The end of Anakara, the shame of the Mayor Katsivelis

We already knew that the mayor of Lixouri was not particularly sharp. On several occasions, he has managed to embarrass our island in the national media. But what could previously be described, with an awkward smile, as a folkloric curiosity gave way yesterday, during the Lixouri municipal council meeting, to sheer stupidity and political incompetence.

In a previous article, we described how Katsevelis, the mayor of Lixouri, had already attacked Anakara. We also explained why Anakara remains an irreplaceable asset in the civic education of the people of Kefalonia.

We know that culture gives rise to knowledge, and that knowledge gives rise to freedom. And Greeks are free—or they die.
It is access to this freedom, more important than anything else in the world, that we must defend today, whatever the cost.

Anakara is, along with a few others, one of the pillars of popular education and the dissemination of culture in Kefalonia. Their work, of impeccable quality, gives our island a reason for young people to stay. In the purest Lixouri tradition, Anakara preserves the customs and practices that make a people intelligent—through culture, mutual aid, popular education, and the elevation of consciousness. A vital alternative to TikTok and Instagram at a time when our moral, political, and religious reference points are being erased by the American ogre.

At a time when a globalized modernism is spreading—supposedly a provider of freedom, but in reality a provider of decadence, destroying our culture, our traditions, and our capacity to oppose politicians corrupted to the core—Anakara is indispensable to Kefalonia.

And at this moment, when our island is being depopulated, when some are turning it into an amusement park for Western tourists, at a moment when every event and every initiative matters, Mayor Katsevelis, like a petty colonel, decides to strip Anakara of its premises. In order to allow the exclusive presence of a music school… on the vast grounds of the former University of Lixouri… It is ridiculous.

We have seen how effective the municipality of Lixouri has been in renovating the theater closed since the 2014 earthquake: eleven years of waiting just to begin the works. We have no doubt that our great-great-grandchildren may eventually have the opportunity to inaugurate Mayor Katsevelis’s music school—in 2042.

This music school project, even though I do not believe for a second that it will be completed anytime soon (if it ever is), is being used by the mayor to silence citizen opposition. There is more than enough space on the former university site for Anakara to continue its activities and for a music school to be installed as well—four or five, even. Anakara’s representatives even explained during the municipal council meeting that they supported the idea of creating a music school. The excuse that the law would prohibit maintaining both activities on the site does not hold: there are perfectly legal methods for subdividing real estate property in Greece. Kefalonians, given their well-known relationship with property ownership, know this better than anyone.

For almost two years, Anakara had been waiting for a response from the municipality regarding the premises it occupies. No contact was established between the municipal authorities and the citizens’ collective. And it is only now, after voting for eviction, that the majority of the municipal council proposes to “discuss” matters with Anakara. The decision fell like the blade of a guillotine.

The reality is that Mayor Katsevelis does not like it when citizens demonstrate a collective intelligence that far surpasses his own achievements. He would like—no doubt to secure his re-election—for everyone to descend to his level. Fortunately, even with great effort, it will be difficult for us to lower ourselves that far. That is why he has been relentlessly targeting Anakara for years.

From your ridiculous televised explanations broadcast across Greece regarding the distressing episode of the “Taylor Vaseline” following the 2024 carnival, to the awkward photos of your wedding staged and published in the local press last summer—clumsily attempting to imitate a failed Parisian glamour—you tarnish the image of Kefalonia with every public appearance. You are no longer worthy of representing Lixouri, the intellectual and cultural heart of Kefalonia.

For all these reasons, and in order to ease tensions, we call on the mayor to reverse this absurd decision immediately. Without the restoration of its premises to Anakara, the resignation or removal of Mayor Katsevelis appears inevitable.

We will support all efforts aimed at maintaining Anakara’s physical presence in these premises and preventing its eviction, by all means permitted within the framework of civil disobedience.

The panigiri has gone on long enough in Lixouri.

*In support of Anakara, an online petition has been launched. Those who wish can sign and share it by following the link below: 

https://c.org/bJ95QBcWzL