Greek riots: the extended disco version
Dec. 21st, 2008 02:58 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ishtar79The 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:
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![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
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.
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.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2008-12-22 05:09 am (UTC)We never know what events might strike a chord with us; after all, we live in the age of globalization and information hitting the Internet sometimes within minutes. It’s why I can, for instance, watch the Daily Show online and actually *get* most of the references. I sympathize with your confusion regarding conflicting information from news sources-I’ve been on something of a quest for a news article I can just link to my non-Greek friends when they ask me “say, why has your country exploded?”. Half the time I’m not even sure our own journalists, who supposedly should know better, have a complete understanding of what’s going on (and when I say ‘journalists’, I do mean a more sober portion of print journalists. It goes without saying that TV news are a circus).
The military junta (1967-1974) is relevant to current events insofar as ‘protest culture’ in Greece is concerned. What it’s done is left people here with a deep distrust of the police, a distrust entirely justified by the fact that not only does the Greek police engage in tactics more appropriate for a totalitarian regime (the difference is, the violence is not institutionalized, but ‘isolated’ accidents), but the fact that they always get away with (at best) a slap on the wrist shows them that they are, in fact, above the law. Don’t take me at my word: check out Amnesty International’s report on Greek police practices.
The rage over this boy’s death is about the fact that he was shot for no other reason than a trigger-happy cop took the police’s mission of cleaning out the ‘undesirable’ (that label including: students, leftists, Goths, anarchists, artists, activists, school kids and oh, anybody who might decided to go there for a drink, such as yours truly, every other weekend) too far. It’s about the fact he walked away and tried to conceal the shooting from his superiors. It’s about the fact it has happened before (http://nyc.indymedia.org/en/2008/12/102081.html). And very likely, will happen again.
But of course it’s not just about this particular shooting, or police state-sponsored thuggery and impunity. Many news abroad have made references to ‘corruption and political scandals’ of this government-but this doesn’t quite cover the running joke that Greek public life has become. State frauds, massive corporate frauds (with political backing), the Greek church selling off state property with the State’s backing, shady business dealings…and that’s just the last six months or so. With absolutely zero accountability or even an admission of a screw up. People have asked the (not unreasonable) question of we just don’t vote them out-not realizing that all-encompassing corruption in Greece is a truly bipartisan sport. The Opposition, which has been sprouting righteous rhetoric and unrest over the boy’s shooting…were the ones in charge in 1985 where the cop who shot the other 15-year-old walked free. And when I hear Americans complain about two generations of Bushes in power or Hilary attempting to succeed her husband, I want to laugh: Nepotism? We’ve had various members of the TWO same families in power for most of the last 30 years. And then of course there’s massive unemployment, the economy, education, social security, healthcare overwhelming problems that nobody seems to want to even TRY to fix (you might have heard about the massive forest fires in Greece last summer: we’re STILL holding our breath over restorations, both environmental and financial to the victims).
Sorry for going on and on. I’m just trying to illustrate why people have taken to the street (and not just students/school kids: it’s trade unions, teachers, parents who to live in terror every time their kid walks out the door, the unemployed/disenfranchised, and plenty of ordinary citizens who’ve had enough). But of course youth is at the centre of it, as it should be. They haven’t made their peace that it doesn’t matter if they study/work hard/attempt to excel within a system that’s rigged for them to fail. Frankly, I hope they never do.