goes to Church; usually at Christmas time and Easter. Her first wedding in 1968 was a religious ceremony, her second, in 1985, was a civil one. Anna Karamanou, President of the Committee for Women's Rights and Equal Opportunities of the European Parliament, has Melina Merkouri and Norway's former PM Harlem Brutland as her role models. She believes the world would be a better place if women were in power.

 

Yet she owes her political carreer to a theologian, her high school Principle Dimitris Tsigouris. She met him accidentally in 1974 during a trip to her birthplace, Pyrgos."Anna, I expected different things from you" he said coldly when he saw her "conventionally" arm in arm with her husband and daughter, and thus… she started studying philosophy again, having dropped out earlier to make a family. She became a member of PASOK in the same year. Since then she has been fanatically active in matters concerning equality and human rights. At the European Parliament she often talks with Ule Sandbeck, a minister from Denmark. When Christodoulos was elected Archbishop she asked him to allow priesthood for women and cremation.

These days she is reading Karen Armstrong's "The Story of God"… She recently went to the Hermitage of Prophet Ilias in Tourkovounia and chatted with Filareti, the Mother Superior. Neither changed their opinions, of course, but they did agree that the Christian teachings are revolutionary. They also agreed on something her aunt Angeliki used to tell her: "the more you give, the more God will give you."