PA Editors Blog

Greek Protests and Resistance



Some quotes from the press:


"marauding mobs of Molotov-cocktail wielding youths"

Pasted from <http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/dec/14/greece-riots-youth-poverty-comment>


"orgy of violence"

Pasted from <http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/dec/14/greece-riots-youth-poverty-comment>


"It is a sickness"

Pasted from <http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/dec/14/greece-riots-youth-poverty-comment>


"further riots in Greece"

Pasted from <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7782039.stm>


"youths vandalised a gymnasium"

Pasted from <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7782039.stm>


"anarchists happy to use violence"

Pasted from <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7782039.stm>



So on and so on… the press is united in condemning, albeit faintly and with excuses, what it can only comprehend as 'riots': meaning a disorganised and slightly crazy outpouring of violence and brutality for its own sake. This must comfort them a little, we can assume. They completely forget, usually, that the greatest violence was committed by a security force, and not the protesters, with the killing of a fifteen year old student.

An 'old friend' of a BBC correspondent Malcolm Brabant (we can see he is not politically biased then), with a 'wealth of experience in Northern Ireland', is stated as calling the 'riots' the 'velvet riots' as opposed to the 'velvet revolution' that was so denoted in Czechoslovakia.

'...This has been a huge non-event," he said.'

Pasted from <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/from_our_own_correspondent/7781516.stm>

Because, he says, there is relatively little harm done to people on either side.

Thus the bourgeois press belittles these protests, and tries to put the best gloss on things for their class and its morale. Yet it seems so noteworthy that much smaller protests led to the demise of socialist governments in Eastern Europe than are now taking place in Greece. The Greek government hangs on like a limpet, obstinate, bullying, ineffective, privileged.

The analysis in the press, such as it is, leads to recriminations against the particular way capitalism has been organised in Greece. The history of cronyism and corruption, the terrible wages and poor prospects of the youth. The economic situation, the crisis common across the capitalist world, is more-or-less avoided being connected with it. They seek for Greece a new 'incorruptible' government, presumably like those we are more familiar with, that is, those currently seeking bail-outs amid colossal credit swindles.