The rioting in Greece has now gone on for three days. The shooting of the teenager in Greece was a terrible tragedy, but the riots that have lasted for half a week are way out of proportion, at least in my opinion.
As is usually the case, the shooting triggered action on the simmering complaints about the Karamanlis government and recent corruption scandals in Athens, and gave the lefty-wing crazies an excuse to riot. And as you know, Greece is home to some of the western world's most active and organized anarchists (ironic on many levels). So instead of marching peacefully or holding a sit-in or calling into a radio show/write a letter to the editor, etc. etc., protesters turn to bricks and molotov cocktails, much in the same way anarchists "greeted" Bill Clinton - and embarrassed Greeks around the world - when he visited Athens 9 years ago.
Parts of the Greek left are incredibly stupid. They should be proud of fighting the Nazis during World War II as the resistance was led and primarily made up of Communists. But once the Cold War started it seemed obvious that Greece was finally and firmly part of the west, and that the west was better than the communist east. Many leftists and students in Greece continue to romanticize communism and oppose anything to do with the west - NATO, the EU, alliances with the United States - despite the recent and terrible histories and experiences of neighbors like Bulgaria, Yugoslavia, Albania, etc.
The east-west schizophrenia goes back hundreds of years to the Byzantine empire, the fourth Crusade of 1204 (where western Crusaders sacked and conquered Constantinople rather than march on Jerusalem) and being torn between looking west to Rome - and beyond - or being more comfortable looking east even if that meant being part of the Ottoman Empire. Of course, the dirty little secret of Greek history is that most Greeks at the time of the fall of Constantinople certainly preferred the Ottoman Empire to being subservient to Rome and the Catholic Church.
The end of World War I, and the way the western powers handled the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire, and the Turkish invasion of Cyprus of 1974 feeds that lingering mistrust of the west.
Anyway, that's a long winded way of saying there's a lot of stupidity coupled with institutional memory in the streets of Athens, Thessaloniki, etc. this week.
Greek police should not shoot and kill teenagers, but the Greek left needs to understand that Greece is firmly ensconced in the western world, a world of liberal democracies and civil societies and the European Union, not a third-world country where seething mobs influence politics and society.
I'm embarrassed by the police and the rioters.
4 comments:
Exactly right. There is a proud leftist legacy in Greece (and many in my family were part of it), and U.S. support for the Junta and the left's role in throwing them out and restoring democracy burnished those credentials. But many in Greece remain trapped in the past and loyalty is still centered on the family and village. Government institutions are fueld by patronage and partisanship and the relation of the average Greek to the central government is one of abusing the system and squeezing out of it whatever they can get rather than any kind of civic pride. At some level, this cynicism is warranted, refreshing, and defiant. But at another, and as seen by these riots, it is self destructive, old fashioned and profoundly self indulgent.
Good points - the cynicism is warranted, and skepticism bred by cynicism is essential in a democracy, especially within the press. You would hope that the protesters turn into activists, and instead of taking out their rage on society would organize to change their government and politics.
But that's an American leftist's point of view. As you point out, the average Greek leftist has a much different experience with their government than an American leftist or progressive does.
Greece needs a neutralizing junta like during Crimea to prevent soviet access to the straits. Then they can scurry about in denial blaming Armenians, Jews or Albanians as these perfidious Trojan Horse diner people are wont to do. We have to close their smelly unwashed pragra Manitchian Islamo-Soviet temples here in the USA to prevent them doing the same here.
I guess I should be flattered to be reaching a wider audience . . .
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