Images from the protest marches yesterday in Athens.
The demonstrations were part of a general strike on the same day against the vote on the 2011 budget at the Greek Parliament.
Although such a strike in mid December is almost customary in Greece, these last years such strikes and protest marches have seen unprecedented violence being unleashed.
Two years ago it was the death of a young boy who was shot dead by two policemen after a sort of misunderstanding. This tragic incident had then led to widespread violence that burnt down the wider area of the Athens centre for about a week. Universities and schools were occupied and everything was disrupted. It seems that the tragic death of Alexandros Grigoropoulos and the events of the ‘black December’ (2008) have signalled a turning point for Greek society.
Is it that Greeks can take no more? but no more of what?
Two years ago, in 2008 the argument was that youth could take no more. No more of no hope, of inadequate education, lack of opportunity and underemployment.
It was my feeling then (as a 40 year old) that it was my generation that could take no more, if anything. Those of us who had studied, worked for a long time, had kids, a mortgage and were really under pressure. it also seemed to me that Greek youth is rather spoiled, at least that middle class and lower middle class youth that was on the streets in December 2008 (some of whom were trhowing stones and custom made Molotov bombs) .
The fact of the matter is that those incidents provoked a feeling of insecurity that was unleashed mainly targeting irregular migrants at the centre of Athens. The then conservative government went into enforcemeng big time, doing raids every day and every night in late spring and early summer 2009 throughout the neighbourhoods where irregular migrants, newly arrived from Afghanistan, Pakistan and Bangladesh or some sub Saharan African country were surviving.
The conservative government went down a self-destroying and a country-destroying path, borrowing money which it misused, tyring to cheat the statistics and going into elections in September 2009 as if these would be a purgatory for all their sins.
The Socialist government that took power (having hidden the truth – that they all knew – from the voters, notably that hard times were ahead and that money was tight, VERY TIGHT) started off with a lot of dynamism and many of us had hoped (and still hope) that if there is anyone who can get the country out of here it is this government of George Papandreou which includes many new people, with new ideas, not yet corrupted by politics and by clientelism, who really believed in him and in the possibility that the country can profoundly change.
However, old habits die hard. Thus, after a painful year of salary cuts and other measures that have strangled the market in Greece, I am still waiting…
for the structural reforms on the economy – the opening up of professions, the liberalisation of licenses, all these measures that economists tell us will re-launch the economy
for a change of ethics among politicians: can’t they give back their black cars and take the metro to work? can’t they decrease the salaries of the Parliament’s administration too?
for a change of ethics among the population: can citizens start paying their taxes? can fonctionnaires start doing their job? can people accept that you cannot work for 20 years and be in pension for another 35 as we all live too long for that? can people accept that we all have to be evaluated in the work we do, starting from teachers and University professors for once?
People will say again that violence is the natural reaction of people who have lost their hope. But one wonders whether all this fervour that is put into demonstrations, if it were put into making this country work, wouldn’t it give better results?