Just before the end of the year, I'm trying to lay my thoughts in order.
A lot has been said and written after the murder of a 15-year old in Greece from the police 10 days ago.
This sparkled a unique row of events that involved extensive rioting in Athens and other major Greek cities.
These riots have probably been the worst that Greece has seen in the last 30 years - perhaps since 1974, when the junda was overturned by protests in the Polytechneion in Athens, a night that led to numerous dead people and years of persecution of the students. Because of these current riots there has been an impressive shift in the discussion among Greeks, from the topic of police brutality, unlawful killing and impressive lack of punishment to the riots themselves and the over the top destruction of numerous properties by 'anarchist' groups. Essentially what people are saying is that yes, police did bad for killing this boy but why did all of these awful young people have to go round destroying people's properties?
What people are not discussing is why these people went out, put on balaclavas and started burning down things.
What people are not discussing is where do all of these young people came from.
What people are not discussing is where did all this repressed anger and frustration came from.
Dismissing the riots as acts of 50 'anarchists' misses the point entirely.
Something that is unfortunately not a new practice of the Greek society.
The foreign press can put things into perspective, Greece cannot.
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1 comment:
It must be very worrying when people think that what is happening is the works of a fairly restricted group of anarchists and that's it.
How can you find a solution if people or the Government turn a blind eye to what seems to be a deep, rooted dissatisfaction?
Maybe they're thinking that everything is just going to die out, like the riots in Paris. I can't even remember what happened there, as soon as the media stop talking about something is as if it doesn't exist, which would lead us to another discussion, but anyway.
I really do hope something happens fast, something to put an end to all this. Hang in there, Groovy Greek.
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