Greek Riots

    Police CarsLast Saturday I got a call from my parents in Athens.  It was around seven o'clock here in Pittsburgh, so it must have been around two in the morning for them.  They were calling on their cell-phone.  They were trapped by riots in a tavern in downtown Athens.  But they were not frightened.  In fact, they sounded excited, and they held the cell-phone up for me, so that I could hear the chanting of protesters and the explosions of stun-grenades and tear-gas canisters nearby.

    A week before that Alexandros Grigoropoulos, a 15-year old boy, was shot dead by a policeman in the center of Athens.  Reports vary over details, but it seems clear that the policeman drew his service weapon and shot at the boy and his friends from 20 yards after a verbal exchange.  Neither the boy nor any of his friends had any weapons, other than perhaps bottles of beer.  They were celebrating a friend's birthday.

    Ten days later the center of the city looks like a warzone.  Of course Athens always looks a bit like that, even in the best of times: crumbling and graffitti-covered old buildings punctuated by glitzy fashion stores, and narrow sidewalks so cracked by the weight of illegally parked cars that they are impossible to walk on --- even if one were prepared to risk being shat on by one of the pigeons roosting in the balconies overhead, and to maneuver around heaps of trash waiting for the midnight pick-up.  But now the glitzy stores are smashed and gutted by fire, and the burned-out skeletons of cars lie upside-down in the middle of the streets.  Even the enormous, tacky Christmas-tree the mayor had put up in front of the house of parliament went up in flames about a week ago. 

    Fortunately, the riots have caused no further serious casualties.  There have been a few injuries (mostly due to excessive use of force by the police, according to media reports) and extensive damage to property.  But, oddly, most Greeks are neither scared nor angry at the protesters.  Early opinion polls show that more than 50% of respondents consider the violence justified; another 45% think the violence went too far, but nevertheless sympathize with the demonstrators.  These opinion polls are unscientific online affairs, but my sense is that they are not wildly off the mark.  Greeks are burning shit up --- and feeling good about it, too.

    Any attempt to explain this, of course, has to do justice to the rage over the killing itself.  According to all available evidence, the cop really did just shoot the kid dead for no reason: the kid was not committing a crime, the cop did not fire a warning shot, and he was not afraid for his life (don't forget that this is Greece, where gun-ownership by civilians is illegal and in fact very rare).  People in Greece are in any case predisposed to mistrust the police, going back to its role in the 1967-1974 dictatorship.  Even today Greek police officers remain, by and large, under-paid, ill-trained and brutal.

    However, it is hard to escape the feeling that there is more to the riots and the popular tolerance (or even support) that they enjoy than simple outrage over this particular incident.  Greece nominally emerged from civil war and dictatorship in 1975, and it became a self-confident democracy in the 1980s.  At that time, people of my parents' generation really did believe that their children's future was finally secure.  But for more than a decade now most Greek families have seen their real incomes stagnate or shrink; while at the same time (mostly due to phenomenal levels of corruption) a few individuals have succeeded in accumulating ostentatious wealth.  People of 30 or younger are locally known as the 700 Euro generation, because this is what the average job pays every month.  Greeks (like many others) borrowed to maintain a middle-class life-style, as wages failed to keep up with the cost of living.  Now that unemployment is rising and middle-class income is tanking, those debts are becoming unsustainable.  The self-confidence of the middle-class, acquired only very recently, is shattering.  These people, if not themselves rioting, were certainly ready to see a huge middle-finger waved in the direction of the government, the political parties, the E.U. and anyone else in a position of authority.

    And this is not yet to mention the participation of the globalized working-class.  Since the 1990s Greece has been a big destination for economic immigrants, especially from Eastern Europe and the Middle-East.  Some of these have moved on, or returned to their countries of origin; but many others stayed in Greece, and have been struggling to make a home there.  Among the people arrested for the riots, 60% were reported to be immigrants or the children of immigrants.  This percentage may reflect discrimination on the part of the police more than anything, but even so it is significant.   

    No-one knows yet where all this is going to go.  Although it looks likely that the riots will prove a death-blow to the current conservative government (Which in any case was paralyzed by corruption scandals hilarious and sad at the same time), there is no serious alternative waiting on the wings.  The opposition Socialist Party has itself not recovered by its own reputation of corruption, and in any case it does not have a seriously different agenda.  Most people feel that nothing is really going to change, and they are probably right.  So they are just taking the opportunity to say "fuck you" as loudly as they can.

    Comments

    Great post, gaidouri. Thanks for writing in. I've been trying to find a historical comparison for the riots. Most American riots have been race related and not led by students. The Vietnam protests were student led, but they had a specific political objective. The Parisian students riots of the 60's seem similar to those in Athens, but there was a strong ideological component which seems lacking in this case. Riots in developing countries like Ukraine and Thailand often seem to have specific political goals of replacing regimes.

    So is there a message driving the Greek riots (other than police reform)? Or is it more of an inarticulate cry of rage and frustration.


    Latest Comments