Why?

It goes without saying that these are not the best of times for my country. I constantly find myself with dewy eyes trying to ensure that tears do not flow especially in front of others. After all, it is so unbecoming of a soon to be forty four year old university professor, I say too myself. Rage, anger is what I feel, for what is happening to Greece. And it occurs to me that this occurring too often lately. The wildfires of September 2007 and the accompanying loss of human life were debilitating, having me and most not directly involved in the heat of things (no pun intended) stuck in front of their television screens shocked, concerned, distressed. The riots of December 2008 that saw Athens burning was a wake up call that something was horribly amiss. A small segment of society that saw itself as disenfranchised wanted blood, police blood in this case, and for a few days saw their numbers swell with 14-year olds and other misguided youth that saw the limits of the clientelist system in place since 1974 and the very real possibility that it could not accommodate them in their search for a job as an excuse to show their rights of passage. The interesting development was that a collective buzz took hold that the political, social and economic system in place needs major reform. But life went back to its normal routine and the buzz became but a memory.

And now this, today’s protest turning violent and tragic – a result of years of putting up with a system of governance and a buddy and clientelist scheme, society (every single one of us) has come to accept and become in varying degrees a party to it. The demonstration was massive, the shock and anger with the austerity measures, with the forthcoming decline in standards of living, and the lack at this moment of light at the end of the tunnel spurring people on the streets. I chose to work, maybe I should not have. On the other hand, the violence and its fatal end result have no justification. I refuse to accept the value system of those that readily put on masks, motorcycle helmets or hoods to cover their faces and throw Molotov cocktails at all they abhor. Yet, like every single one of my fellow citizens, we have preferred to turn a blind eye to them, accepting the fact that the full brunt of the rule of law should not be applied to them for fear of greater violence. After all why rock a system that accommodates us?

It is becoming all the more evident that we all need to face the music, to accept our responsibility for putting up with rot for so long. As a friend wrote on Facebook “I am saddened by the death of innocent people, but I am guilty as hell for tolerating and even nurturing a rotten system and mentality in Greece... It is a matter of collective accountability and individual criminal responsibility.” Stathis Kalyvas, a political scientist from Yale was even more succinct – “a country commits suicide.”

Another wake up call like so many others in the recent past. Will this one be heard? Will the buzz turn into a more substantial and permanent civil dialogue and systemic reform? One can only hope. I think I do my part to nurture change but it is probably not enough. At the point we have come, I wonder whether I have the strength to do more. Yet, I know that not doing anything is like being dead.