OPINION

Calling for silence

Mercy – enough! Whoever managed to sit through the latest installment of the exhausted television serial that is the terrorism debate could only have reacted in this way. On the one hand, the defenders of the rights of the jailed – and self-confessed – murderers of November 17 (essentially a group of anarchists) stage a rally in the center of Athens, desecrating the memory of N17’s innocent victims and offending our intelligence and sensibilities. On the other hand, television celebrities and news readers give the protesters a platform by broadcasting their rally live on television, as if we would be inadequately informed if we failed to read their graffiti. But the latest turn taken by the terrorism debate really is typically Greek. No other country faced with the same problem has responded as we did, with television as its guileless partner and the State a tolerant bystander. They used purely political criteria in handling the matter, as should every country serious about dismantling a gang of criminals. We, however, following the first spate of arrests, were quickly distracted from the gravity of the affair, which we abandoned to the hordes of journalists, pseudo-analysts and others who had joined the cannibalistic publicity frenzy we are still witnessing. And as the date of the suspects’ trial draws nearer, the risk of it all degenerating into farce increases…

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