Greek riots: the extended disco version

[ishtar79]

The protests about the murder of a 15-year-old by police are still continuing here, if on a slightly smaller scale than the first day. I realize at this point there’s probably zero interest in this outside of Greece, but I’m posting this for my own reference if nothing else.


Yeah, so I wish I had some articles that didn’t make me want to bang my head against the wall (or, more appealingly, bang the head of the journalist who wrote it). I’m not talking just coverage outside of Greece-our own media haven’t exactly covered themselves with glory-but then overreacting and spreading panic *is* what they do best.

As for the boy’s murder itself, this blog post has the best summary I’ve found in English:

Whatever really did happen on Saturday night, one thing is clear from the eye witness accounts (unfortunateley for the police, there are several and they all concur). Alexandros and his friends got into an argument with two police officers in the bohemian district of Exarcheio. There was no baying mob as the police claimed. Shots were fired, supposedly in the air, and an unarmed teenager lay dying on the road as the two officers calmly walked away.

That’s the shooting itself. The rest of the post is worth checking out too, as it gives some idea of why this lead to the shit hitting the fan in such a spectacular manner.

In case anybody does read this and has any questions, I’d be happy to answer them. But right now I’m too drained to even attempt an in-depth analysis, so instead I’ll post some of the best pictures of the events I’ve found online over the last two weeks:



Alex Grigoropoulos, the kid whose murder started it all.



Student protesters.



School kids protesting. School children are at the very epicenter of these protests, occupying schools, taking it to the streets, and having the shit kicked out of them by the police while their middle-aged parents mostly watch it on the news and comment on ‘these young punks’. A Greek comedian insightfully compared the situation to ‘watching a Reality TV show of our own kids’.

It should be noted that our glorious state thugs/police, who did very little in the face of the more violent protests/looting of the first day, saw fit to break out the tear gas and sticks during the peaceful demonstration consisting of school kids and their teachers.

According to numerous statements from kids on the news, they take special pleasure in shouting out classy things like “Come and get it, you little fa****s” and “where’s your Alex now?”, in order to provoke some of the more hot-headed teens and have an excuse to get violent.

I totally believe it, too. The other day, while walking around town, I passed a small demonstration consisting of about 20 University students, doing nothing more innocuous than blocking traffic and holding up some signs. Just as I was heading away, I saw a squad of riot police in full gear heading in their direction, with the air of the Romans about to invade Gaul. Intimidation > constitutional right of protest



Well, fuck you too.



Rioters have taken to using laser pointers to blind the cops during skirmishes. Between this, and blogs, youtube, and videos and police violence getting posted on the hour, I bet they’re really cursing those fucking kids and their damned technology.

Meanwhile, Greek police uses tear gas with an expiration date of 1978 (!). I don’t want to know what the effect would be from breathing an already harmful chemical that is older than me.



I’m just saying, it can’t be healthy.


One of the themes of protest is a demand of disarmnent of the Greek police. I fully support it, but am not exactly holding my breath.



My very own hometown of Thessaloniki.

Now, I’m not personally one to protest violently, but I if I still lived there, I might have been tempted to firebomb a certain TV station (this joke will only make sense to small portion of my friendslist who’s been here for years).




Those are not images commonly shown in the media. Doesn’t sell as much as clashes, fires and Molotov cocktails.

As an aside, among all my frustration at my government, the fucking cops and really, the world, I’m filled with a sense of hope because of those kids. Those kids, that I believed to be apathetic and too into their I-Pods and consumer goods, and Netspeak, those kids have made me so fucking PROUD these days, with their refusal to be bow their heads down, their political activism and surprising eloquence. I didn’t think this generation had it in them.

Of course, when I told ariadneelda as much, she pointed out to me that with every youth revolt in history, the previous generation is all shocked and surprised because the kids weren’t stuck in their own little world. Shit, does that mean I’m officially OLD?


Tear gas: the gift that keeps on giving.



The birthplace of democracy-sometimes the irony can become almost tangible.




I have nothing to say to these, not without exhausting every expletive I know.



A candlelit vigil.



High school students, taking their clothes off and playing symbolically dead in front of the central police station.

(They’re underage, but really, LJ, I’m sure if the news outlets show this, it’s not a ban-worthy picture…right?)



I love this one. So powerful.



This isn’t over.

Comments

[christhegeek.livejournal.com]

The real danger with that old teargas is lighters/fire. If one of those kids lights up a cig after a good dousing, they could burn themselves to death

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

Thank you for posting this. I've been following the story in the Metro and AM newspapers in New York as well as Time and occassionally the tv news, but the coverage is spotty and has been slanted towards the authorities. Making it difficult for me to see why it happened and what happened.

This explains why the rioting is happening and what is really happening in Greece. The information that I've gotten states the kids set Athens on fire. There's even a photo in Time of the kids setting the Christmas tree on fire. Your post sheds a different and much clearer light on what is happening and why, demonstrating how easy it is for the media to manipulate the facts and that there is always more to the story.

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

PS: If you don't mind I'm going to post a link to this entry in my lj.

[embers-log.livejournal.com]

thank you for posting these pictures (they made me cry), it is so frustrating that the news is all owned and packaged by corporations and repressive governments (I'm including all the news in the USA of course)... I pray that some good can come of all of this!

stay safe.

[olympia-m.livejournal.com]

thank you for posting these - and I would welcome a more in-depth analysis at some stage (or, if you come to Thessaloniki in the next few days, we could do that over coffee *G*)

[shiv5468.livejournal.com]

We are getting some news on it over here. Bad business

[ariadneelda.livejournal.com]

Meanwhile, Greek police uses tear gas with an expiration date of 1978 (!).

And I thought the tear gas this time was extremely harmful because it was modern tear gas! Also, I'm pretty sure I heard the same thing about expired tear gas maybe, ummmm, 15 years ago? WTF, they've been using the same stuff for how many decades?! Or are they buying the expired gas from other countries because it's cheaper or something? (I'm more inclined to believe that.) Gah!

I might have been tempted to firebomb a certain TV station

Ha! Like I was so not sorry when I heard a certain computer chain store was burned in Exarcheia. *has issues with them and their shitty customer service*

Awesome post.

[helkamaria.livejournal.com]

Thank you for linking to that blog post. It was very informative. Also, good pictures.

[liluv.livejournal.com]

Wow, that are some pictures.
I just scanned through German online magazines (both traditionally liberal or left) and it was interesting to see how different their description of what happened is from yours. Esspecially "Der Spiegel" wrote more along the lines of: the absurdity of what happened blah blah throwing garbage on the Christmas tree... burning it down...ah yes, well and a kid died... blah blitty blah..." Disgusting.

Die ZEIT however did better. I don´t know how well your German still is, but you can look for it here: http://www.zeit.de/2008/52/Griechenland
At least they acknowledge where the blame lies.

Thanks for the pictures and the different perspective.

[jelliclekat.livejournal.com]

I realize at this point there’s probably zero interest in this outside of Greece, but I’m posting this for my own reference if nothing else.

Hi. I'm a college kid in a midwestern city in the United States, and I can't stop reading about this. I have Google Reader giving me about fifty articles per day. I don't have time to read every single one, but I read everything that seems to have something new to say. The events have struck me harder than I would have expected. I don't know anyone in Greece. I hardly knew anything about Greek culture and history before this all started--like, the military junta? I had no idea it had ever existed.

Honestly, I've taken in so many varied accounts of what's happening that I'm having a problem figuring out which things I can believe. Given that I don't live there, I don't have the option to see for myself. I can only go by what other people see. But I'm going to keep reading, because...I just can't stop. I don't know why. I've never before gotten so invested in an event so far away from where I live that has had zero direct impact on my life. I've never before grieved so hard for someone I probably never would have met. I just have this sense that it's really important and I need to pay attention. I have to keep reading.

Thank you for your perspective on this. Except for that first picture (jesus christ, I want to cry every time I look at his face), I hadn't seen any of those photos. I've been quite annoyed at the number of journalists who seem to believe that teenagers just love chaos, and that's why they're doing this. Not only does that assume that every single rioter/protester is doing it for the same reasons, but it assumes young people can be safely ignored because we crazy kids all love burning things, everyone knows that! Yeah, no. There has to be more to it than that. Thousands of students don't all get pissed off at once for absolutely no reason.

1/2

[jelliclekat.livejournal.com]

I give up trying to make this fit in one comment.

Please don't worry about "going on and on." It doesn't matter how much I read; I keep wanting more.

The conflicting information from various reports has been one problem. It took me a couple of days to feel like I had any sense at all of what had happened. I wasn't sure how to react to some articles saying that a policeman had fired warning shots against a mob of thirty-plus attackers versus others saying that the officer had practically hunted down the student. I assumed the truth was somewhere in the middle, but that's an awfully large middle. (It's also been an exercise in ignoring my usual cultural frame of reference. Here, when people say they hate the cops, they generally get ignored. There are occasions where specific officers screw up to the point of brutality, but mostly the cops are the good side. Back in the beginning my first reaction to all the anti-police sentiment was along the lines of, "but they must be exaggerating." Then I started to realise they weren't exaggerating.)

I read something about a particular Greek official being concerned about Greece's reputation being "tarnished" in the eyes of foreign nations. But I definitely don't think worse of Greece. (Okay, I do think worse of the government, but that appears to be deserved. So.) I feel like it's been revealed to me as being a hell of a lot more than feta cheese and pretty beaches. If I am looking at the "true Greece," I like it. I admire the strength and courage of those protestors. I'm wavering among "I could never do that" and "I wish I could do that" and "I'm glad I don't have to do that" and "I wish I knew whether I would do that if I had to." But it boils down to, damn have you got some strong citizens.

And I have just begun digging into Amnesty International's information. Ho. Ly. Shit.

the fact that they always get away with (at best) a slap on the wrist

Hey, about that--what on earth is a "suspended sentence"? Does that even affect them in the slightest? Or is it just saying, "Here's what we'd do to you if we gave a damn, but we don't, so you can just go"?

Exarchia (if I'm spelling it right? I've seen a few different spellings...) sounds remarkably like a certain section of where I live. I go there a lot because it's where you go if you don't completely fit (or want to fit) into Polite Society, or you want to have a drink, or a war protest, or perhaps all three. Maybe that's a piece of why this has clicked with me. When I read about Alexandros being shot in Exarchia, I imagined me or my friends being shot in our place. It hasn't happened, but if this can happen, maybe that could too.

[kryptyd.livejournal.com]

I'm interested.

[q-spade.livejournal.com]

Thanks so much for posting these photos, and for your perspective on the matter. It is important, and I'd disagree about "zero interest" outside Greece – in fact, I suspect the idea of grassroots protest against governmental/bureaucratic/authoritarian idiocy is ready for a comeback. People around the globe are fed up, and want major changes.

Anyone know what is happening in Greece now?

[tolstoyscat.livejournal.com]

The news has gone dead. TIA