Athens burns

About ten years ago, The Best Friend and I were in downtown Athens shopping on Ermou Street. 

We had spent about an hour inside  Zara in our own bubble of giggles while trying on clothing.  As we exited the store we took a left and came face to face with ten police officers in riot gear. Apparently, protesters were marching in the streets about one thing or the other and we had very nearly landed in the middle of it. If you have not been close enough to see your reflection in a riot police’s head gear then you haven’t lived in Athens long enough. 

Protests and strikes are just part of an ordinary day in Athens. There is always something that will make someone want to don their finest and hit the streets with placards screaming for whatever it is that has erred them that day. But in all my years in Greece nothing has ever come close to the violence that I watched on television last night. 

The riots that took place over the weekend and that are expected to continue today were instigated by the tragic killing of a 15 year old boy by a police officer. 

Was the police officer provoked? Was the boy in the wrong place at the wrong time? Were the youths attacking the police officers? Did the police officer open direct fire or did his warning shots ricochet off the ground and accidentally kill the boy? 

Despite spending all of yesterday following both local and international news reports I am still uncertain of the circumstances surrounding this tragedy. There seems to be absolutely no consensus on the events that unfolded on Saturday night. Perhaps I will never know.

But what I do know is that a life was unfairly cut short.  

What I do know is that the lives of two families has now been shattered; the family that is dealing with the loss of child and the family whose husband, father, son has become the most hated man in Greece. 

What I do know is that the government has gone out of there way to condemn the killing. This does not seem to have done anything to quel the mounting tension because sometimes people don’t want simple reactions–like a reflex a reaction does not require much thought. A reaction is just not good enough. I expect my government and my people to prevent these senseless acts of sporadic violence. Apologizing after the fact is an empty gesture of being put on the spot. 

Beneath the misdirected violence that some citizens of this country are exhibiting are thousands upon thousands upon thousands of silent, moderate voices begging for someone–ANYONE–to act, to take action, to lead. 

Instead, the country seems to have reached a breaking point. Politicians point fingers at one another. Masked youths have hit the streets attaching themselves to peaceful protests against the police and have caused damages reaching millions of euros.  Retail stores and private cars have been destroyed. The streets are littered with glass and debris. Athens is burning. 

My burning question is this. When the flames have been put out, when the funeral procession reaches the cemetery, when the anger has subsided what will we have learnt, what will we be left with?

In these desperate economic times, we will be left to pay for this mess through our taxes. Money that could have been spent on educating our youth on the values of compassion, of respect, of basic human connectedness will be spent on replacing the police cars that were destroyed. According to news reports, 600 people have lost their jobs in the Athens city center alone because their place of employment have been burned to the ground.  The Prime Minister has promised that all these stores will be reimbursed.

So this Christmas families will be fighting to put food on the table because mommy lost her job and next Christmas the same families will be fighting to put food on the table because mommy and daddy are still paying for some children’s warped idea of justice.

I would find all of this incredibly ironic if it were a hypothetical exercise in a university seminar. In the face of reality the irony fades away fast and all I am left with is a sense of awesome responsiblity.

We are all to blame. All our fingerprints are on that trigger. 

We let down Alex because the system was broken. We let down Alex because we have all been too scared, too apathetic, too corrupt, too greedy, too busy, too something to fix it.  We need stop demanding government to fix the system from the inside out and we need to start placing those demands on ourselves. This time,we need to fix the problems of our society from the outside in.