Six in 10
Six out of 10 people questioned in a poll for Kathimerini define the events of recent days as a «social uprising.» This is exactly what the foreign media has been saying for the past 10 days, even if the Greek government refuses to define it as such. The same number also said that this is a mass movement and not the work of individuals. It’s unlikely that all the people questioned are agents of the Coalition of the Radical Left (SYRIZA). By recognizing that everything that is going on in our streets, our marches and around the dinner table, where the unrest is a hot topic of debate, has a much deeper cause than that being attributed by conspiracy theorists, by those who see agents provocateurs on every corner, we also recognize our own role in these events, the fact that we are a part of them, even if we have not gone out into the streets to march. We recognize in ourselves indignation at the systematic destruction of public healthcare and education, anger at the way in which offending police officers are allowed to go unpunished, rage at the corruption and cronyism we see every day and even more anger at those who are supposed to be punishing the corrupt and have turned out to be even worse than they are. We also feel uncertainty about what tomorrow will bring, an anxiety that is not just about money but also about our souls and our morality. The government has never defined nor assumed what its political responsibility is in all this, probably because it isn’t sure how well its shoulders will hold up under the burden. It hasn’t assumed its moral responsibility either. And so Evripidis Stylianidis is still our education minister even if he was oblivious to the shooting of the student on the night of the event because, he said, he didn’t hear his cell phone ring over the sound of the nightclub’s music. But asking for a minister to be removed from his post for reasons of morality is seen as nothing more than a populist ploy.
