Barack Obama Tours Greek Ruins in Athens

President Barack Obama and Clinton have reminded Americans that our system of democracy has worked, and that we must all ensure President-elect Trump and the nation that the transfer of power will be a seamless transition. “Because our democracies are inclusive, we’re able to welcome people and refugees in need to our countries”.

Obama met with Kountoura on Tuesday at a dinner hosted by Greek President Prokopis Pavlopoulos during which he pledged: “You will always have the support and the friendship of the United States, as you work to move the country ahead”.

“A second march pushed up against a police cordon and protesters threw two Molotov cocktails”, an Athens police spokesman told Al Jazeera.

Obama says Greece “cannot be expected to bear the burden alone”.

I had been debating all week on whether to write into the Voice of the People.

Tsipras, held his tongue for the most part, noting that Trump was now the president-elect and would be a major player on the world stage. “An inequality that was once tolerated because people didn’t know how unequal things were now won’t be tolerated because everybody has a cellphone and can see how unequal things are”.

This election was different and unlike any other over the past twenty-five years, covering the span of my lifetime. “What an irony it is, at a time when we can reach out to people in the most remote corners of the planet, so many citizens feel disconnected from their own governments”.

Obama is offering reassurances during a speech in Athens that “our future will be OK”. A reluctance by many other European Union countries to host refugees has left more than 60,000 people stranded in Greece. “I came here with gratitude for all that Greece – “this small, great world” – has given to humanity through the ages”, Obama said, referring to Aeschylus, Euripides, Herodotus, Thucydides, Socrates and Aristotle.

“Winston Churchill famously said that democracy is the worst form of government – except for all the others”, he said.

Panayiotis Lafazanis, a party leader for the Popular Unity party and one of the groups that took part in the riots, said that Obama’s visit was “a provocation, much more as it comes during the commemoration of the heroic Polytechnic revolt, where the USA -driven dictatorship squashed the students with tanks”. He said he knew little of Trump but had become acquainted with his “aggressive manner” during the campaign.

The president said that the next four years will be a challenge to American democracy, as Trump’s presidency was built on division, bigotry, and what he called “a rise in a crude sort of nationalism or ethnic identity or tribalism that is built around an “us” and a ‘them'”.

As Americans we are a resilient people that have been tested throughout our history both here at home and overseas. “Any action by a president or any result of an election or any legislation that has proven flawed can be corrected through the process of democracy”.

However, his speech to a select audience in the new Athens opera also contained several references to the long-term benefits of democracy, open markets and social inclusiveness.