Encefalus

One of the first articles I had written was this one: Drugs, Guns, Cops and Tasers. I promised to write part 2 some day. There is not better occasion to write this article, than this one.

In the previous Saturday, on 6/12/08, Alexandros Grigoropoulos was murdered in the greek district of Exarchia in Athens.

Alexandros Grigoropoulos

Since then, Greece has been shocked by a series of violent riots and civil unrest (2008 Greek Riots). Meanwhile, the greek goverment does nothing to solve the situation, refuses to quit and the cops continue to attack violentely against protesters.

What better time to write about the nature of the current "democratic" states and law enforcement than this one?

Greece has to see such an appraisal since the riots in 1973 that led to the fall of the junte. Local and global newspapers have some really good analyses of the current events. However, what is also very intriguing, is the fact that some of these protests spread around the Europe (and even outside of it), as demonstrators were gathered outside of greek embassies in many countries, including Moscow, Barcelona, even New York.

But why does this happen? Certainly, cops here have murdered people many times before. To understand that, we must first look at the order of recent events, as well as how the current states work.

First of all, concerning the role of law enforcement, many people wonder why cops murder this boy, or why cops treat like that citizens, throwing tons of illegal chemicals (in about 5 days, the cops here had thrown about 4 tons of tear gas). What these people don’t understand is that the very nature of law enforcement is to torture and kill. The raison d’être of law encorcement is the preserve the current state as it is. If a cop catches a thief, then he does so, because his has been given the job by the state to preserve the law, and thus, the current state.

This is the same reason, that while corrupted politicians and bankers that have stolen the money of millions of people in the recent crisis are free, the cops are all too eager to send junkies to jail. The system has been created by those in power, for those in power. The junky threatens the system, while the banker is there to benefit from it. So, in the light of this analysis, we can understand clearly why murders are justified in modern "democracies".

 "It was not an accident, it was the very nature of the state"

Now, we need to comment on why this upraisal started and as to why other states in Europe are afraid that similar protests might start there.

The first decade of the 21st century saw a series of never-seen-before historical events. First, we saw the fall of the twin towers. After that, we saw the fall of neo-leoliberalism in the face of the recent economic crisis and then the election of the first black president in the United States.

The recent economic crisis was what led to a global unrest, but no protests or riots like those in greece happened. One of the reasons, is that european and american goverments have turned their citizens into sheep, with the meaning that Friedrich Nietzsche gave to the word. People are afraid of violence and this works in favor of an oppressing state.

Modern "democracies" are governed by bankers and social elites, while the average person can’t say a thing on the state of affairs. The only power he has, is his vote every 4 or 5 years. Whenever a protest happens, police controls it, to preserve law and order.

Epaminondas Korkoneas, the cop who killed Alexis Grigoropoulos

However, Greece is not a european country. Surely, it belongs to the european union, but it is not european in the sense that its civilization and culture are not like that of the average european country. It has the worst economy in the euro zone (maybe the only worst is that of Portugal’s) and it is the second most corrupted country after Italy. The greek state was established in 1829. Before that, it was under ottommann rule and in the greek culture, many turkish elements are still preserved. The two most obvious are those in the greek vocabulary, which contains many turkish words and in nepotism and corruption.

While the greek goverments have tried to establish a capitalist state, they have failed to do so. Money does not flow like in the american society and people don’t get a job based on their qualifications, but rather on connections and people they know. Greek youths study in greek universities, travel to Europe (usually in Britain) for one or two years to get a master’s degree and then they come back in their country to face poverty and jobs that give a salary of 600-700 euros, while everyone knows at least one person who got involved in politics and became rich because of their involvement.

So, while the greek goverments never quite managed to turn the economy into a capitalistic one, the greek culture never turned into a european one either. Protests and riots are quite common. The murder of a young greek boy from a middle-upper class family could not be ignored. It was the event that sparked a chain reaction. Of course, the cops had murdered other people before, but they were either immigrants or anarchists. This time, the murder happened in cold blood.

What makes this upraisal different from other ones is that in the riots there were not only anarchists and leftists. There were also students 14-years old and middle aged family men and women. People of every age and status were angered against the cops and the state for what had happened and for the living conditions we all face here everyday. People started to embrace violence. They started to realize that the only way to resist an oppressing state is not through peaceful demonstrations, but through violence against the oppressor. The only way for the cops to understand that they can’t kiil anyone they like, is to be attacked at every corner and every street, until none of them remains and those who remain realize that no-one wants, nor no-one needs them.

Greek prime minister Kostas Karamanlis and his gang

However, while the living conditions may be the worst in Europe, they are quite similar with that of other countries. What makes Greece so different, is that people here still take their politics to the streets, finding the original and ancient meaning of democracy. However, the european goverments are afraid that people there might start to protest too. The politicians that are most afraid are those in France who had faced violent protests in the ghettos a couple of years ago. They are afraid that the people might wake up from their sleep.

Well… I better hope they will…

This entry was posted on Sunday, December 14th, 2008 at 1:54 pm and is filed under General, Socio-Political. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.