Before the end

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.

In my country

... cops kill 15 year old students.

This is a warning to whoever wants to come and visit Greece: don't! A cop might kill you too. Especially if you are a 15 year old child, with longish hair and defies authority. You don't need to hold a gun yourself so that the cop might feel threatened: you just need to not adequately respect his authority.

Bitter jokes aside, this is a disgrace. I feel extremely angered and ashamed. I cannot write a coherent post at the moment. For more information read here., here and here (for Greek speakers).

New/Old life

I often wonder whether I am truly the same person I was 10 years ago. My life then was different, the music I liked was different, my feelings were different. I was more pretentious, I thought people should listen to a specific kind of music and they would be cool just because of that. Then I grew up and to my horror I realized that there exist people with excellent music taste who are crap. So I had to reconsider.

One of the few things that have remained constant in my life is some of the music I like. Although I don't listen to some things with the determination that I used to, memorizing lyrics and thinking of them for hours on end, there are still some bands and albums that I listen to with exactly the same adoration. Radiohead's OK Computer is one them, Portishead's live in NYC, Suede's Dog man star and Sci-fi lullabies are some others.

There is also a Greek band that made its mark on me, Stereo Nova. I remember seeing them live in a small club in my hometown, and being entirely mesmerized. Then I bought their CD, Ασύρματος Κόσμος, and learned all their lyrics by heart. They have split for many years now and there was talk about them having split bitterly. But in two days they will play again, for one special time. I am extremely gutted that I won't manage to go, not least because my amazing cousin will be opening the show. Aparently, people are hiring buses from Germany for this show... It would have been amazing for me to go. It would have been a trip to the past, a trip to my past. I could wear my clothes from 1998 and pretend that not a day has passed from then. But I can't do that. I have to stay here and remind myself that I am not the same person I was 10 years ago. And that hurts most of time. Apart from the times that it doesn't.