The accident

It took me 29 and a half years to go to a proper demonstration, and that was by accident, two days ago. I'm back in Greece for a few days and I was asked to go to the general march that was happening the other day. The issue is simple: pension plans. The government wants to change things and the workers disagree. (There is a reason why I don't write political/social posts, it's because I suck when I try to explain such things. But whatever.)

So government says: you need to work more years and the trade unions say fuck you. Kind of.

My friends were on strike and were going to the demonstration, and I went as well. When I come back to Greece I don't have anything to do really, so I follow my friends around. The demonstration was big, like a party, or as d/a said, like the carnival of Patras: every trade union had its own banner and guy in front who was yelling slogans. People were repeating them, sometimes. The atmosphere was nice. Not exceptionally revolutionary, but nice.

What made an impression on me was the heterogeneity of the crowd: young goths, young kids from the suburbs, young trendy guys with nice glasses, older men with Palestinian scarfs and long hair and 50-year old women with big dyed red hair (Greece's trademark) and big glasses. I liked that, I liked that a lot. I want to be one of them when I grow up. I want to get my friends and go to a demonstration, instead of just going to the hairdressers'. I am not sure if I care enough about what the demonstration is about. As long as it is against the mainstream, it's cool. I'd obviously like to demonstrate for aesthetic reasons, like against dyed red hair for example, but that is not so important. The most important thing is to demonstrate. Until you're 50, 60 or 70.