Athens burns

Yep, pretty sad. It's mostly a bunch of anarchists and other trouble makers who've decided to use this as an opportunity to cause destruction. Labor unions are also striking, but mostly for their own political reasons (but with dismal results - the largest union in Greece with millions of workers managed to produce no more then a couple of thousand protesters which is rather embarrassing by Greek standards). I got a kick watching these "anti-establishment", "anti-capitalist" demonstrators who got caught on security cam breaking into a shop to steal designer sunglasses. :roll:

It doesn't help that the Greek government is scared to come down hard on the protesters in fear of evoking past memories where the Greek army attacked protesters hiding in the Athens Polytechnic. It helps even less that since then schools and universities have been declared "off-limits" to police and are now used as safe sanctuaries by the rioters. The irony is that they protest unjust treatment from the authorities while exploiting the powerlessness of those very same authorities. Something doesn't quite add up; most authoritarian regimes wouldn't tolerate this level of rioting for long.

I just hope this doesn't give Greece too much of a bad rep. It now seems as though Greece is the nation who's cities burn in the winter and forests burn in the summer. Perhaps the right solution is for Greece to just win the World Cup and all this nonsense will be forgotten! ;-)

EDIT: I find it ironic that the father of the current Greek Prime Minister was the first Prime Minister after the military Junta was overthrown. His father was credited for restoring Greek democracy and now the demonstrators are demanding the current PM resign.
 
I hear what you're saying but I'm not sure there isn't more to it than yahoos. The Rodney King riots, Brixton, the riots in France last year, Greece this year... it's a symptom of institutional inequality and frustration. The worse the inequality gets the more of these things we should expect. I don't know that a bunch of happy contented people without frivolous impediments to their own advancement in an egalitarian society would bother to opportunistically nick sunglasses just because someone else was doing it.

When people in a society perceive that society is working for them, they tend not to want to smash it. The more people who feel left out, the more likely you are to get this kind of unrest. I think we'll see more as does the the head of the International Monetary Fund.
 
There's no question about it that there are plenty of people who are upset with things in general in Greece. Of course, Greece has been going through monumental transformations for some time now and that's when things get most interesting. The EU has had a huge impact on Greece. The 2004 Olympics hurt Greece as well as they spent way more then they got back (some of that can be blamed on the doom and gloom foretasted before the game, but the fact is that Greece is just too small to host such a huge event). However, because of these the infrastructure has improved dramatically and the economy has been one of the fastest growing in the EU. Recently the current government (which I don't really have an opinion of) has privatized some key "crown" corporations like Olympic Airways despite massive protests. There's no question about it they've done unpopular things, but I'm not sure if they've done any seriously bad things. Greece does have a stable financial center and is the financial center of the Balkans. Greek bank accounts are insured for twice the EU average. It's certainly not all doom and gloom I would say.

Is Greece corrupt? Thoroughly, and it's not just the government, it's a culture of corruption ranging from the taxi drivers to doctors to the highest office. Which is why it's more important who you know then what you know in Greece. It's just how Greeks are, this is nothing new. And this is in part of what they are supposedly rioting against. I do know that the students do protest against these sorts of things regularly.

As for the riots, I don't see the extreme disparity required for a true people's uprising. From what I can tell, the clashes with police are mostly smaller groups never more then 2000 or so (often, far less then that), consisting almost exlusively of young males. Unions have gone on strike for a day or two and students in larger numbers have protested, but the ones who caused most of the damage are the ones running around with anarchist flags. It seems the anarchists took issue with the fact that the 15 year old boy killed was "one of them" and decided to exact revenge.

Having said that, I still haven't really watched much Greek TV to see what they're saying. My parents tell me what you hear all depends which political party is paying off the news broadcaster.
 
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I got an email back from my cousin who lives in Kavala, Northern Greece, about an hour East of Thessaloniki. She says she has no real idea what the riots are all about, except that they want to topple the government and that they'll most certainly ruin Christmas for everybody. She tells me that she sees a lot of anger in the teenagers, although she didn't say how this affects her 16 yr old daughter.

My parents also have no sympathy for the rioters. My parents, my dad especially, grew up in serious poverty and victims of the both the exodus from Smyrna and the Greek civil war. In comparison, the troubles faced by modern day Greeks pail in comparison. Considering my grandfather was taken from his home at gunpoint by communist militants in the 1950s (eventually to be rescued by government soldiers), I don't expect anyone in our family to ever sympathize with the extreme-leftists and especially not the koukouloforous ("the hooded guys").
 
Here's an interesting article:

Who Appointed Greek Anarchists to Run Greece?

One consequence of providing all students with free college education (a source of pride in Europe) can be seen on the streets of Athens today. These students do not have enough to do, do not have to worry about money, and suffer from a combination of poisons: adolescent hormones and the well- known phenomenon of student arrogance (a little bit of knowledge is a dangerous thing).

- Mike
 
I am trying my hardest to keep my mouth shut..

Mike, I'm with you on this one.
 
@Mike:

It's precisely because "a little bit of knowledge is a dangerous thing" that there are those who'd prefer the public in general to stay as uniformed and apathetic as it is.
 
Fluffy, I think your article is an interesting parallel, however, there are important differences here. First, the blacks in America have a long history of persecution and continue to perceive that to this day. This does not correlate with any long history of Greek police brutality against Greeks - at least no more then any other Western nation. Also, in Greece there are really two uprisings, the first where average people (students and labor unions mostly) are protesting peacefully against education and other economic reforms and the anarchists who went ballistic after Alex the 15 year old was killed. What I thought was interesting in your article was that blacks who support the cause did not support the destruction of property. And to be honest, the blacks in the US have a much more valid "cause" then the anarchists in Athens - which soul "cause" may be nothing more then simple destruction.

I think the parallels fall apart once you consider the blacks in the US have more reason to riot (this shooting was clearly not an isolated case but more of a trend) yet seem less organized and cause less destruction while in Athens the cause seems vague at best (no recent trend of police shooting unarmed kids) yet the destruction is immense (well over 2B Euros) and the rioters were well prepared with Molotov cocktails, gas masks and even powerful lasers used to blind the police - not to mention the use of firearms. And if the riots in Athens ended after a few days then we could write it off as an emotional reaction to the killing, but they lasted over three weeks and more violence is expected tomorrow as half the nation will be on strike for various reasons - least of which are the 15 year old victim.

So is there a reason to protest in Athens? Yes, it's a country full of problems. Is there a reason to burn the city to the ground? No, unless you're an anarchist or simply wish to tear down the current government in an undemocratic way. PASOK, the lead opposition party has done everything it could do to capitalize on these riots.
 
Robert said:
@Mike:

It's precisely because "a little bit of knowledge is a dangerous thing" that there are those who'd prefer the public in general to stay as uniformed and apathetic as it is.
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That is correct. However, there are those who exploit this as well. there are people that use one-sided-stories to recruit young minds into these dubious causes like al-Qaeda, militant pro-lifers and the Anarchist movement. These young students somehow feel they know all there is to know and act accordingly, fighting for some greater ideal, but the fact is they are mostly fools being manipulated by others. This is why I've always said that idealists are the most dangerous people on earth, because they feel they somehow have tapped into a greater intelligence and are working for a greater cause.

- Mike
 
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