Greeks have good reasons to protest

Declan Hill, The Ottawa Citizen

Published: Sunday, December 18, 2011

Athens

‘Almost everything that you thought you knew about current-day Greece is wrong.»

That thought went through my head as I stood among a mass of demonstrators in Syntagma Square during the recent general strike. There was a festive air: souvlaki sellers amid grandmothers, students singing and lots of street theatre performances. It was unlike any of the images that I had seen; there was no stone throwing, no tear-gas or water cannon attacks. I may have been lucky but there was a wide spectrum of ordinary people marching in the demonstration. The usual suspects were there, of course: the anarchists, the Communists and the general drop-a-hat-see-me-protest lot. But there was also a broad range of others: nurses, farmers, doctors, actors and teachers.

 After the demonstration was over, I walked past the rows of gas-masked policemen (generally far nicer

Like a Phoenix from its Ashes

Yesterday’s scene in front of Parliament sums it all up. The old clashes with the new as the country is in flames.

I wonder if the rest of Europe would react in the same way

I wonder what would happen if the citizens of Germany, France, Belgium, Holland or England  realized all of a sudden that their elected representatives decided they would close down government agencies in areas where immigrant numbers foreshadowed potential instability or insurrection that would warrant my services as a reaper of souls.

I wonder what they would say if state-owned corporations that monitored basic household necessities