Impunity getting out of hand
We are seeing more and more signs of the state?s complete inability to impose the law and enforce order.
The armed clashes between gangs working the landfill at Fylis, from which they scavenge scrap metal or any other item of value, is one recent example. Then, we have the people from the ?I won?t pay? movement who force open tollbooth barriers on national roads and we see citizens protesting the construction of a landfill at Keratea setting up makeshift roadblocks on the biggest road leading to the port of Lavrio. Protesting contract workers, meanwhile, took over City Hall in central Athens with impunity.
These and other events show that the state has lost control, and it is ridiculous to assert that it tolerates such actions because it doesn?t want to stoke popular discontent with the government?s austerity measures. What this stance achieves instead is an escalation of this kind of violence and disobedience from a part of society that is beginning to realize that it can get away with anything.
