Athens burning


Last night in Athens, a “neo-barbarian party” was born. Its members were not at all charmed by the old revolutionary idea that the end justifies the means, simply because their only aim is hatred. Above all, hatred for the police. Hatred for everything that symbolizes the city.  They do not really participate in any ideological tradition.  They are “children” of an “eternal present” – with no recollection, without a past and without a vision for the future; their only slogan: “a burning city is a blossoming flower.”
This “slogan” unites people of the extreme left and the extreme right – hooligans of the football pitch and people of the underworld – mixing numerous “romantic” authoritarian myths and urban guerrilla warfare tactics.
The neo-barbarian party is the mirror image of the main ideas and practices which are embodied (systemically and anti-systemically) by the Greek political parties and entities: animosity towards the common good. It is the flip side of the looting of the state, the concealment of reality, corruption, and conflict.
The “weak” are pushed aside by the “hooded rioters” who do not acknowledge any political ethos; they self-promote as “heroes” embodying a pervasive political culture of fanaticism, authoritarianism and “resistance” which knows only how to produce “heroes” and “traitors.” They are “children” of a scattered “popular culture” which tolerates and rewards delinquency – creating a powerful feeling of mistrust and scorn towards the political system and its institutions.
If a new political class and social culture does not emerge in Greece, the neo-barbarian party will grow. It will expand if the new generation of extreme uncertainty does not find political representation and expression in the media.
Instead of reforming the system, extensively repressive measures can be proposed. In this case, the neo-barbarian party will contribute greatly: they want war and the State will give it to them. The victims in this case will be democratic institutions and all definitions of common good which give meaning to the people’s presence in a city. Thereafter, if the previous century taught us anything, it is that barbaric means give birth to an unavoidable barbaric world. A burning city is not a blossoming flower – it is fascism and Stalinism which is blooming.

P.S.  I know. Today they will report that last night’s hell was a “product of provocation.”  For so many years, Greek society has been “trained” (systemically and anti-systemically) by the media and “popular intellectuals”; the extreme left and the extreme right; and by the art of concealing reality. And this constitutes the main obstacle for recognizing and dealing with reality… 

(Translated & edited by Gigi Papoulias)

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