On 6 December 2008, a youth was shot dead by police in Exarcheia. According to police this was after a group of "approximately 30 stone-throwing people" charged their patrol car. According to other sources it was "a small group". According to other sources it was after an argument. This has escalated into rioting in several parts of Greece, particularly in Athens. Regarding these absurd events I am, as usual, most disgusted by how the mass media are relishing the chance to manipulate their viewers/readers by perverting stories and stirring up biased, sensationalist opinions.
To the actual concerned parties, I have three things to say...
...to the so-called "police", I quote:
The lawgiver, of all beings, most owes the law allegiance. He of all men should behave as though the law compelled him. But it is the universal weakness of mankind that what we are given to administer we presently imagine we own.
- H.G. Wells
...to the so-called "anarchists", I quote:
The mark of the immature man is that he wants to die nobly for a cause, while the mark of a mature man is that he wants to live humbly for one.
- Wilhelm Stekel
...to the so-called "reporters", I quote:
There is always hope when people are forced to listen to both sides; it is when they attend only to one that errors harden into prejudices, and truth itself ceases to have the effect of truth, by being exaggerated into falsehood.
- John Stuart Mill ("On Liberty"), 1859
By the way, I deliberately referred to "police", "anarchists", and "reporters" in quotation-marks, with a deliberate sarcasm, because as far as I've seen, an alarming majority of all three of these parties are not actually being what they claim to be. Disturbingly, most of them are in fact immature, uneducated pretenders running around playing "cops-and-robbers", making the situation steadily worse for those of us who are actually trying to make a real, lasting, positive difference.
I've lost count of how many times I've been in discussion with young people who make grand, heroic claims about the level of knowledge and motivation held by themselves and their peers regarding their "anarchist cause", but when I query the depth of their knowledge about actual Anarchist theory (as a system of political and economic concepts dating from as early as the 1600's, possibly earlier, and which doesn't necessarily have anything to do with chaotic violence), they quickly revert to breathless ranting, amounting to no more than "down with the system, man!". Equally, I've had several opportunities to be a bystander and witness young excitable police bordering on instigating violent reactions, in areas such as Omonoia and Exarcheia, and have been able to discern that the biggest reason they put themselves through police-academy was so they could legally carry a gun. For these people I quote (from http://www.wikipedia.org):
The word "anarchy" is often used by non-anarchists as a pejorative term, intended to connote a lack of control and a negatively chaotic environment. Because of this, some activists have self-identified as libertarian socialists. In more recent times anti-authoritarian has offered another similar self-identification. However, anarchists still argue that anarchy does not imply nihilism, anomie, or the total absence of rules, but rather an anti-authoritarian society that is based on the spontaneous order of free individuals in autonomous communities, operating on principles of mutual aid, voluntary association, and direct action.
...and my advice to all of these people is:
Educate yourselves. Don't claim to wave a flag for a cause you don't even understand. Equally, don't claim a level of authority which extends beyond your level of maturity and responsibility. It offends those who actually understand the causes, and actually have a sense of responsibility. If you use a trendy-sounding name as an excuse to vent your anger every time you don't get everything you ask for in life, then you are not an Anarchist, Socialist, an anything-"ist", or a "Police Authority" either. You are merely an uneducated vandal, destroying the hard-earned efforts of the mature members of this society who are quietly trying to make this a better place for our children to live in.
After living in Exarcheia for several years, and watching the farcical events that would unfold below my window every 17 November, I was left with one impression. With the exception of literally only one or two people, here was an excuse for a team of young thugs in balaclavas to have a bit of a "punch-up" with a team of young thugs in uniforms. That would in turn provide an opportunity for hordes of irresponsible "reporters" to write or broadcast absurdly unrealistic "articles" (complete with Mahler soundtracks and fast-cut special effects) about this mighty "clash of the titans", which would give all the couch-potatoes at home a brief moment's excitement, to stir them out of the frustrating boredom of their lives for at least a day or two. The level of bad-taste is so far off the scale that it makes me feel ill. Meanwhile, the biggest crime of all is that "the men behind the curtain" (politicians and international money-shifters) always systematically use these events to whitewash, cover-up and distract the public while carefully pushing through their most seedy policies and legislations. If you people in the streets realised just how much you are being used in this perverse chess-game, as pawns of distraction in order for the kings and queens (on both sides) to do exactly what they want (and have always wanted), then you would be really angry. And then you would actually want to do something more substantial than throwing firebombs and wielding police-truncheons. And if you "reporters" were to realise just how much your malleability is being cynically exploited by rich, powerful men for increasing their wealth and control, you would perhaps also be angry enough to free yourself from the money-fuelled mass-media circus and actually report some Truth.
Violence and impulsiveness is not Big, and it's not Clever. It's childish, and when everyone behaves childishly for long enough children inevitably end up being killed, and everyone childishly points the finger at all the wrong people.
Educate yourselves. Or we will all drown in hate-filled ignorance...
© 2008 Rowan Thorpe.
Rant about Athens riots by Rowan Thorpe is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Greece License.