Noli Irritare Leones

Like, I presume, Maria in Australia, I’m a Greek-American (as I take it Maria is Greek-Australian) trying to figure out why things have broken down there. I know, probably, a little more about Greek politics and culture than the average American. I can tell Nea Demokratia from PASOK, and know that Costas Karamanlis (currently the Prime Minister and the leader of Nea Demokratia) is the nephew of Constantinos Karamanlis, who returned from abroad in 1974 to become President when the Greek junta fell, and found the ND party, that George Papandreou, now head of PASOK, is the son and grandson of Greek politicians Andreas and George Papandreou, and so on.

But as I follow the reporting on the riots, I think I must be missing a few pieces. People are angry because a fifteen-year-old was shot by the police – I get that part. It’s horrible that a fifteen-year-old was shot by police. But the cops are charged, and the trial hasn’t even been held yet, and there’s been rioting all over Greece. I’m trying to remember comparable cases here in the US:

1) Kent State. Four students killed by National Guard on May 4, 1970. Nationwide protests, Neil Young had a song about it, etc.

2) Dan White convicted only of voluntary manslaughter after killing Moscone and Milk. Rioting in San Francisco. (1978)

3) Rodney King beating. Rioting in Los Angeles after the officers were acquitted. (1992)

In each of these cases, there’s a back story, which of course I have at least some idea of, more than I do of the back story in Greece, seeing as I am American. I know, for example, that both the SF riots in 1978 and the LA riots in 1992 were tied to a sense that justice wasn’t done because of who the victim was. And that, at the same time, in the case of the LA riots, there was other stuff going on, with the result that Korean neighborhoods suffered violence in the wake of a trial verdict that, in itself, had nothing to do with Korean-Americans.

I don’t know the corresponding stuff that’s going on in Greece now – beyond a general sense that the government already wasn’t popular. Wikipedia has a rough summary.

The shooting happened during a period where the greek society faced a variety of difficulties. Unhappy by many corruption scandals, most of which involved mishandling of public money, the spread of poverty, the increasing rate of unemployment between young graduates and the slowing economy as the effects of the global economic crisis began showing….

I think I will check out what the Greek Communists are saying. Sure enough, while my first reaction to the story of the cops shooting the kid is that badly trained cops probably saw danger where there was none and escalated an altercation that they could have dealt with more peacefully, the KKE’s interpretation is more sinister.

… 2. The murder in cold blood of the 15 year old pupil Alexandros Grigoropoulos on Saturday night, on 6th December, by special guards of the state repression forces, is a “chronicle of a death foretold” caused by the state violence and repression. It is the result of a policy that regards as an enemy the people and youth who struggle, demand and call to question the power of domestic plutocracy and its parties….

The KKE is encouraging mass demonstrations and a general strike. They have several links directly on their front page related to the death of the fifteen-year-old and the current protests.

The leading Nea Demokratia party, in contrast, has nothing on their front page about the current situation. eKathimerini reports that Karamanlis has defended the government’s response to the crisis.

«The country needs a steady hand on the wheel,» Karamanlis said in Brussels, where he was attending a European Union summit on climate change. «That is my concern, not scenarios about elections and successions,» he added. Asked about Interior Minister Prokopis Pavlopoulos, whose ministry also oversees public order, Karamanlis expressed his full support.

Karamanlis condemned those resorting to violence and distinguished them from peaceful protesters. «Attempts by the young to express their concerns must not be confused with the activities of extremists,» he said. Asked about a possible change of leadership in the police force, the premier did not rule it out.

PASOK, the main opposition party, does have a statement on its front page, calling for dialog and democracy rather than violence.

The KKE is the third largest political party in Greece, but that’s a distant third, behind Nea Demokratia and PASOK. Nea Demokratia has only a slight edge over PASOK; over the past few decades, the two parties have traded off being prime minister, as the Republicans and Democrats trade off who wins the presidency, here in the US.

Devious Diva, who is blogging from Greece, has an open thread. She recommends the coverage of Teacher Dude, an Englishman now living and blogging in northern Greece. And Global Voices Online reports on the riots.

UPDATE: I finally found out where I can follow the Twitter tag (not sure whether there’s also a way of doing it on Twitter.com): http://hashtags.org/tag/griots. Most of it is in Greek, some of it in English. The latest tweets are about police using tear gas on demonstrators in front of the Parliament. The Associated Press story reports both “Hundreds of school children holding candles gathered peacefully Saturday outside parliament and at the site where teenager was shot” and “Rioting youths in the Greek capital attacked a police station, stores and banks and fought running battles with police late Saturday, authorities said …” The tweets range from bitter remarks about police interfering with protesters’ right to assemble in front of Parliament to a report of an attach on a bank.

FURTHER UPDATE: Patricia, in the comments, mentioned the anarchists and the student asylum mentality. I just found an article in the Irish Times that talks about how “asylum” status figures here.

The violence highlights the unwillingness of successive governments to tackle young people’s concerns, from the poor quality of education provided by a deeply politicised university system, to frustration over the lack of job opportunities.

Many young Greeks feel they have been excluded by a political and business establishment that puts family links above qualifications….

Students have enjoyed a privileged status in Greek society because of their role as the instigators of a rebellion in 1973 against Greece’s military dictatorship, which led to its collapse the following year.

As a result, politicians have been unwilling to crack down on protesters and extremists who exploit the so-called campus asylum regulation, a ban enshrined in the constitution.

This week self-styled anarchists barricaded inside the Athens Polytechnic have been openly stockpiling fire bombs and other missiles to be used in demonstrations, safe in the knowledge they are beyond the reach of the police….

And here’s a Christian Science Monitor article describing a history of conflict between Greek anarchists and the police. That article says that

The last fatal police shooting of a minor in Greece, in 1985, sparked months of nearly daily clashes between police and anarchists.

The article also says (and several other sources report) that the kid who was shot was in a neighborhood where there was a lot of anarchist activity; I suppose that explains the conflicting reports on whether he himself was an anarchist (or, similarly to Sandra Scheuer at Kent State, someone who just happened to be where anarchists were).

This entry was posted on Saturday, December 13th, 2008 at 12:47 pm and is filed under News and Commentary. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.