The kindness of strangers

I doubt if a Greek,  anyone of us, could answer so concisely and well documented the question "what is the contribution of Greece to world culture?" Partly ignorance, partly our self-censorship because of Greek malfunctions, will be responsible for an answer that is not fair for the country.

The way Pedro Olalla, the Spanish Hellenist, sees things is  as detached (since he is a foreigner), as well as loving and "affectionate" needs to be in order to crouch with devotion and gratitude on the country that is the cradle of the European civilization.

I had the good fortune to meet him personally and I was impressed by his deep knowledge and worshiping love for Greece, which he has explored stone by stone following the footsteps of Pausanias. A proof of this is the video under the title "Por qué Grecia?" [Why Greece?] including his audiovisual lecture at a conference about Classical Culture, held in Sagunto, in November 2012, to mark the abolition of Greek language courses from Spanish education within the general underfunding of studies in humanities.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=16&v=U9NeWHJ3yw8
(Choose English subtitles by clicking the "Settings" icon on the right and then "Subtitles", "English")

Olalla continues the cultural action of hellenists / philhellenes, such as e.g. J. de Romilly, who with the same question / title of her book Pourquoi la Grece? becomes another "Socrates" who with an appropriate question awakens us...

These foreigners bring to my mind the words of Blanche Dubois in T. Williams' Streetcar Named Desire, who, collapsed by the cruelty of those close to her, in the boundary between reason and insanity, finding solace to the doctor that came  to take her, says: "Whoever you are ... I always relied on the kindness of strangers ..."

It seems like these foreigners, with their kindness,  give in return the grace given to them generously by the Greek spirit.